OK then I’ll keep doing what I do. Wundhammer is one of my favorite makers and I’m working on an article now about him and Ross King. I’m a little embarrassed at my twelve year old article on Wundhammer, I’ve learned so much since then.
Ludwig Wundhammer
1853-1919
Published November1996
From Wundhammer’s workbench, bathed in sunlight under large windows in his basement shop at 153 North Main St. Los Angeles, California a couple of hundred of the finest sporting rifles ever made came to life. I have handed my Wundhammer-Springfield (Springfield Armory No. 623256 barrel date SA 2-16) to several people and without exception every person has said that the rifle could have been made for them. There is something about the way in which the rifle comes up to your shoulder and fits so perfectly. At first glance the Wundhammer rifle looks no different from other custom sporters of the period. Its balance and feel is like that of a fine English shotgun and it points like it is an extension of your body. If I close my eyes, throw the gun to my shoulder and open my eyes I am looking through the receiver sight at the front sight. When I first became the caretaker of this rifle I thought that I must be physically much like the person for whom the rifle was built. Only after so many people had the same thing to say about this same rifle did I learn that it is different because of all the little details that were built into the gun. We can start with cast-off. What is meant by cast-off is that the stock is built out-of-line to the barrel and action. This gun has cast-off for a right-handed shooter. When the stock was laid out and the centerline was drawn on the blank from a point just in back of where the receiver would be inletted a line was drawn to the end of the stock ¼” to the right . If the rifle would have been made for someone who was left-handed it would have been built with cast-on. From this new center line the bottom of the buttplate was then cast-off 1/8” total cast-off for the toe is 3/8”. The length of pull is 13 ¾”. This is measured from the center of the trigger to the center of the buttplate. The drop at the comb is 1 ¾” and the drop at the heel is 3”. These measurements are taken from a line drawn through the center of the front sight through the rear sight, continuing on to the end of the stock. The rifle weighs 7 ¾ lb. and the forearm is 10 ½” long measured from the front of the receiver ring. I promise not to bore you with other stock dimensions in this or further articles. I’m putting this information in because this rifle was made as a prize to be given away in a shooting match I feel that these would have been Wundhammer’s typical measurements and some record of them should exist. Because of all these little details the eye is then brought more in line with the center of the barrel and the sights. Keep in mind that these were the days of iron sights, and scopes on hunting rifles would be several years away. I think Wundhammer understood how a gun should fit the shooter better than any of the makers of his day. Cast-off and other refinements became standard practice in years to come in the custom rifle field but he was the first to employ them.
Ludwig (Louis) Wundhammer was born in 1853 in Bavaria, Germany. At a young age he apprenticed to Joe. Bart Kuchenreuter, a respected gunsmith of Regensburg, Bavaria. From Regensburg he went to Styer in Austria and worked his way into the Styer Custom Shop where guns were made for the royal families of Europe. After Styer, he opened his own shop for a while. Then at the age of 32 Wundhammer immigrated to America. There he found himself in Milwaukee and in his own words moved to California in order to learn to speak English.
On his arrival in California he went to work for one of the best gunsmiths in the state, Henry Slotterbeck of Los Angeles . Slotterbeck and Wundhammer were kept busy catering to the wealthy sportsmen of the then rich-in-wildlife area of southern California. A lot of their work was in the repair of fine English and European double barrel shotguns where Wundhammer would have learned much about how a gun could be made to fit the shooter. Wundhammer continued working for Slotterbeck until that tragic day June 21, 1888. Wundhammer and Slotterbeck were at the rifle range where Slotterbeck was adjusting the front sight on a rifle when it discharged, striking him in the chest and killing him. Wundhammer carried on at Bullard Block, Los Angeles, until 1912 when his address was listed as 153 North Main St. I don’t know if this was an actual move or if the city renamed its streets.
Identifying a Wundhammer:
I know of no work by Wundhammer that is marked with his name. In order to identify a Wundhammer rifle we have to have a better understanding of his work. When inletting a stock he smoked the metal over kerosene, pressed the blackened metal into the stock and removed the darkened wood with a small gouge. Now this sounds like how most stockers did their work but with Wundhammer that was all he used, just his little gouge. No scraper was used and the wood was not sanded smooth. In areas such as the flat receiver bottom, a flat chisel was used. Looking at his inletting you will see hundreds of little gouge marks. Wundhammer’s inletting is first class. Every little turn and bend of the rifle is reflected as a turn and bend in the wood. In a Wundhammer, wood and metal are as close to becoming one as possible. When looking at a rifle that may have been done by Wundhammer keep in mind that he died in February of 1919. Most of his sporters are made on Springfields that still have the original barrel; the barrel date will be present just in back of the front sight.
Many of these early sporters had Lyman 48 Long slide sights. The first model 48 Lyman made was introduced in 1910. Many of the pre-WW I custom guns will be found with this sight on them. Bolts were normally blued , not polished bright or engine turned. The underside of the bolt has a half-inch circle with checkering inside. The safety and magazine cutoff are both serrated, as is the buttplate. Forend tips of this period were normally made with a schnabel. It would be a few years before horn or ebony became common on sporter forend tips. The barrel was reduced in diameter to remove the rear sight spline. There was much published information on the damage to the shooting qualities of a barrel if it was turned down on the lathe and heavy cuts were used. Wundhammer did this work with a file and on the underside you can see the file marks. The top was smoothed and rounded using abrasive cloth. The front sling swivel is mounted on a band around the barrel and through the forend. This band is loose and not soldered to the barrel. Many of the early Wundhammers had a raised portion of wood on the outside of the stock that ran the length of the receiver, much like German Mauser sporting rifles. It was soon leaned that this extra wood was not needed for strength and it was dropped. Although most of my research and writing is focused on the customizing of the Springfield rifle, Wundhammer and other smiths of the day would make a large bore rifle on the Mauser action. Wundhammer advertised the Mauser In caliber .404 and .333 Jeffery. In 1914 a custom Springfield by Wundhammer would cost $55.00; to look at in a more realistic way it would cost a working man one month’s pay. Henry Ford’s Wundhammer with engraved trigger guard and floor plate and craved stock cost $100.00 If money were no object and you wanted the best you could get , you got in line and hoped that it would not be long before your name was at the top of the list. Among Wundhammer’s well known customers were Edward Crossman, Townsend Whelen, Teddy Roosevelt, General Ainsworth, Henry Ford and Stewart Edward White. These rifles were made to be used. They were not show pieces made to grace someone’s gun rack and used only as conversation pieces. White carried his across Africa . Jay Williams of Alaska, while working in bear country, said “ My Wundhammer was picked up in the morning as regularly as my hat.” Williams’ Wundhammer was his daily companion for thirty years and was used so much that at the time the rifle was lost in a boat fire it was on it’s fourth barrel and second receiver. In 1929 White met Williams and saw this rifle and expressed surprise and appreciation at meeting the companion to his own gun.
I did learn a couple of other interesting things while doing research on Wundhammer. Slotterbeck bought out the business from the founding gunsmith of LA, Henry Schaffer who retired in 1872 to grow flowers. The business went from Schaffer to Slotterbeck to Wundhammer to Ross King who later moved the shop to Roseburg, OR. Then in 1936 King retired and sold out to a young man by the name of P. O. Ackley. In the fall of 1916 one Mr. Russell Mott after a successful hunt in the Alberta wilderness packed his Wundhammer-Springfield in a case and hurried out to see how the war was going. He made camp late one night and left early the next morning. That evening he realized that the Wundhammer had been left behind but the camp site could not be found.
I have seen rifles that had better checkering , finer wood and engraving from one end to the other but of all the rifles I have handled none have the balance and feel of a Wundhammer. Crossman wrote in Outer’s Book of June 1911 “ Never a rifleman tried one of Wundhammer’s sporting Springfields that did not marvel at the perfect hang of the rifle and the perfect proportions of the stock, the shape of the grip, the sharp, even, checkering and the finish of the wood.”
Ludwig Wundhammer is on my list of endangered gunsmiths; his name is at the point were he is almost forgotten and only a few rifles are now identified as having been made by his hand. The name Wundhammer means very little to the riflemen of today. If anything his name is remembered in reference to the Wundhammer swell, developed by him. This is a raised part of the pistol grip that fits the swell of the palm of your hand. Wundhammer took a homely weapon of war and turned it into a graceful and beautiful sporting rifle. Many people have taken the same parts and assembled them to make a gun but very few, like Wundhammer, can be called a gun-maker.
I could not end this better than Mr. W.A. Rathbun did in a letter to the Editor of Outdoor Life March 1919 : “With greatest regrets to you and brother readers of our magazine I wish to announce the death of Ludwig Wundhammer, an artist in all pertaining to firearms. I had worked with Mr. Wundhammer a considerable time before his death, which occurred on February 26, 1919. I can truthfully say that I never was associated with a more able man in his line or a more perfect and kind-hearted old gentleman. Even tho he has left this world of life and labor for a spiritual existence, of which we mortals know little, I know that this departed artist will be remembered by all gun men.”
