Yeah, I’d say a bit more complicated than a Cuckoo Clock drilling as Wilhelm Brenneke was firmly grounded in safety. Brenneke either witnessed a terrible accidental discharge on a hunting trip or had one himself as he had a least 4 safety features on his guns. The tab on the rear of the top tang is a grip safety & apparently they were in several locations on the top tang as well as in the comb of the stock. It should have the November 27th, 1896 patent number 94620 stamped on it. The tab would have to be fully compressed and upon compression it accomplishes at several safety functions: disengagement of trigger & scear as well as a hammer block and removes a bar(T) in the path of hammer-striker relationship. I think the compression tab may slide from a safe position to a fire position. So the other bar on the tang should be the shot and solid projectile selector. Another added safety feature is what looks to be hammers but are more or less cocking indicators that can be used to cock or uncock the drilling. Usually the hammers wear the D.R.P. patent number 95046 also from November 27th, 1896. This example with the Witten scattergun tubes, and Krupp rifled tube, is 1 rung lower than the top offering of the same with musselshell side frame reinforcement, which had a 1905 improvement involving 2 lumps on the tubeset which locked into the inner walls of the action. Also in 1905 ejectors are seen on Brenneke examples with push-buttons on each side of the forend. Sources give that number of Brenneke examples approached 400. His drillings were very expensive to manufacture and sources give that he had his Brenneke Selbstspanner Sicherheits Drilling, or self cocking safety drilling, made in a shop in Suhl that had Konrad Heym at the helm. On April 1st, 1895 Wilhelm Brenneke purchased a business in Leipzig from a fella named Reichard. Brenneke renamed the business as Wilhelm Brenneke, Gewehr und Geschoßfabrik or Gun and Projectile Company. Soon after the patent Brenneke opened the Suhl facility which I guess was nothing more than a storefront where component sourcing and sub-contracting occurred. The Suhl branch office was open for no more than 7 years. Brenneke was more involved with bullet construction and autos that making longarms.
Anyway regressing a bit to gain some personal info on Wilhelm Brenneke, which is difficult to come by or pin down, sources give that Wilhlem Brenneke was born on March 30th, 1865 in Leipzig. He may have been born there but at some point, according to his great-grandson Dr. Peter Mank, Wilhlem Brenneke was roaming around Hannover playing Robin Hood with his bow & arrow. It was here that Brenneke crossed paths with Scherping and there was an attempt by a Büchsenmacher, master gunsmith, Scherping, who noticed the raw talent of the lad, to bring Brenneke under the fold and get him on the path to being a master gunsmith. M4 might want to chime in here to give his thoughts but then again it might just add another layer to the Heinrich Scherping story. Unfortunately the track for a master gunsmith was not to be for a time and Brenneke traveled down the apprentice path for a metal worker as well as a builder of safes. Some time around 1883, duty for the Kaiser called and building on his experience in ship building in Hamburg, Brenneke served as a machinist on a torpedo boat in the Navy. After his obligation, Brenneke returned to Leipzig and believe it or not made a living peddling textbooks on his bicycle. He made enough money to set the stage for marriage, etc. Brenneke had 2 sons and twin daughters with the sons both being killed during WWI. Info is a little confusing but it seems one was killed in action and one in an auto accident. Later both daughters were fully involved in the business. He also lost a grandson to combat in Russia in WWII. Wilhelm Brenneke himself expired on April 11th, 1951.
The example in question is a pre-1910 example and doesn’t have the additional slots in the frame for the lumps so either this model didn’t have the feature or this example was made prior to 1905. There looks to be a "Crown" over "F"(Gothic) adjacent to the load data on the Witten scattergun tubes.
Kind Regards,
Raimey
rse
