doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Luft Brothers

Prior to reading this thread I'd never heard of the Luft brothers. For the information alone I'd like to thank you. Obviously his talent was great as that's a very nice rifle. To have known both men and corresponded with them for such a long time the rifle has to be a special one for you.

With a last name of Luft surely they were of German extraction. Obviously one of them liked drillings given the firearms in the one photo.....and some of the other rifles...goodness, nice.

Thank you again.

Can you tell us anything about the top tang safety and trigger?

Bob,
I've never disassembled a Borchardt before and was surprised at how easy it was and at the simplicity of the action.

Here is a series of photos showing the metal work that Harry did on the action to accommodate a tang safety as well as attach a trigger bow for creating a more elegant lever.

This is the top view of the action rear showing the toggle that connects the trigger with the sear. This toggle rides in a slot. The safety has a pivoted lever that interrupts the forward progress of the toggle by blocking the trigger.


This is the bottom view of the action and the safety lever can be seen. Also the method of attaching the trigger bow. In the previous photo the purpose of the hole that passes through the toggle can be seen as it allows the screw that holds the trigger bow in place after it has been fully moved rearward and locked in the slot.


With the exception of the hole drilled through the toggle, this is an original and unaltered Borchardt part. This is an original trigger as can be seen by the part number and has had a piece welded on and shaped.




Harry stamped the lever and the "12 67" is the year that he marked it. I have no explanation for the fact that the barrel is marked 1980 and that Carl said the rifle was completed in 1983.


Very nice metal checkering that was most likely done by hand.


The striker pin was reduced in diameter and was disc bushed.

Hope this is what you were looking for.
Dennis

Sharps,
Carl and Harry were well known on the gunshow circuit of the Northwest and some of the people that I know up here over the age of 70 know who they were. Because there is no documentation of Harry's work it will slip into obscurity when our generation is gone.

With the exception of the Borchardts the only guns I remember the Lufts had in the gun racks at the 1976 visit were continental, mostly German.

I bought a nice drilling in Anchorage in 1979 and the scope was in parts in a bag. I had imagined it was junk as it was missing the ocular lens group and some other parts. I sent it to Carl and he rebuilt it. I don't know where he got the lens and Harry cut a new brass objective lens retaining ring for it. The gun had a tang flip up peep and these peep apertures typically had double dovetails. The smaller dovetail was missing and Harry also made a new one returning it to service.


I took this elk on Raspberry Island in 1979 with the drilling using the peep sight. Don't remember why I wasn't using the scope. The RWS 193 grain 9.3x72R bullet came completely apart but did function well enough to kill the elk. This is a 2 1/2 year old animal and yielded nearly 450 pounds of meat. These are the largest bodied elk in North America and year-for-year agewise are moose size. Ben Balinger was a Fish and Game technician working out of Kodiak and he said they weighed a number of carcasses for a research project. Hunters would be supplied with radios and when they took an animal they would call in. A helicopter would be dispatched to the kill site and a sling suspended from a scales would be used to weigh the total carcass weight. For large animals they often had to dress it first and weigh the parts because the live weight exceeded the 1,000 pound limit of the scales.

Dennis