Eightbore:
Thanks for reading and calling my hand. It isn't that a more sanitatized verision wouldn't be posted, but I tend to think that folks might get a bit distracted when lengthy diatribes on abstract thoughts are posted. And everyone I've had the pleasure of meeting or had email contact with seem to ask for more. So with that said, I'll tell you what I think.
Jesse Thompson, or another authority on German target arms, interviewed Helmut Schlegelmilch, whose grandfather was Gebhard Helmuthhauser(I think his mark to be a star over H), both which worked at G.C. Haenel. Buchsenmacher Helmuthhauser told an account of Herrn Aydt having a set aside room where he personally inspected as well as tested every Haenel Aydt action German target arm they produced. I assume that he had some sort of stamp of approval. I think this not to have been odd, but the norm for contractors. Heirs and assigns give that the high cost of patent renewal forced Herrn Aydt to let the patent expire after 20 years in 1904. Herrn Aydt insisted that each example be composed of the highest grade steel since other similar, inferior, cheaper ones were possibly made of cast.
I've read and heard of a special room at the Sauer facility where the highest of grade guns were inspected and finished. Consider that Heinrich August Linder had about 1/2 dozen journeymen at his basement shop. Using the Bohemians as a benchmark, and I realize they are not German but are still craftsmen on par with the Germans, such a shop would turn out maybe 2 dozen and possibly 3 dozen longarms per year. With economics in mind, which is directly equated to time, now consider as per the 1907 catalogue, and let's digress back 7 or so years for effect, the stated fact is that it takes 6 months to complete a Model 500. So lets say that a Model 275 takes 3 months to complete. Continuing along the same lines, let us say that the Model 135 and Model 118 take a month to complete. If anyone has real number please feel free to correct me. I'm not positive of the yearly production numbers, but let's say over a year Heinrich Lindner gets an order for 3 Model 500s(you could insert Model 375), 5 Model 275s and 2 dozen Model 135s and 118s together. From 1880 to WWI was the peak of order and production. So how is Heinrich August Lindner going to fill these orders? Well, let us say he spent 2/3rds of his time in his basement shop supervising the completion of the Model 135/118s(could easily include the Model 225s) from components and 1/3 of his time in a special room at the Sauer plant as a quality control fella and apparently performed the task of fitting the tubes to the action in the ongoing process. It's just pure conjecture, but I think it is a start.
Kind Regards,
Raimey
rse
