I have a beautiful Franz Kettner Koln – Suhl Drilling rifle temporarily in my possession. I have found that this firm was in business from the 1890s until 1939. This rifle belongs to the son of a G I that brought it back from Germany at the end of WW II. The story he got from his father was that he took it from a pile of surrendered weapons in a village in Germany. The serial number matches on all parts.
This combination gun , as you can see, is a two barrel set.
One set is a classic drilling with twin 16 gauge tubes over a 9x57R rifle barrel. This set is 231/2 “ long and profusely marked as seen.
The other set(I’ve forgotten the German term for this configuration) is twin 8x60R rifle barrels over 1 16 gauge shotgun tube. This set is 26” long and minimally marked.
Both sets of barrels are marked “Krupp Lauftstahl”.
The gun is profusely embellished with typical deep incised German engraving. The locks are of the back action type.
The trigger guard, butt plate and Pistol grip extension are all fashioned from horn.
Unfortunately; The original claw mounts and scope sight are missing. I can only speculate that the family didn’t turn these in with the gun since the weren’t, in fact, a weapon.
I will only have this gun in my possession for a few days and I promised the owner I’d find out as much as I could from the very knowledgeable members of this forum.
Jim
[img]
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd17/italiansport/IMG_0668.jpg[/img]
[img]
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd17/italiansport/IMG_0672.jpg[/img]
