Hi all-- I have just acquired a Zimmerstutzen, something I have been after for the collection for some time. To my dismay I have been able to find very little on the net about these rifles or their makers. I have surfed for a few days and found little information, some nice pictures but little hard info. The particulars of this rifle are as follows. The makers name ( or at least I think it is) is inlaid in silver on one side of the barrel and is O.LANG the town is SCHWEINFURTH --note the spelling, and there is a town in Germany by that name, assuming it is German. The breech action is of the Stiegele type but is not made by Stiegele. It uses a 4mm long cartridge case and the barrel is marked #6.--I have 4.30 and 4.35mm balls --no cracks   and the the 4.35 fits the best but it could possibly use a 4.4mm. Any help identifying the maker would be appreciated.

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Hi stractor.

Thanks for showing us you zimmerstutzen. For sure, it is a nice one. Looks in very good condition, no scratches or chips in the nice wood?

Lance is right, Schweinfurt is a town in northern Bavaria, close to the border to Thuringia. The region is called "Lower Frankonia". Since the 1890's the town is famous for metal manufacturing, still nowadays they have big factories there for bearings ("FAG Kugelfischer") and other metal industries.

In the old days, it was one of the bigger towns in northern Bavaria, in 1900 with 15.000 habitants. The beginning industrialisation brought a lot of people to that region. And so also the people's shooting sport "zimmerstutzen" was famous in Frankonia.

I think OTTO LANG was one of the most famous gun-makers in that region. He was well-known for his hunting rifles and also target rifles. I have a advertising out of the "Bavarian Shooting Newspaper" from the year 1900 of OTTO LANG.

As we can read there, he made the barrels himself, with a kind of "German patent". It is not a real patent, D.R.G.M. means "Deutsches Reichsgebrauchsmuster" and gave only for 10 years an idea-patent. It was only given between 1891 and 1945.

Most of the gunmakers in Germany got their parts and barrels from Suhl and Zella-Mehlis in Thuringia. There were the big factories for rifles and steel manufacturing. They assembled the parts and made engravings and sometimes the whole rifle in their gun shops at their home town.

     Biggi.   

Oh no!       Schweinfurth = Schweinfurt!        It's identical. The older and the newer spelling.

Most of the parts of "German engineering" have somewhere a patent stamp or a DRGM stamp.

Can you show us please a close up pic of the nice lettering on the barrel and of the diopter (rear sight)?

      Biggi.