more photos...

Pistol competition is still quite popular at the ISSA National events. Finding the pistol is quite challenging and this gentleman has just what one needs. 

J.Louis

There are /were a wide range of single shot target pistols built for formal and informal competition with similar lines using a number of single shot actions.  Some were very highly developed and used in international competition during the 1st 2/3s more or less of the 20th century.

Some were imported for competition use and some were brought back as WW2 "trophies".   I have wanted one for years but the grips are VERY personalized and none I have tried fitted me well enough to spend the money for it.
a couple I considered could have been bought in the 500-750 $$ range a few years ago.   It is my understanding that a number of former Eastern-bloc single shot "free-pistols" were imported a few years back and that that has depress ed the over all "free-pistol" market. 
  However individual example will stand on their own merit.  Since most like yours are rather unique highly customized items finding actual comparables to establish legally viable appraisals will be few and far between.  Auction house values (and especially on-line-auction sales) have obvious distortions built in.  Actual real world value will be very much the 'willing-seller/willing -buyer" deal.

Oh, I forgot to mention: 

Normally these are .22 lr, if they have German proofmarks. Some were sold for .22 "long" or "short" rimfire ammo.

If it is not "lr", the value is less, because its very difficult to find ammo. And in such cases, making a modification to lr is nearly not possible. I asked already two gunsmiths to modificate such a target pistol to lr. They advised me against the modification, because its much to expensive and the quality of the performance and accuracy will be lost.

              Biggi. 

Wayne, I think you are right. The barrel twist is different too. 

Some years ago, somebody offered me a nice target pistol with a real good fitting hand grip. I was very interested, but I checked the proof-marks. I think the pistol was from Switzerland. And I got the hint, maybe its .22 long, like they shot it in Switzerland in the old days. It was difficult to measure the chamber, but it was made for "long" ammo.

So I asked two talented gunsmiths who liked the work on old guns. But they told me both, that it would cost more than 800 Euros to do the job - without any guarantee for accuracy. So I declined to buy that pistol. Half an year later, I found a nice Büchel Tell and bought it!


But we don't know yet, what caliber and ammo the pistol of the thread-questioner needs. Maybe we'll never know.

          Biggi.   

We had in Germany three sizes of .22 rimfire ammo in the old days: short / long / longrifle.

Picture taken from a book of 1922 (Otto Billmann / Kleinkaliber-Schiessen).

And I remember something about "extra long". But cannot find a pic at the moment.

         Biggi.   

What a nice old ORIGINAL pistol. Already talk of changing it to something else?  If it's .22 short, the ammo is still available. I use it for practice in some of my rifles. My local sporting goods store has standard velocity, pistol target, high velocity. If we leave things original and purchase the correct ammunition they will keep making the ammunition available, hopefully.

Sorry had to get that off my chest. 


            Joe. 

I totally agree with Joe and he brings up a great point. If there is no demand for 22 Shorts they will no longer be obtainable. I had the privilege to shoot an original pristine Maynard Schuetzen target rifle with all of the up grades and a true one of a kind. It was chambered for the short ammunition, the standard of the day for serious target work and it was amazingly accurate.

J.Louis

Kermit, I bought a case of the CCI short target at a garage sale,won't say how much, but it shoots 1 hole groups @ 25 yards. Winchester Schuetzen High Wall, B5 scope.  ...MIKE...

What was so unique about shooting the Maynard was the ammunition, old original Peter's target. It was three shots each for myself and a close friend then in the safe it went along with the ammunition due to the collector value of both.

J.Louis

There is nothing special on this pistol, the engraving is quite normal. It is not custom made, its out of the shelf.


You should have a look on my homepage, there you'll find a real special made target pistol. The legendary pistol of Friedrich Krempel.

          Biggi. 

Charlemagne,    Speaking as a Historian and former museum director,  most museum curators, unless they are serious and informed students of firearms history know blessed little about firearms.  Most because they are "authorities", they are (as a collective group) practically terminally allergic to saying "I don't know".  A few will tell a visitor 'that is out of my area of expertise" and refer to a more knowledgable source--if they know of one.
There are exceptions and there are a few museums with large and well documented arms collections of courses.  And even within those collections and staffs they tend to be generalists. There are specialists who are well informed within well defined areas of course but they pretty much tend to be make oriented or military arms specialists etc.  

Single shots are a pretty rarefied niche and our experienced members here are probably more knowledgeable than most of the museum curators and most of the auction house "experts".  European single shots are a niche with in a niche, and the single shot free pistols (at least in the USA) are a niche within a niche within a niche within a niche.

Due to their artistic and craftsmanship traditions, many Germanic arms show a much larger amount of art work on their wood and metal, (even on the more common non-military arms) than is normally found on Anglo-American arms where such artistic embellishments are less common and generally a reflection of higher cost/status arms

One also has to take family lore with a grain of salt as well.   Over the years I have worked with a LOT of family  and oral history and family historians.
Once you get more that one generation from the original/eyewitness sources suffer from a lot of 2+2=22 kind of unintentional errors and misunderstandings.

You have a really nice pistol,  one to be proud of, I know i would be.  I have wanted a good well-fitting free pistol for years

Ain't that the truth!!!
And YOU had to bring it back up Walter

some sleeping dogs just shouldn't be kicked   

Funny.  I don't have any problem.  All the photos and the (eccentric!) translations of the text just pop right up.  Bring chills, they do.

The D.R.G.M. is  the German acceptance proof mark.  You see it on most original German firearms.