It's been a while since I've looked through the images of photos from Michael Petrov's library.  here's a favorite that has appeared in books before.

I really like the shooting coats too.

Joe, thanks again for sharing.
Question what does Mr Leopold have in his belt? Looks like a telescope...but not quite, what do you think?

A shooting stick as described in F.W. Manns book.

JLouis

Looks like Mann has the same kind of shooting rest/stake as well.    I'm wondering what the cartridges were on Leopold's the cartridge belt and in Niedner's bandolier.   they look to be quite long.    Any notes on what they were hunting.?

QuestionableMaynard8130 wrote on Jan 7^th, 2017 at 12:23pm:


Shushan, NY?  Are you kidding?  WOODCHUCKS!  For decades, one of THE hotspots for chuck hunting in the East.  About 35 yrs ago, I tried to buy a 19th C. cottage in Shushan, but the place was sold before I could make arrangements.  35 yrs ago, before the coyote plague had reached epidemic proportions, there were still chucks around, though not in the numbers of Dr. Mann's time.  A would-be chuck hunter living there now would probably have to be content with the beautiful countryside.

40+ yrs ago, I used an adjustable shooting stick very similar to this for chuck hunting in Delaware County, which since then has also succumbed to the coyote and second-home invasion.  Even if the coyotes could be wished away, there's no wishing back the dairy farms that were the chucks' environment.

Joe Do... wrote on Jan 7^th, 2017 at 7:13am:


Have seen photo in several books, but never reproduced so sharply.  Did Michael have the original?

Thank you, have never seen the picture that clearly.
If you look closely, think you can see the striker and tapered breech block on Dr. Baker's Brochardt.
Might be the same rifle.
Chuck

I wonder if there was more than one photo printed.  Yes, Michael had an original (maybe the only one). I have also seen the photo in at least one Ned Roberts book where the footnote says it came from Wolfe's collection (I assume that meant Wolfe publication).  

The original photo is approx. 3" x 5". I scanned it in using super high resolution and I can zoom in on almost any detail. I only adjusted the contrast. The original is lighter. 

I'll try to do it later on the Borchardt rifle. 

Michael had A. O. Niedner's personal photo album. A friend and I scanned many of the photos and some of them in high resolution to see more detail. 

I believe Michael owned the original rifle and I probably have photos that Michael took of the rifle as well. I'll try to get those photos on a new Post later.

I thought that Michael had tracked down all the rifles.  Maybe photographed all of them or at least knew where they were.

I also thought the men were using base band jacketed bullets as developed by Mann, with Niedner doing the rifle work.

If you were a member of a dairying family, the people who cut the hay in the hay fields and tended the cows that kept the pastures open that provided all that woodchuck habitat, you also needed your veggies.  Those came from the kitchen garden the women kept near the house.  In a night or two, the woodchucks could eat all the veggies intended to feed the family through the winter.   

And all too often, a good cow would break her leg when she fell into a woodchuck burrow.

There was more to the war against woodchucks than just the sport of hunting them with an accurate rifle.

It spent some time blowing up the picture with Photoshop and I would say the rifle is the same in both pictures. The cocking knob is very visible in the blow up. Only issue I have is if the scope is the same on both. Can't tell but very close in appearance.

I would say you are correct on the forearm however if the action isn't the same it is identical with the sloped BBlock and cocking knob and double set triggers.

It was said that he made 2 so maybe Baker owned both.
Bob

while the rifles metal works looks the same the forend is clearly different. In the color photo it appears to me to be a much later style stock.  
  It really hard to tell but there seems to be a little handi-work where the toe-line of the butt meets the back of the pistol grip. Niedner's gun stocker in Dowagiac was Tom Shellhammer (not positive on the spelling). He was well know for a little fancy work in that area and it almost became his signature.   I'm wondering of the Baker rifle may have gone back to the shop for a later, more "up-to-date", restocking.

It looks as if the scope block separation also changes from the group photo to the color pic of the rifle.  The color pic's stock certainly looks like Shelhammer's work, thus from a later era.

I had  Niedner barreled 44 1/2 with a wildcat chamber.  Michael had a set of Niedner's loading dies that matched it.  He worked up some rounds and found it shot quite well - a .28-30 necked to .228 as I remember it.  Probably another wood chuck slayer!

The shooting stick referred to as the woodchuck rest was introduced by Dr. H.A. Baker and constantly used by FW Mann in the field. The hollow iron tube, with its sharp point, carries within it the swabbing, stick, can be easily entered into the ground, while the sliding rest is quickly moved to any desired height and fastened by set screw. In tramping the the fields or woods, it makes a good walking stick by sliding rest to the top. It can be used in place of tripod for small camera, and is no mean weapon at close quarters, stiff and strong but quite light in weight. Dr. Baker recommends it for opening a generous space between the barbed wires of an obstructing fence; by setting its sharp point into one wire, catching the other upon sliding rest, moving it up and carrying wire along, then fastening by set screw, space for passing through without catching clothing is quickly afforded. 

Its proposed use for chuck hunting was surely well thought out and there is a picture showing it being used in the prone position barrel being rested about ten inches back of muzzle.

Wow that was allot of typing on my phone and I hope everyone truly enjoys reading it and the multiple use ingenuity if its design.

JLouis

JLouis wrote on Jan 8^th, 2017 at 7:23pm:


Where I grew up, barbed wire strung around every piece of ground larger than a tennis court, that would have been a Godsend, if it worked.  But I can't believe the sharp point wouldn't slide off the wire once tension was applied.

JLouis wrote on Jan 8^th, 2017 at 9:19pm:


I even turned my computer screen to a vertical position to see the photo in its proper orientation, but what I STILL see is the wrinkle formed by his fingers, with the scope also in the same wrinkle, which means the coat is behind the scope.  As I said, there's a shadow of the scope ON the coat, which couldn't be there if the scope was hidden behind the coat.  If that's the case, the scope is a straight tube as were the vast majority of them at this time.  What do others see? 

Will send email as I'd certainly like to see the scope you described.

Bill Lawrence wrote on Jan 8^th, 2017 at 11:17pm:


Sorry, nothing at all Malcomish about that rear mount--it's a sliding mount, as Sidel introduced, but Stevens made popular.

The assumption of any "double-serrated focusing ring" is without foundation, as I think  Mr. Louis would probably now agree, based on closer examination of the photo in question, from Ray Smith's Pope book.

My apologies over what some in this forum call a "brain fart".  The "Malcomish" mount I was referring to is not the front but the rear, the one nearest the action.  And the "double serrated ring" (which looks like it has an horizontal appendage) is whatever is fitted to the action-end of the scope.

Bill Lawrence

The "fancy work" that appears at the junction of the grip and butt on the pictured Tom Shelhamer stock was a clever and successful attempt to raise the comb of stocks on single shot rifles in particular. It is not so needed on a borchardt, but very much so on a Hepburn. It acted as a sort of wedge to accomplish the desired result and maintain an aestheticly appealing stock.

Michael wrote about the Niedner-Borchardt more than once.  My understanding is that to really make the thing work, you need the special cases & case forming dies, plus the base-band jacketed bullets and then the dies for making the bullets.  That stuff was listed separately.  Sad that the auction house did not know what they had.

Guys,

       Love that old photo. I have a copy of it on my desk and have made a few trips to Shushan NY to check out the area for chuck hunting a few years ago. Never did see a chuck and when I asked land owners for permission to hunt them you'd think I was asking to violate their daughters! The fields there are not long but rather rolling and hilly. Can't see but a few places where one would expect to get a shot at a chuck over 180 to 225 yards. I'm sure that the area looks different now than it did back in 1911 when they were there. 
       My questions is who was Dr. Baker? What was  he involved in? Apparently he was a shooter. I'd just like to know a little more about him.

            Sendaro

I believe I read a line somewhere that Dr. Baker was an accomplished rest shooter. I could be wrong. 

                             Sendaro

waterman wrote on Jan 11^th, 2017 at 1:27pm:


Sounds reasonable, but in one of his Rifleman articles, Tom Martin (Trim Nat) said Medicus was Dr. Skinner, a name I'm unfamiliar with.  He was writing this many decades later, however, so maybe his memory was slipping.

From an article by Niedner in the Rifleman, I've found that Dr. Baker's first name was Henry, but little more about him. They boarded at the Shushan House, where, he says, that recorded their hunts on the walls of the "gun room"; on very friendly terms with the proprietor, I assume. Said they had a 200 yd range at the edge of town, where they experimented with guns & loads.

In a piece by Ned Roberts for the Sept., 1912, Outer's Book, Ned told about one of these Shushan trips from which Mann, Niedner, & Baker had recently returned--possibly even the 1911 trip, for it might have taken a year for the piece to be written and published.  On this trip, Ned talks about Niedner using his "new" bolt-action rifle, and looking closely at the breech of the rifle in Niedner's hands, I believe that's IT--the one they called the "Hamburg Rifle" for the effect it had on chucks--a .25 / 86 g. bullet at an estimated 3600 fps!

Sendaro wrote on Jan 11^th, 2017 at 9:47pm:


Visible (just barely) is a little glint that looks like the bolt handle root, and another glint that looks like the bolt cocking knob.

Where is this rifle now?

I would also agree that Mann's rifle looks like a bolt action.

I would also like to point out that these men had all (or more) the resources that any shooter in the USA had in those years. I note that the scopes on those rifles did not have objectives, larger than 1". Even though there may have been scopes with larger objectives, these men would appear to favor the scopes mounted on thier rifles as the best that they could get for clear long range work.

Frank

Dr. S.A. Skinner wrote extensively for Shooting and Fishing under "Medicus". He was an expert markman and rifle crank. Dr. Skinner had his own range and The Medicus Woorchuck Preserve is only noted as being in his neighborhood and no mention of him owning it. This information is from FW Mann's Book if you would like to research it more fully / his life and accomplishments out side of shooting etc. and the rifles used should you want to research it long with Dr. Baker, Pope Neidner and others related to the subject and or not it in there you just have to find it.

JLouis wrote on Jan 12^th, 2017 at 8:47pm:


I have just been doing that, and especially like the photo of Dr. Skinner's shooting bench--a real masterpiece...of cob-jobbing that looks like it would blow over in the first strong breeze.   

Whoever owned the Medicus Preserve, it was located in Hoosick Falls, Skinner's home, not Shushan, about 20 miles away.

waterman wrote on Jan 14^th, 2017 at 1:45pm:


No reason to think he resided in Shushan, or anywhere near--money to buy Niedner-quality rifles was not made in the country.