Here is some encouragement Biggi. Keep 'em coming.

As far as I know, they had a running bore or also a running deer since the 1850s in Bavaria and Germany. I think the running bore was shot at 50-60 meters (55-65 yards) and the running deer at 110 meters (120 yards). Even at the famous Octoberfest matches they shot on the running deer.

For hunting exam (to get the hunting permit), they still shoot nowadays on a running bore, or fox, and rabbit, and so on.

Here are two short videos which show the running bore:

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Here is another example for a 50 meters small-bore club house with range, probably around 1930 in a rural region between Munich and Stuttgart.  They had four fire points, good enough for the pre-military practice. For the young men it was not just offered shooting, the whole training was cross country run, ball games, and more. 

Also older men liked it to shoot small bore rifles, because meanwhile they had small-bore rifles with bolt action in military style.  So the former WWI soldiers enjoyed it to shoot small-bore, because the original K98 and similar war rifles were forbidden because of the Treaty of Versailles. 

Tried to find out what happened to this range, but couldn’t find anything about it. Probably gone after WWII and never re-opened.

Interesting point, no stove pipes. Well observed. I think the solution is: they didn’t shoot in winter. Because they didn’t had plows to go to the places back then, so no heater was needed. Or maybe they had a small heater inside with just a small pipe out of the wall, not shown on the pics? Hhhmmm?!


During my today’s research hours, I found another example for small bore ranges. With chimney and heater! Built in 1928 in a pretty Upper-Bavarian country house style. Range had seven fire-points on 50 meters for .22 rifles.

This place was approx. 5 miles south of Munich, along Isar river. Placed in the woods on the raised shoreline of the Isar river. Just a 5 minutes walk from the famous “Waldwirtschaft” (Forest Tavern) where the Munich people and families went on Sundays since centuries for pleasure and beer. The tavern ran also the small pub in the club house on Sundays, when shooters showed up for matches. The "Waldwirtschaft" has a long tradition, the place got their first beer selling license approx. 600 years ago, but the first buildings are mentioned 1300 years ago. Since the railway station was built in 1852, they had up to 10.000 visitors per weekend.

So it’s a neat place for a shooting range. There were more places around with nice rural taverns, also for the famous summer-time zimmerstutzen matches of the Munich shooting clubs.  The colored post card (ca. 1900) shows another pleasure place close to the small bore range, where they shot zimmerstutzens. And they had a Kegelbahn (bowling alley) too. A lot of summer-time matches were held at this place. Famous place back then!

I would have just the sort of luck where I'd drop something I needed for shooting and have to go all the way downstairs to get it. 
I'm really surprised at the many elaborate, by my standards, places there were to shoot. And, to hear that some are still going is amazing.

calledflyer wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2017 at 7:05pm:




Hi CalledFlyer.

Well, if you would have been a German shooter 100 years ago, you would not had much on your shooting bench to lose out of the window. 

No spotting scope necessary, because the jester out in the butt showed the result with his paddle.
No powder bottle or other tools, they shot with fixed ammo.
No special rest, just off-hand shooting.

Just two things on the bench: 
• box of fixed ammo 
• clock key to adjust the diopter

...and maybe a glass of red wine in the hand!      

              Biggi.   

.
westerner wrote on Feb 23^rd, 2017 at 1:53am:



Yes Joe, a lot of shooting in all German towns back then.
But just one big club per town with long distance range for feuerstutzens.
And those were the clubs with the "royal privileg".
The only town back then in Bavaria with two royal privileged clubs was Munich.
And this is a special story which might be told later.

But in most of the towns they had zimmerstutzen clubs since the 1850s, after the zimmerstutzen was invented. Most of the zimmerstutzen clubs shot in the back room of taverns or on the bowling alley (Kegelbahn). They shot on a distance of 9 to 18 meters, depended on the room they had for shooting.
It was easy to install a target and a thick board to cover the jester who showed the hit in the target. There were a lot of constructions for zimmerstutzen clubs how to manage the scoring. Here are three target installation examples for zimemrstutzen clubs to run the shooting evening.

              Biggi. 

Sticky? Heck, you might get a book out of this. Great stuff.