doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com A story 99 years in the making.

This will take a while to sort out and tell, with pictures of course.

In 1913 A.O. Niedner made the second model or 1913 screw-bolt rifle for Dr. Mann. This was an improvement of the two locking lug 1912 Mann-Niedner rifle later called the "Hamburg" rifle.

At the same time they were working on the 1913 rifle Dr. Mann, A.O. Niedner and John W. Sidle the scope (and other things like microscopes) maker designed a scope. There were to be two scopes made one for Dr. Mann and one for Niedner.

If I understand things correctly Niedner did the metal work and then sent them to Sidle who was then living in Corning, California. Sidle had moved to California from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The two scopes were delivered in 1914.

A few years ago I set out to locate all the Mann-Niedner rifles that had been made, there were five not counting the wooden model, I found them all.

When Dr. Mann's rifle was located the Mann-Niedner-Sidel scope was with it.

It also still has the original Mann patented mount.
Mann Patent

Not OT at all in my opinion. The sighting apparatus used on these rifles we adore are just as important.

How are the optics in this one after all these years? I assume the lenses weren't coated? (Not an expert but I'm thinking that innovation came 30-40 years later?) Are the mounts and scope robust enough for prolonged shooting? (Approximate) magnification?

All in all an interesting piece of shooting history, and one I would love to take a peek through!

I should have been a little clearer. I located the rifle and scope, I do not have the rifle and scope.

Dr. Mann died just a few years later and the rifle and scope appear to have been little used if any.

The magnification of both scopes is 16X.

A. O. Niedner's scope was used on several different rifles over the years ending up on his underhammer .40 caliber.

Picture is from A.O. Niedner's scrapbook, in my collection.

In July of 1946 Niedner sold both the rifle and the scope to John Amber.

At some time Niedner removed the Mann mounts and installed more modern ones that did not need the Mann-Niedner taper blocks.

Those mounts (if the same ones) did not go with Amber. He sold them to Frank Sargent in October of 1946.

Any questions to this point?

Now we fast forward to November, 1986 at the Bourne auction company in Hyannis Port, MA for the John Amber auction.

I was there with a lot of information and a little money. I was after the underhammer. After a day of looking around I found that the rifle had three moulds with it that did not belong to the rifle and that all the tools were spread throughout many lots.

With the help of Ron Peterson and the folks at the auction company they sent a young man with me with a box and we went to the lots that had the tools for the underhammer and put them in the box. Once I gathered up all the tools that I could find they put the stuff with the rifle.

I won the rifle and tools when they came up for bidding.

After the first day of the auction I realized that I missed the powder bottles that had been dumped into a little cardboard box. I talked with the winner of that lot, gave him my card, told him what the bottles were for and that I would buy them from him.

Never heard a word from him.

I never found the nipple wrench that belonged with this rifle. Going by the pictures I had I made the one pictured "Replaced Nipple Wrench". My "MP" and date are on it.