doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion German & Austrian Sporting Guns @ doublegunshop.com Nimrod 16ga Hammer gun

I just got a 16ga Nimrod hammer gun from a WWII vet. It was his pride and joy and he hunted with it for years. 5# 14oz. Bores are perfect and finish is silver on receiver and hammers with good wood. Receivr is typically German engraved in high relief. Barrels are worn to patina. My guess is about 1912-15 from the marks. No date on barrels or watertable. I'll try to post pics.
I plan to take it quail shooting this weekend.

Nimrod....it must be a Thieme & Schlegelmilch. Good stuff

It says "Thieme & Schlegelmilch " on the barrels. Nimrod on the watertable.
I have several of their drillings of different breech systems and one early shotgun just labeled "Nimrod".

http://s207.photobucket.com/user/drducati750/library/Nimrod%2016%20ga?sort=3&page=1

Sweet looking shotgun, enjoy!!

The stepped water table is the key. I believe not only on the water table does one see Nimrod the hunter, but also forward on each flat. Most interesting that it has the Anson pushrod forend type.

Axel is currently giving that the K in a jagged K is for one of the Klett Klan but at one point I believe Dietrich noted it as Kelber. Narrows the field a bit.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

What year do you think Raimey?
Barrel is in beautiful shape inside.The receiver looks like it has been polished but the guy I got it from says no.

Hum, for sure between 1893 & 1912 and possibly closer to 1912 that 1893. I've seen founding dates as late as 1852 but it may be that it was on May 4th, 1850 by Carl Adolph Thieme and Heinrich Nicolaus Schlegelmilch. Funk absorbed it in 1934. I'll have to look, but I'm not sure when the Nimrod Nasenverschluss wasn't stamped on the lockup. Remember they had a stake in R�hmer Werke.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

The engraving on your double gun somewhat resembles the engraving on my drilling. The Nimrod "step" can be seen on both firearms.

For some reason I just love these T&S guns!
That is beautiful engraving. Very tasteful for the use.

drduc,

Good looking hammer double. Hunting quail with it sounds like a lot of fun, Waidmannsheil!

I'm no expert but the cuts of the engraving on your gun and Vic's (sharps4590) are so similar that to me it is very likely that they were done by the same engraver. Hendrik Fr�hauf - http://www.gebrueder-fruehauf.de/ - is quite the expert on these things and may be able to tell you should you two collaborate and send pictures to him.

Regards,

Mark

Thieme & Schlegelmilch, trademark "Nimrod", Steinweg 27, Suhl, protected their "Nimrod - Verschluss" = Nimrod lockup by DRGM 136215 in May 1900.
Here is a cut of a Nimrod hammergun from O. Maretsch: "Moderne Jagdwaffen", Berlin 1910

My Nimrod Drilling was built 11/37 so Funk must have kept the Nimrod name..

For me it's easy to see why you love them!! They're usually gorgeous and not to be faulted. I find myself grabbing mine more and more frequently for my "woods walk".

Mark, thank you for the link and suggestion. It would be interesting to put a name with the engraving.

You should read Peter Ravn Lund's book "Christoph Funk - Gewehrfabrik Suhl"(available from the GGCA bookstore), pages 28 - 29. Thieme & Schlegelmilch was not simply "absorbed" by Chr.Funk, the story is a bit more complicated. It is important to add Chr. to the Funk name, as there were no less than 38 Funks active at one time or another in the Suhl and Zella-Mehlis area. The Chr. Funk company in 1934 was owned by Ernst Funk. Ernst's oldest son, Alfred Christoph Funk bought Thieme & Schlegelmilch on February 1, 1934, but ran it as a separate business. In 1937 A.C.F. moved the T&S shop to his father's factory premises at Gothaer Strasse 18. From then on both "Chr.Funk" and "Nimrod" guns were made by the same men in the same factory to the same designs, but were signed and sold by by two financially independent companies until 1945. So it was a cooperative of two companies sharing a factory. BTW, Rob's "Nimrod" drilling is essentially a Chr.Funk "Jubil�umsdrilling 1835 -1935, Modell II", featuring a light action body made from high strength steel, Blitz-/trigger plate locks and Funk's tumbler-locking safety.

I ran across a "Nimrod" 16ga earlier this year. I bought a nice drilling and the dealer had a "Nimrod" with no other label. Wanted a little too much for a gun I was not sure of.

I just spent 2 days quail shooting with this gun. I brought home 65 birds. Very nice shooter.

Kuduae,

Thank you for the information concerning my "Nimrod" drilling. Several years ago I brought it up to Sandinona to show Dietrich Appel and he told me he had never seen a Nimrod with that type of safety and insisted on taking photos for the German Gun Collectors Society.

BTW, I find the safety could have been better designed for a right handed shooter.

"Stepped water table" is actually a beautiful translation of yours, much better chosen indeed than the original (and stupid) German term "Nasenverschluss". 🫡👍

While the engineering expression "Nase" does of course have a due place in gunsmithing lingo, exempli gratia for a rising bit (rising stud), it is very much inadequate for describing this (simple but charming) contraption, which in the 2020s fad jargon would probably be called a "hack".

In proper German for engineering and patent-applications (which T&S did not care to use), one could call it maybe "Verschlussabstützung durch Stufe", or looser and a bit more imprecise, "Falz".

Regards, Carcano

„Verschlussabstützung dutch Stufe“ sounds a bit like a tongue twister whilst „Falz“ just doesn't seem to go far enough¿





>>You should read Peter Ravn Lund's book "Christoph Funk - Gewehrfabrik Suhl"(available from the GGCA bookstore), pages 28 - 29. Thieme & Schlegelmilch was not simply "absorbed" by Chr.Funk, the story is a bit more complicated. It is important to add Chr. to the Funk name, as there were no less than 38 Funks active at one time or another in the Suhl and Zella-Mehlis area. The Chr. Funk company in 1934 was owned by Ernst Funk. Ernst's oldest son, Alfred Christoph Funk bought Thieme & Schlegelmilch on February 1, 1934, but ran it as a separate business. In 1937 A.C.F. moved the T&S shop to his father's factory premises at Gothaer Strasse 18. From then on both "Chr.Funk" and "Nimrod" guns were made by the same men in the same factory to the same designs, but were signed and sold by by two financially independent companies until 1945. So it was a cooperative of two companies sharing a factory. BTW, Rob's "Nimrod" drilling is essentially a Chr.Funk "Jubiläumsdrilling 1835 -1935, Modell II", featuring a light action body made from high strength steel, Blitz-/trigger plate locks and Funk's tumbler-locking safety.<<

I meant to tell Axel E. that I couldn't read and it is that which fosters my ignorance.....

Anyway his info from Lund's text goes a long, long way in explaining why Chr. Funk is purported to have made all but one of the Vom Hofe chambered rifles.


Hochachtungsvoll,

Raimey
rse

To Recoil Rob--I have a Christoph Funk Jubilaum which also has that safety. I like the way it operates better than a standard Greener safety as I find the Greener harder to manipulate. My Funk is also quite the engraving delight. It is my favorite gun overall in my collection and I use it a lot. BTW, if yours has the flat topped dovetail for a clip on scope mount, (and if you don't have the top ring assembly) you may be surprised to find that the dovetail is approximately 16mm--same as a CZ 527 rifle. I had to file to tighten just a bit, but it is an easy fix for scope use. Can't remember if I had to remove a recoil stop from the bottom. It goes on with a screwdriver. I made 2 consecutive shots, 3" apart on a deer at a lasered 250 yd. distance from atop a bluff. That's the longest shot at game I have taken to date, and with a drilling!
Enjoy a fine gun!