doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion German & Austrian Sporting Guns @ doublegunshop.com **UPDATE** An 11.2x72 Schuler joins the family

Ford, is it here where the slot for the Claw(Suhler) mount bases to accept Füsse was filed down and then was covered with stippling?

Hochachtungsvoll,

Serbus,

Raimey
rse

Since the firearms merchant was in the Netherlands, that might explain the misspellings on the tube steel type.

Hochachtungsvoll,

Raimey
rse

buckstix,
Regarding the possibility of a dovetail cut in the receiver, the rifle is yours and, in your hands, making you the authority on it. As I said, my idea was only a supposition.
Mike

Raimey,
buckstix disputes the idea that there was ever a dovetail, and he has the rifle "in hand". However, if there had ever been a dovetail, that is where it would have been. A tight-fitting filler would have been put in and filed/polished to match and then stippled to conceal the faint line at the joint.
Mike

I always really appreciate your comments, but in this case you are incorrect in your assessment of a possible filled slot for a claw mount base. As mentioned earlier, there is also no evidence of any modification for a corresponding rear claw mount base.

But, to put an end to this discussion, I took the rifle to a local casting inspection shop this morning. I often used this business when I was a Design Engineer. They X-ray castings to look for flaws. I also used their service in the past to X-ray Colt Single Action revolvers looking for welding repairs and serial number alterations. As the X-ray below shows, there are NO SIGNS of any alterations to the front receiver of this rifle's action, only uniform grain structure throughout.

Well, as a side note: Here is a warning about using someone else's hand-loads. As the original pictures show, this rifle came with some hand-loaded ammo. The seller assured me that the original owner of the rifle, that loaded the ammo, was a careful trustworthy reloader. The load data that was written on the box read ... "400g Woodleigh sp, 85g 3031, CCI 250 magnum primers". I have been loading for this cartridge for about 8 years, and have never seen such a HOT load with 3031 powder. The 1992 Handloader Magazine #144, lists a 400g bullet and 3031 powder with a 76.0g starting load, and 80.0g max load. When I pulled the bullets of the hand-loaded ammo, I found powder weighing from 87g up to 90g. NEVER, NEVER, trust anyone's hand-loaded ammo without carefully inspecting it. The only hand-loads I trust, are my own.

Hello All,

I finally had some nice weather to test some loads. I tested some light loads with 300g bullets, and some full loads with 400g bullets. All were shot with the peep site's small aperture. The light loads that came with the rifle shot higher and had velocity spread "all over the place" - ranging from a low of 1404 fps to a high of 1631 fps. Since I didn't load these, I suspect this was due to poor loading technique and not just poor performance of the lighter bullet. I also loaded the same full house loads from when I tested the IMMAN 11.2x72 Schuler a while back.

I noticed a "significant" difference in felt recoil with this lighter Mannlicher. It weighed 8.5 pounds and had 68 ft/lbs recoil, whereas the Imman weighed 11 pounds and only had 53 ft/lbs recoil. That 15 ft/lbs difference in recoil energy was noticeable, and much less pleasant to shoot.

It is important to note that the load with the 400g bullet (bullets deep seated to an overall loaded length of 3.300") easily achieved 2,350 fps and would make an excellent load for Africa, having the same performance as the 404 Jeffery but with a greater sectional density. It is also more potent than a 375 H&H. Energy at 100 yards for the 11.2x72 Schuler is 4,170 ft/lbs, compared to only 3,125 ft/lbs for the 375 H&H.

as always comments are most welcome

.

http://www.buckstix.com/buckpics/11.2x72-TARG-SM.jpg



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http://www.buckstix.com/buckpics/11.2x72-TARG2-SM.jpg

With the Rear Ocular in play, what did your sight picture of the front sight resemble? LIke all the front sight or fine bead, etc.?

Hochachtungsvoll,

Raimey
rse

Even with the small aperture insert flipped up, you could still see the entire front site blade with the bead on top. I used a 6 o-clock hold on both targets.

As one can quickly glean by looking at my inscription data, I have stayed merely lurking here on the board for some time, such as to learn a lot, to get to know the style and the various members (including their respective quirks, as they may be), and to wait for an opportunity where I might myself be able to contribute something of at least moderate value and usefulness. But you be the judges. 😉
I am posting from Germany, am holding the appropriate various licences (including a commercial German FFL), but my livelihood and main daytime occupation is firearms law (plus hunting laws), and has been so for decades; we are one of the small (lower single-digit) number of law firms specialized therein, and hence we are active nationwide.

After reading the report of Buckstix (he was circumspect enough to post it parallely in several fora, such as to optimize the possible feedback yields from their various, and not always overlapping readerships), I did become tempted to contribute finally something small on my own, and to research the engraved name of Tenhaeff.
The mix of location and calibre hinted to a slightly romantic notion of colonialism, big game hunt, and adventures in „Insulinde“ (the Dutch East Indies). Reality was different, but that‘s another story (Multatuli…).

One may be allowed to muse whether the gun was really exported from Germany to Utrecht, as intended and engraved, or whether the deal fell through due to the inflation, and the gun then stayed in Suhl (such as one French-German contributor „Grandveneur“ had supposed in other fora, w.r.t. to his 1923-made rifle in 11,2x72 Schüler, which seems NOT to have ended up in Calcutta at Lyon & Lyon, whereto it was destined and thus engraved).
Tenhaeff, like many other Dutch dealers, had his name inscribed / engraved on the guns that he procured (mostly from Liège and Suhl), and also printed on (shotgun) ammunition, both centrefire and pinfire. At that time, dealers could and would have printed the top cardboard disk of their shotgun shells with their name and the shot size, and here also the brass case bottom (pinfire).

As the picture of the proof stamps shows, the recommended standard use load at the specific time of production of this gun was 4,7 grams of G.B.P. (military Gewehrblättchenpulver), which may have changed some years later.
Axel Eichendorf has variously hinted that the stamped, horizontal separated „use loads“ in the old proof office stamps (*not* to be confused with an actual over-pressure proof charge) have changed with the time. The bullet type and weight was indicated at times, and at times not, which gives a further clue to determine more closely the time of the specific proof of the gun. My guess and feeling is that the original proof might even have been shortly before the Great War (i.e. before 1914), but the minuscule changes of the proof stamping rules are NOT properly redbnered and reflected in printed media, notably not in the lacunous and unreliable pamphlet of Gerhard Wirnsberger, which after 55 years now has long outlived its limited, and once valuable usefulness. I recall that German proof stamps at times indicated bullet weight *and* charge weight, and at other times only the (recommended use) charge weight and the bullet type, but I am not sure which changed when, and inhowfar Suhl and Zella-Mehlis proof offices might have differed in this specific respect.

As much as I recall, civilian factory loads with 5,25 grams Rottweiler Blättchenpulver R 5 (behind a 26,0 grams FMJ) und 5,0 grams Troisdorfer (Nr. 6 clearly was mentioned in a contemporary Schüler advertisement, but I am not sure about its characteristics? it was possibly loaded by Stahl or Gecado) existed, but this should be more carefully researched together with ammunition collectors.
Some research on the August Schüler firm (ASS) and on his son Richard Schüler has been conducted in the last decades, starting more or less with the German gunsmith Harald Wolf in the Hatari Times (e.g. issue # 11); he also chambered some new rifles for the two Schüler cartridges. I am not aware whether the two GGCA print journals („Waidmannsheil“ and „Waffenschmied“) have covered the topic already, but a quick online access on the GGCA website may be convenient and informative for many readers:
https://germanhuntingguns.com/archives/richard-schuler-and-the-august-schuler-co/ (a very nice and tempting starter, but more invested in combined guns than the repeating rifles)

Here now are, nevertheless, the data that I could collect about the intended and designated buyer, the Dutch firm of Friedrich Hermann Tenhaeff (the German version of his first names is authentic, because his ancestors hailed from the nearby German counties of Wesel and Rees). The data have mostly been gleaned from the richly available Dutch online archives‘ sources, i.e. from marriage, naturalization, birth and death registers etc.

Nowadays, this elder Tenhaeff is – if at all – known in Utrecht not so much as a gunsmith & firearms dealer, but as the father of a well-known and highly esteemed scholar , namely the multitalented local and regional historian Nicolaas Bernardus Tenhaeff (born Utrecht, 21st September 1885, died Den Haag, 2nd Januar 1943). There was also another more famous professor Tenhaeff, a parapsychologist, who seems to have no direct connection to *this* branch of the Tenhaeff families though. Also, there are traces of one „Frederik Herman“, who however is NOT simply the rendered Dutch language version of our person, but somebody else. This Germanic „Friedrich Hermann“ here however may have retained his German citizenship, unlike others (the scholarly obituary of his son Bernardus retains a veiled indirect hint to this possibility).
Friedrich Hermann Tenhaeff was born on 23rd July 1853 and married Anna Niesje Maria Freken (born in Germany) 7th Dezember 1859) on 18. July 1883.
His own father (Carl Tenhaeff; born on 8th May 1820 in Wesel / Germany, married 2nd September 1850, died 9th August 1902) was at one time employed in a French firearms factory, but seems to have moved to Utrecht at some later time. They may also have been in Delft at some early time.
Friedrich Hermann Tenhaeff’s shop, probably also with his father’s final home in the same house, was for the longest time situated in the Lange Viestraat 19.
About the duration of this enterprise, Martin Tulp, in his magistral list of many Dutch firearms and ammunition dealers of yore, has listed only 1922 as the first covered date, and 1951 as the confirmed closure date, but the reason is simple: his research only began with the year 1922, when the shop already existed.
https://vvnw.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Nederlandse-wapenhandels-versie-8-september-2013.pdf
Actually, in another small local publication, a link to the duration of the trade (under the name of the firm, not necessarily during the life of F.H. T.) could be found:
„de firma F. H. Tenhaeff, is, na eenige jaren in de Potterstraat werkzaam te zijn geweest, van 1886 tot nu toe op Lange Viestraat 9 gevestigd.“
Source: Mandblaat van Out-Utrecht, May 1952, page 29:
https://oud-utrecht.nl/images/pdf-bestanden/Tijdschrift/MOUT_1952-05.pdf
That date „1886“ would mean that Tenhaeff may have started in the Potterstraat and had then, three years after marrying at 30 years of age, set up a new and maybe larger shop; this seems absolutely conclusive and realistic at that time, when people married late, and mostly only when they would reasonably expect to be able to sustain a family. And never mind the small mistake in the street address in the quoted text. 😉

The address book of the city of Utrecht (adresboek der stad Utrecht) of course also lists his trade; I found some digitalized copies on the ‘Net, but only for a few years.
Under the same shop address is also listed the gunsmith and lateron arms dealer (and probably at some time in 1920s co-proprietor, in what subsequently became a thus named joint enterprise) C. Verbeek, from 1917 to 1937 at least.
Tenhaeff’s private home address, also given in the address book in another section, was Burgstraat 7 in 1917, and then Mengelberglaan 7 in 1923.
His death notice is given as 8th May 1937, hence with 83 years; quite the same age as his father.

Best regards,

Carcano
(in civil life: Alexander)

Interesting dossier on Tenhaeff.

I don't think it was made around the time of the 1st Major Agreement in Europe as they held on to the powder load data. That was pretty much abandoned @ the time of the new proof rules. But then again we are only talking about a couple years.

If the longarm wasn't transferred, where did it stage until if found a primary Custodian?

Serbus,

Raimey
rse