doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com F.W. Vandrey & Company

Wolfgang via KI(Künstliche Intelligenz)/Ai(psudeo version of course, has found some most interesting info on the Berlin contingent of Retailers like Ludwig Schiwy, Ernst Steigledger, etc. along with Otto Gottlieb Scherell(Ballistol), Horst Goeldel(Probably the Best German Shot of all times), where members of the Jagd-Klub Diana Berlin dominated the Shooting Circuit and peddled their wares whilst doing so. Other actual makers like Paul Collath, Franz Collath, Franz Kettner also were fantastic competitors and also used the circuit & events for sales. This is a very similar modell that Charles Daly used to tout, as well as sell, his wares making a small fortune along the way. There's a tonne of info via KI and I will get it sorted.

Basically what these competitions did was to protect the German mechanics from being over-run w/ foreign made platforms. Take the above mentioned retailers, the pressed their wares w/ their name atop into service and proved thru stout competition that their platforms were superior.

Top shooters of interest were Horst Goeldel of Berlin/Grunewald, Gustav Koch of Derneburg, Dr. Rudolf Sack of Leipzig/Düsseldorf, and Dr. Kurt Schoebel.

But they may not have held a candle to Franz Denk driving the Omnibus to the Vienna Shooting Grounds.

Much more later....

Hochachtungsvoll

Raimey
rse

Too, I forgot to note Albert Preusß, the Technical Director of the German Hunting Klubs. He looked to be QA/AC between Shooters & Makers/Mechanics.

Hochachtungsvoll

Raimey
rse

Just received on Wednesday: a "Vandrey" Drilling, actually made by Sauer & Sohn, proofed 1035, in stunning quality. Serial number in the 6000s.
I think the Sauer ledger had been sort of rediscovered in the Suhl town archive some years. So research might be possible

Indeed, the Sauer & Sohn ledger is in the basement of the Old Suhl Jail in the archives.

Pleasure us w/ some fotos or forward some to me & I will get them posted.


Hochachtungsvoll

Raimey
rse

Have not forgotten your inquiry Raimey. The trick is to find out the correct model number. As I learned, the Latin and the Arab numerals are not sequential, and a Model XXX is a totally different gun from a Model 30.
Anyhow, my Drilling is either a Model 30 or 32. It does not have the usual left side safety, like most, but instead the external swinging safety lever which blocks the cocking pieces. Called "Schlagstücksicherung", which probably was a special order upgrade.

The quality is very high; engraving is "feine Englische Arabesken", with the accentuation on "fine", and its execution is better than of the most Sauer game scenes. Overall, if compared to the well-known and highly esteemed ($$$$) normal Mod 30 Luftwaffendrilling, mine is by far the better gun.
I do not own Jim Cate's book (which is quite expensive - when you find it -; it costs more than *I* paid for this Drilling), and the former Swedish Sauer collectors' website of P.O. Haggards seems sadly defunct. Would anybody have access to the reprinted 1938 Sauer catalog?

Regards,
Carcano

Some information has been mined on Ludwig Schiwy, his contribution to WWII per a safety issue on the P08 and how his shop became a target for Allied Forces. We think of the mechanics as being purely a Firearms Merchants, or @ least I do, & they have this flock of mechanics that do the finishing work on platforms that were sourced from gunmaking centres like Suhl, where the mechanics there did all the >>Heavy Lifting<<. You know, like that Used Car Salesman, that hocked everything, & everybody, within his reach, mortgaged to the hilt & just short of the moon to get a bona fide Dealership. He walks around trying to get a bite chewing on a 50 cent a copy Fumas that is pretty much Prince Albert in a Can rolled in a Brown Paper Bag by some Kid in Ybor City, Florida. But in actuality many like Ludwig Schiwy were on the cutting edge of technology, always forward thinking, especially regarding Safety. They were superb shots, perfecting their craft whilst hob-knobbing with the Shooters Elite and selling their wares.

By the late 1920s, the Prussian Police discovered that their beloved P08 had some serious safety issues being that if a cartridge were inadvertently left in the chamber that during disassembly, an ignition was highly probable. The Prussian Police demanded that two additional safety devices be added for the maximum safety. The solution was a Magazine Safety by Carl Walther and the needed disassembly safety was the Brain Child of none other than Berlin's Ludwig Schiwy, under DRP 501267, June 19th, 1929 „Schiwy-Sicherung“. By a decree of 30th August, 1933, both P08 Safeties were introduced for the Police P08 Pistols. Now the addition of these new P08 safeties were not by manufactures but by the Police Armouries.

Bavaria Police thought they knew more about P08s than anyone, so the fought the addition saying the installation would compromise the integrity of the sideplate.

The novel safety advance of „Schiwy-Sicherung“ by Ludwig Schiwy was used on P08s up thru 1942 and even Mauser's production modell P08 had the slot for the „Schiwy-Sicherung“ Spring. Schiwy's Berlin Factory, »Gewehrfabrik Vandrey«, was more than likely bombed due to its contribution to the War Effort.

I realize this is a Pistol advancement, but it starts to paint a clearer picture of Ludwig Schiwy and the contributions by he & other Firearms Merchants to the Weapons World.


Hochachtungsvoll

Raimey
rse