German Shotgun/Rifle ?'s

[BELTFEDJASON]

Greetings,

My father in law got this combination shotgun rifle from his father when he passed away. He said his father brought it back from Germany after WWII. On the top on the ventilated rib is written.

W. BRENNEKE GEWEHRFABRIK LEIPZIG U. SUHL r./TH

My father in law said it is a 16 gauge but does not know the caliber of the rifle part.

Does anyone have any info on this gun?
Who made it?
When was it made?
What caliber is the rifle part most likely?
How much is it worth?
I have attached several pics.

Thanks in advance

Kaukauna

 

[Dave McCracken]

These are callled Drillings, from the German word for "Three".

Suhl is a region in Germany known for its gunmakers.

Most Drillings are quite high quality. The hammers hint that's it's a 19th Century firearm.

The rifle barrel could be anything from 9.6X64 mm down to 25-35.

The shotgun chambers are quite likely to be too short for common ammo here and now.

As with ALL older direarms, a good smith should check it over before firing.

Value is probably a couple grand, if in very good shape..

HTH....

 

[rudolf]

German guns by law need to be marked with the cailber, so have a good look.

 

[BELTFEDJASON]

Thanks for the help I'll look it over good, the barrels are stamped with some metric numbers,

I'm sure the markings are the calibers I'll get back with more info this week.

 

[Jim Watson]

According to the markings your drilling was made by Wilhelm Brenneke at his rifle factory.
I suspect the factory was in Suhl in the province of Thuringia, Germany, and his sales office in Leipzig, but maybe somebody has solid information on that.

Brenneke is best known these days for his design of shotgun slug, which is still made and killing game; not everybody is sold on the subcaliber sabot slugs, especially outside the USA. However, he was also a gun manufacturer and a designer of rifle cartridges, some still available.

A hammer 16 gauge almost surely has shorter chambers than now standard, variously listed as 2 1/2", 2 9/16", or 2 5/8" instead of 2 3/4"; will be marked 65 (millimeters) on a European gun. You can still buy short shells a few places. Google turned up
http://www.polywad-shotgun-shells.com/16gavin6/

It MIGHT be possible to rechamber the shot barrels, but a lot of these old guns were made with very thin fast taper barrels to make up for the weight of the rifle barrel and do not have enough thickness of steel to allow it.

The rifle barrel will be for any one of a number of rimmed metric caliber cartridges. If the markings don't clear it up, a chamber cast would be required to identify it. Ammunition will likely be expensive if available at all.