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Mike,
The number is not real clear, if it is 527, it would show a bore dia.(not grove or bullet dia.) of 5.25mm; if it is 537, it would be a little smaller(not a normally used number). This would be a fairly tight, but sometimes seen bore dia. for 22 cal.( more common seems to be 459, which is 5.5mm). The 1.8 gr Bl is 1.8 gram lead bullet. The 0.2 gr NGP m/71 is 0.2 grams of New Rifle Powder m/71, which is black powder used in the cartridges for the Mauser M 71 rifles. I didn't recognize the other marks, hopefully someone else will.
Mike
Hi Mike,
Does it have STERN inscribed on the left side of the receiver? Possibly below the rear sight on the left side of the receiver. I have a STERN very muck like yours that has inspription on the bbl that lends to 1909 manufacture. Mine was retailed by Heinrich Scherping in Hannover.
Mike, I mispoke when I said above that I didn't recognize the other marks. Of course I recognized the normal "BUG" proofs. The "B"shows a definitive proof, the "U" is for the View proof (actually a detailed inspection), and the "G" indicates it was proofed for a single projectile( bullet).
Mike
( I guess evereone around here is named Mike)
The load this pistol was proofed for translates to 3 gr Black powder behind a 28 gr lead bullet. This was the .22 short load. The .22 long rifle was still unknown in Germany before WW1. A more detailed photo of the action area, closed and open, would be helpfull for identification.
There is an excellent article in the 1972 Collectors Digest regarding these pistols. One of those pistols shown is very similar to your photos, but the barrel is different. Exterior hammer, triggerguard, etc. being the same. Unfortunately it also does not have a name on the gun, so says the author. I also checked Gerhard Bock's book MODERNE FAUST FEUERWAFFEN and ihr Gebrauch and found a number of this type of single shot target pistols. However, there were none like yours. I have a "gut" feeling that many of these pistols were made in very small numbers by a lot of different gunsmiths and small companies ....and large companies like Anschutz, Bittner, Haenel and others.
It is a Model 158-F made by Büchel from Zella-StBlassii or Zella-Mehlis in Germany as it is called now. Its calibre is .22 short and it has old black powder proofmarks ( Neues Gewehr Pulver M/71 etc ) The number 527 is a Gauge number used only by the proofhouse in Suhl (Germany) - this is a rather long story.. comes down to this: the Germans did not have a proper proofing system in the late 1800's so they looked at countries like Belgium, France and Great Britain. Somewhere along the line someone must have thought that the old British must have a good system ( or they were an important trading partner..?) and they copied that for their own system until 1939 when all proofhouses used the metric system of showing calibres. (e.g. "5,4mm or 5,3mm" etc.) This meant that 527 balls of lead went into 1 (British) pound of lead, of a certain diameter. This was the way of measuring a gauge in the old days! It was not very accurate and rather clumsy actually!
There was also a difference in measuring a calibre is those days: whereas the US system measured between groves the Germans sometimes measured between the plains of a barrel! thereby measuring a smaller diameter.. hence the 5,3 and even 5,2mm The modern .22 measures officially 5,6mm.
When we look at the load or charge or powder your pistol was proofed with, it shows 0,2 GRAMS of blackpowder. NOT 0,2 Grains! When we convert 0,2 grams to grains we get 3,09 grains.. whereas the full charge of a .22 short was 4 grains of blackpowder. Taking the bulletweight and powdercharge into account, we can conclude it was made for a .22 short in Blackpowder!
The letters CSH could have been anything. It could be the initials of the retailer, owner or even of the pistolclub or army unit..!
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