ALK stands for August Lüneburg, Kiel. Old Mr. Lüneburg and his shop in Kiel still existed in 1967. Pre-WW2 his self-ejecting pistol was quite popular for use in the pistol stage of Modern Pentathlon
Alk is also a sort of seabird ... Now knowing the name, it's not so difficult anymore to read the stamping. But there is one question unanswered - did he manufacture the pistols himself, or was someone else the maker? Lüneburg had two gun shops, one in Kiel and one in Flensburg. Maybe a collector has a catalogue of some sort in his collection, which tells more about the origins of the gun.
Darf man fragen woher du das weist? Kommst du aus Kiel den im internet hab ich nichts gefund. Wenn man den ganzen Namen eingiebt findet man schon was aber wenn du nur alk waffe oder sowas in der richtung eingiebst kommt nichts
@@rauljaanson2423 AUG. LÜNEBURG KIEL is a pretty convincing fit for the obscured engraving and Alk as German for Auk would make some sense as a punny name for a company that served mariners and the Kriegsmarine.
The B and U Proof marks indicate an Early German Production, before WWI. The mechanism is of the " self eject" single shots ( pistol and Rifle). Examples are a Belgian AEP, Winchester Model 55 ( .22) and this commercial ALK. DocAV
Hey! I have seen a rifle in this exact style here in Australia. Single shot with automatic ejection. German make. In rifle form they are really very fun, as you can have your left hand full of cartridges and you can drop-release-fire ina single motion.
Me too, although as a pistol. I shot something very similar to this in Adelaide decades ago. Perhaps in the mid-1980s. I wasn't very accurate, but it was!
"Something-burg" is probably the least possible information you could hope to give of the location in a German product 😀 EDIT: holey moley, this must be the most likes I have ever got in YT. Thank you all!
@@reliantncc1864 Just kidding really. I meant no critique towards Ian who certainly knows his business, but to that anonymous polisher who has scrubbed this pistol's origins into obscurity.
It has 80% the moving parts necessary to make it semi auto but still being single shot, it looks like something sig might do tomorrow after Biden bans all semi autos and we get videos of Jerry Michulek doing 9 rounds in 4 seconds on it the next week. 😂
Love the single shot pistols. There are two you should consider reviewing. Pre War H&R USRC that outsold both the Colt Camp Perry and the S&W inline. Surprised you don't seem to know about it. The second is the Rex Merrill Sportsman. Made in Rockwell City Iowa. Later it became the RPM pistol when Jim Rock bought the company. We have pristine examples of both. And both are very capable indeed. Fast lock times and great triggers. Would love to send them to you for review.
I'd love to see Ian do a video on those two pistols . It's very good of You to offer them too him , I'm sure he'll appreciate the offer & hope he takes You up on it .
Reminds me an article I read about parlour guns popular amongst target shooters before my lifetime. Here in Australia there is a niche for "lever release" rifles and shotguns which are essentially semi-auto actions which have been re-designed to cycle open after firing, lock open, and load the next cartridge when you depress a lever, such as CZ's 515 rifle, or a handful of shotguns made for our firearms market in Turkey. They are considered equivalent to other manual actions by our firearms laws, and they're a lot of fun when you can't have semi-auto anything :)
I'm always disturbed when I hear about a market created by evil government rules. I hope Australia becomes a free country at some point. So far I've seen only the opposite.
@@reliantncc1864 It was the Right Wing Government of the day that took away Australias firearms, and he said he was going to do it Before the election. At the tome I was the Club Captain of a major Pistol Club and I made comment at a board meeting that it was going to happen and was laughed at.... They were not laughing several months later when he took their Autoloader and Pump action Shotguns and rifles. and less when he went after the handguns!
@Harri Kirvesniemi in theory it would be as easy as removing whatever "lever" catches the bolt in the rearward position, which would allow it to cycle like normal. Or just revers the spring force and turn it into a bolt hold open.
So correct about tight German chambers for 22 LR. I own a 22 Mauser training rifle circa 1936. I cannot use a regular 22 cleaning jag with it. So to prevent a jammed cleaning rod I have good success with a 5mm brass jag instead.
Personally, I really like these older single shot 22 target pistols. There are a number of different ones and they are all beautifully made. Particularly interesting are the Martini action versions with the double-set triggers. Awesome.
The crown over U (examination, civil marking) and crown over B (singular shot, also civilian) markings were used from 1891 - 1939 here in germany. The City name stamped on the receiver could be LÜNEBURG. Alk is slang for alcohol, but it could really be anything.
There are disciplines for Sportshooting purpose, it's called 50m/ 50yards free pistol, they are done with single shot .22 Newer pistols are basically the same, just with a tooglelock and not a selflocking slide
Reminds me of a gun I saw at a auction one time. Somebody took a single shot 22LR and cut the stock into a pistol grip and cut the barrel to like 12 inch.
This is near identical to how I did my 9EZ (the single shot version of my 9NSS). Just such a nice thing when u shoot for it to eject annd have the slide lock open. Then u just drop in the next round, drop the slide, and the action of the slide has already cocked the hammer so u are ready to fire once more. Also great for training as there is no way to have another round make it's way into the round in the even the new shooter is excited and turns around with it.
The Winchester Model 55 was an American single-shot sporting rifle produced by the Wincheter Repeating Arms Company from 1958 to 1961. Advertised as a sporting rifle, the Model 55 was Winchester's first attempt at a self-ejecting single-shot rifle.
BAYARD MODEL 1912 SELF EJECTING SINGLE SHOT Belgian made self ejecting single shot gallery/boy's rifle. 19-1/4" barrel. Blued steel. Chequered pistol grip stock. Blade front sight. Rear v-notch sight.
@@GunnerAsch1 The old Harrington & Richardson 755 Sahara single-shot auto ejector .22 rimfire To use the Harrington & Richardson 755 Sahara single-shot the shooter first pulled the bolt back, inserted a cartridge in the chamber, and closed the bolt. As the rifle was a single-shot .22 Short, Long or Long Rifle cartridges could be used. When the rifle was fired the bolt would blow back and eject the fired cartridge case. This left the bolt in the rearward position so the shooter could then chamber another cartridge, close the bolt, and then fire again. These were a great training rifle for new shooters because they simplified the loading process and automatically returned to an open bolt, and clearly safe condition when fired.
Very clever and pretty cool. I've seen some very odd guns in Germany when I was there forty years ago, including a pair of 6.5mm air rifles similar to a Benjamin multi-pump rifle that were being used to hunt small northern-German deer by a couple of very nice fellows that didn't know enough English to tell me much about them. If anyone has ever heard of such a thing any information would be welcome; I've never found a reference to them online. I suspect they may have been the product of a small workshop, possible from prior to WW2.
As it is a target pistol my first tought when you said it was a unusual design is that it had a short lifespan due to the common tendency in all sports for influential, powerful, players to get the governing body to ban equipment and/or modifications the influential people doesn't like/can't copy well enough to be on a par with the competition
That ejector is massive for a .22! I guess Ian will have to make a trip to Germany now and trace this gun back to its roots lol. This is one of the very few guns shown on the channel that he has little information on.
the markings on the gun (the ones on the top, not the proof marks) are not stamped, but hand-engraved by either a goldsmith or an engraver, that is possibly the reason why the smaller one is unreadable (it is propably engraved pretty shallow, courtesy of beeing steel). (source: i am a master engraver by trade - Graveurmeister)
A pistol using the same principle was made in Argentina in the 50's. They fired the 6mm Flobert, a .22 short would not fit the chamber. They were pretty popular.
I wonder if this might have been made using factory-produced parts of a rifle, particularly the ones that are stamped with the production number, and modified into a target pistol?
Hi Ian, can you please do a video on the McCrudden Light Machine Rifle? It is a very mysterious and rare firearm and a very early light machine gun prototype. There exists hardly any information on it on the internet. A disassembly of it so we can see how it works would be great too.
.22 lr ist sometimes called .22 lfb in German. lfb stands for (lang für Büchse) long for rifle. Büchse also means can and German gun/miltary terminology is quite bizarre. We call anti-ship missiles Seezielflugkörper... literally sea (borne) target flying body.
The grip is angle so the shooter's wrist is nearly all the way down (fully pronated). This "locks" the wrist to the arm, resulting in a very stable stance. Nearly all slow fire single shot target pistols use this grip orientation, be they powder or air. My IZH-46 has a similar angle, but with a palm shelf and is carved to fit the hand.
The strangest pistol I’ve shot is a P14 action as a single shot- 12”barrel and wooden stock with a pistol grip, firing 7.62 NATO, designed for long range pistol shooting. It had a bit of a kick 😁
I may be wrong, but the proofmarks look like the one used by east Germany from 1950 to 1975. the one with the U means "inspection after final proofing" (Untersuchung nach Endbeschuss) and the one with R stands for "repair" (Reparatur). but I'm missing the final proof eagle.
I wonder if the engraved ALK could be an owners initials. They look hand engraved, but I can't really tell from the video. Hmm, "German Single Shot Rimfire Target Pistols", possible new book if you can find a local coauthor?
that is so cool. really makes you think about the variation in priority for various firearms. "make it 3/4 semiauto." we have the technology. i would love to have this thing.
Hey Ian, I did a bit of German googling and found a company "August Lüneburg Kiel", and an old egun (gun ebay) entry where there is a converted Selbstladebüchse that was reduced to single shot by a gunsmith (unfortunately without a picture). Could that be it?
My headcanon is that this is a one-off gun made by the biggest tease of a gunsmith who specifically stamped it with a high serial number to make people think there were more
If it wasn't for the proof mark and numbers on the parts you'd almost think this was a prototype gun put together to try and find a manufacturer. For such a simple action it seems to have a lot of complex machined parts so, if it is a sample gun, I can see why it never got made commercially.
Maybe the -burg marking could be made visible by using forensic techniques. But that's up to the owner. There's too many burgs in Germany and in Austria as well.
i would guess its a small scale production. those mechanics serve a pupose, most likely to ease operation. there was a small market for target shooters among WW veterans, suffering from disabilities like missing fingers or stiff limbs. would fit into that category if i had to sell it to someone.
According to the book Bock/Weigel "Faustfeuerwaffen" (6th issue 1974) page 101 /102 this pistol originaly derived from a 22cal selfloading rifle System Rhode . First models were equipped with a 5 round magazine ,but due to bad ammunition after WW 1 that feature was eliminated. No productionquantities are stated nor exact years of production,only that no pistols after WW2 were made and it was popular at modern pentathlon in Germany .
its pre-WW1 but yes, seems someone cut down a Selbstladebüchse (selfloading rifle) to a pistol. ALK seems to have produced daggers and other accesorries for naval officers.
That barrel assembly doesn't exactly scream for accuracy as it is supported by metal only in one place and the rest are on the mercy of the whims of wood.
The proof marks are interesting. The type used dates them 1939 or earlier. The crown with the U means that it has passed final proofing but the crown with the B is a lot more interesting, as this marks the gun as a foreign import. This gun was not produced in Germany.
@@eternaloptimist2840 : So Hamburg, Regensburg, Augsburg, Würzburg, Aschaffenburg, Offenburg are not in Germany? Burg means ( fortified) Castle . First building of Hamburg was Hammaburg , and the Würzburg, which gave Würzburg its name is now called Marienburg. Berg means mountain.
I would love to own that, or a pistol like it. I have a Flobert 6mm parlor pistol, of a very similar profile, and I love that thing. Time to go talk to my local gunsmith...
I would love to see more strange, target guns. Even the most "normal" smallbore rifles or ISSF air rifles are so interesting and advanced. Some real neat features to look at
Kinda strange there is no set trigger, not many free pistols without them! The blow back action will give softer recoil, but it will make the design more cumbersome.
hah love it in german Alk is short for Alkohol ;) So I remember friends asking about Alk when we were just finishing school and drank a lot in the aftermath :D
The whole look of it reminds me of a 'Zimmerstutzen' that got shortened into a pistol. Zimmerstutzen were indoor target guns, you find the painted wood target plates on diaplay along the walls of pretty much every tavern in rural Germany/Austria. Those were wildly popular, which explains the serial number, and since those wereusually used while drinking heavily, it would explain why that one pistolized gun was called the 'Alk' gun. They probably were drunk when coming up with the idea (and still went through with it after sobering up)
What would happen if a round didn't fire? Wouldn't the striker hit the round again if you opened the action? Sounds (theoretically) unsafe. but maybe I'm missing something. Perhaps the ejector will hit the round before the striker in that case.
Would now be a good time to mention that "Alk" is also an idiom for "Alcohol"? And that we Germans occasionally refer to alcoholic drinks as "Zielwasser" - "target/aiming water"? Not say there is any connection - but...
