What was the Germans equivalent of Bell Target?

[Geezer]

Thanks John.
If you get the Google app on your phone and take a photo of the text it will translate it for you.
(If you want you can email it to me and I’ll do it) I’d be interested to see what it says.

It’s a tricky subject, I’m doing a vid on my ‘33 soon but will concentrate on the mechanics of the rifle and might even refer to the Hitler Youth as ‘cadets’ not sure yet. It’s a mechanical work of genius how that mech works.

What I’m really interested in is that period pre WW1 in Germany, when the precision hand made gallery guns of the late 1800’s were falling out of favour, and over in the U.K. we were going nuts over Bell target with LJ BSA’s.
I wonder if the Schutzenfest’s had an airgun section, or people shot short range Airguns in clubs.

I know that arms restrictions combined with the German tradition of competitive target shooting led to the development of 10m match rifles but pre ww1 is a bit of a transitional period from gallery guns to German LJ BSA clones.

My 1902/03 Oscar Will catalogue still has gallery guns for sale, so maybe that tradition carried on till WW1?
Cheers,
Matt

Matt

As I said earlier, it’s a really interesting question, about which there seems, sadly, to be a dearth of information in English.

I do wonder how much German airgun production from 1900-14 and 1919-39 was aimed at their domestic market, and how much (especially in the dire economic straits of the 1920s, and the Versailles restrictions on arms production) was intended for export.

Maybe while our ancestors were doing bell target in the pub, or using “Morris tubes” under the railway arches, our Teutonic cousins were mostly just doing some light garden plinking?

The Hitler Youth thing is a judgement call, isn’t it? Myself, I wouldn’t try to euphemise them as cadets or scouts or whatever. They were a function of an evil genocidal state trying to turn its young men into murderous robots.

[ptdunk]

The Hitler Youth thing is a judgement call, isn’t it? Myself, I wouldn’t try to euphemise them as cadets or scouts or whatever. They were a function of an evil genocidal state trying to turn its young men into murderous robots.

I think you are right, and to be honest I don’t even want to say the words ‘Hitler Youth’ in any of my videos.
I think ‘German military trainer’ will have to suffice. Luckily my ‘33 is the senior version so maybe no need to mention it.

Cheers,
Matt

[Geezer]

I think you are right, and to be honest I don’t even want to say the words ‘Hitler Youth’ in any of my videos.
I think ‘German military trainer’ will have to suffice. Luckily my ‘33 is the senior version so maybe no need to mention it.

Cheers,
Matt

I think we’re in similar places. But -and I ought to know, sorry - were they actually used for training either the regular army or the Waffen SS? If not, it’s not a “military trainer”. It’s a relic from a very perverted version of the Boy Scouts.

I will shut up soon, but I have never liked the small sub-set of militaria/gun collectors who seem to like Nazi stuff because it’s Nazi.

There are undoubtedly German things from 1933-45 that are of huge historical interest, both because of their use in the war, and because they broke new ground and hugely influenced post-war developments (anything from the MP43 through the MG42 to the V2 rocket, Me262, or the type XXI submarine).

But the idea that a thing (say a Luger, in countries where they may be owned) is more desirable/valuable if it has a swastika or a totenkopf or whatever on it is just, well, sorry, but, actually sick. That Luger may have been used to shoot kneeling Jews in the back of the head.

[ptdunk]

I think we’re in similar places. But -and I ought to know, sorry - were they actually used for training either the regular army or the Waffen SS? If not, it’s not a “military trainer”. It’s a relic from a very perverted version of the Boy Scouts.

I think based on this Haenel ad the 33 ‘senior’ was still designed with youngsters in mind:

https://www.waffencenter-gotha.de/sh...aft:::168.html

(It is a 33 senior featured, not the junior model, and note the youths are in uniform clothing) that’s not your say it was never used by adults as a trainer, I just don’t know.



It’s fair to say I like this rifle despite its connection to said youths not because of it.
It’s a sensitive area, but having taken mine apart and seen how it actually works I’m really keen to explain the mechanism in a video, as it is a genius design.

Cheers,
Matt