Falke Mod 33 pistol description (+ pics)

[Garvin]

Something for the weekend. If you find it interesting please reciprocate with pics and a description of one of your collectables.

The Falke Modell 33 was the only pistol made during the company's production years of 1951-58. It was an original design that used an unusual trigger guard/cocking underlever, but it appears to have borrowed heavily from the pre-war overlever EM-GE Zenit (a design also incorporated in the Diana IV).

As you would expect from Falke, it's extremely well made, in steel and wood with a deep blued finish. The barrel is solid, in .177 and with shallow rifling. Even the stamped parts are made from heavy gauge blued steel.





Smart aluminium (?) decals are fixed on each side of the one-piece beech grips:



Various stampings on the top of the cylinder and above and below the rifled barrel:



A spring loaded catch secures the cocking lever:



The barrel pivot area reveals a complex mechanism:



At the end of its travel the cocking lever tilts a channel under the barrel that raises the breech for pellet loading:



A solid leaf rear sight with wheel adjuster for elevation. Windage can also be adjusted up to a point:

[Garvin]

The cocking lever extends over an arc of about 110 degrees and exposes the breech:







It's a pleasant pistol to shoot, not powerful but with decent balance and a suprisingly good trigger.

Finally two pics of a very rare boxed Falke 33 owned by another BBS member:

[Garvin]

Good guy Lawrie Amatruda has asked me to put up some pics of his fine EMGE Zenit pistols to show the similarities with the Falke 33. Lawrie says:

"Here are a couple of Zenits from my collection showing the similarities to the Falke 33, one is a fairly rare repeating version with a magazine on top, the only other difference i can see between the two Zenits is that the sights on the repeater are slightly taller to be able to see over the magazine."