Jaeger Rifle

[Mike Brooks]

So that's the new lock, eh? What do ya think of it?
It's hard to believe that is the wormy stock you showed us 3 weeks ago or so. Beautiful rifle.

I put in a real dull crappy flint I found laying around on top of the work bench and it sparks like crazy! I'm very impressed with it. Those damned termite trenches have all but disappeared.

 

[Karl Feldmeyer]

Mike,
This is the Jaeger I built about 6 years ago. I tried a lot of stuff i probably shouldn't have for my first build but it seems to work? I based on a 31" Getz swamped .62 and finished everything in the white and left it age with use. It has been put through the ringe in the last few years but works well. Oh yea, parts came from TRS!

-Karl F.

 

[Stophel]

Here's the one I finished a few months ago.

Very Prussian-esque.

CLICK ME

 

[Capt. Jas.]

Mike, Stophel,

I am not versed on German gun terms. This is a thread on my Germanic rifle. [url] http://www.muzzleloadingforum....php?tid/209676/post/445577/hl//fromsearch/1/[/url]

It has a 37 1/2" barrel. Would it still be called a Jaeger?

 

[Stophel]

I refuse to call any gun a "Jaeger"! :grin:

"Jaeger" means "Hunter", and refers to the man with the gun, and not the gun he carries.

There are German rifles with much longer barrels than 37"! There are the small caliber bird/small game rifles that almost invariably will have barrels 40+ inches long. I have seen only a precious few rifles that are attributed to Switzerland. They all have long (40+") barrels.

 

[Karl Feldmeyer]

I refuse to call any gun a "Jaeger"! :grin:

"Jaeger" means "Hunter", and refers to the man with the gun, and not the gun he carries.

There are German rifles with much longer barrels than 37"! There are the small caliber bird/small game rifles that almost invariably will have barrels 40+ inches long. I have seen only a precious few rifles that are attributed to Switzerland. They all have long (40+") barrels.

OK, let me rephrase that, instead let me call it a "european short rifle of germanic orgins".
There, that should keep the PC crowd from beating me up...at least not too badly. :surrender:
Karl F.

 

[Capt. Jas.]

Thanks for the clarification Stophel. I knew it went something like that but had heard it so long ago when the gun was made that I needed a brain thump.

 

[Stophel]

It's just one of my (many) peeves!

:wink:

"Sooner or later I rub everybody the wrong way" - Jack Burton

 

[Zonie]

Well, I don't feel too bad about calling a Jaeger Rifle a Jaeger Rifle. After all, it is a Rifle that was used by Jaeger's so, in my mind it is descriptive of that type of arm.

Old George Shumway seemed to agree with me because I note that after doing much research in Europe he wrote a number of interesting articles in which he referred to these guns as "Jaeger Rifles". In fact, he republished those articles in his book JAEGER RIFLES

Perhaps it is the leaving out of the word "Rifle" that is causing the distress?

zonie

 

[Karl Feldmeyer]

Excelent point zonie!
I seem to remember a regular feature in one of our favorite magazines "our Germanic Heritage" where the experts in the field didn't seem to have a problem calling them Jaeger Rifles, be they traditional or transitional.
No distress here.... :v
Karl F.

 

[hawkeye1755]

Here in Germany we say 'Jägerbüchse'.
So the translation is:
Jägerbüchse = Jaeger Rifle

Oh, btw, this is a 'must to have book' for those who are interested in the Jägerbüchsen.

:hatsoff:

 

[Mike Brooks]

That's a great book, everyone should rush out and buy one. :thumbsup: I use two terms: Jeager rifle and Germanic rifle. I prefer the later.

 

[romeoh]

Yep, everyone interested in that type of guns should have that book on the shelve. :thumbsup:
As far as I know there meanwhile is an english version of it.
I hesitated quite long before I ordered mine because it´s rather expensive. But now that I got mine I´d say it´s worth the money.

About the term I agree to undertaker.
The correct german word is Jägerbüchse. Jäger=hunter and Büchse=rifle

If I had to bet on the origins of the word I would say those type of guns got their name because over here the guns those days could be divided in the two categorys they were originally made for - hunting or military.
In times of war the hunters often took their hunting rifles with them to war. So it may be that within the army they used the word Jägerbüchse first - just to got a name to divide the guns.

About the barrel-length I´d say Stophel is right. Whenever I´m near a hunting museum in our country I try to find some time to visit it. And I´ve seen more than one old original that would be considered too long for a "real jaeger". But mostly they are quite short.

Among german hunters exists a word for a gun that´s not long and therefore can be carried easy without beeing obstructive. The word is "führig". I found no english word so far to translate it. "Führen" means carry a gun with you ready to use and "führig" is used for a gun that´s good for that.

Though it´s still a common word among todays german hunters I wouldn´t be surprised if it was quite old. Seems to me they appreciated "führige" rifles during the centuries and you can see this preference in the lenght of many flintlock rifles and in the fact that there is a special word which has survived within the language until today.


So far for our todays german lesson...
Sit down class. :wink: :grin:

 

[Mike Brooks]

One interesting side note....Every short Germanic rifle I've checked the twist on has 1 turn in the length of the barrel. Pretty fast twist in today's thinking. They almost always have very deep round bottom rifling and a deeply coned muzzle. I figure they were using light loads and tight patch/ball combo and weren't likely to be shooting great distances. They were depending on mass rather than velocity to do their killing.

 

[romeoh]

I figure they were using light loads and tight patch/ball combo and weren't likely to be shooting great distances.

Funny thing is they somehow still do over here. :grin:
Whenever someone asks in a german forum for the right load for his ML he even nowadays gets suggestions for a tighter patch/ball combo and less powder than he´d get it here.
That´s one thing I notice again and again since beeing a member here.
But that´s IMHO not only because of some traditional thinking. It´s also because 99% ML-shooting in germany is target shooting.

They were depending on mass rather than velocity to do their killing.

Definetly they did. There wasn´t much hunting without returning home the same day. So they hadn´t to worry about how much weight they carried with them.

 

[Stophel]

"Fuehrig" (I can't type umlauts)---"carryable", how's that? :grin:

For the really short rifles, the term "Stutzen" is used. I have no clue what the word means. Often they are called "Saustutzen", ostensibly meant for hunting wild pigs in heavy cover. I have one from about 1830 on my photo album somewhere with a 16" .60-some odd caliber barrel. The twist rate is about one turn in 32".

 

[romeoh]

:hmm: Carryable - why not? :thumbsup: I have no better suggestion.

And "Stutzen", well, another old word. Hunters still use it and this means a short rifle. "Führig" and "Stutzen" is often used together - "Führiger Stutzen"
"stutzen" means someting like "cut back to size" if I had to give my own definition. Besides to describe that gun-type the word is often used when you talk about cutting plants like roses or fruit-trees or hedges.

DICT, a good online-translation side suggests carbine for the translation ( Dict-result for stutzen )but I´m not happy with that.
Carbine exists also as the german word "Karabiner".
Carbine to me is the word for a short military rifle and "Stutzen" describes a short hunting rifle.
Maybe we have it here again the distinction between hunting and military gun. :hmm:


And Sau means pig, you´re right, a saustutzen is for hunting wild pigs.

 

[paulvallandigham]

nd " Sau " is pronounced " Sow ", too, rather than the slightly bastardized English version of ' Sau-sage" where we pronounce the first syllable as " Saw ". " Sausage " means spiced pork.

 

[benvenuto]

Carbines were originally only a little shorter than fusils or muskets. For example in Spain in the 18th century, the infantry fusils were 44 1/2 inches and the carbines 39 inches. At the end of the 18th century, really short carbines began to be issued to troops and they 18-20 inches barrel but were called in spanish "tercerola" (no idea of the origins of this word) rather than "carabina". So maybe its the same for Karabiner vs. Stutzen? :hmm:

 

[romeoh]

AFAIK Terzerol is an italian word. And it found it´s way in few languages. Germans associate with Terzerol a small pistol, usually percussion, which was carried mostly by travellers for selfdefence or was used in vineyards to scare the birds. Somehow relatives to the US derringers.

My spanish is hardly enough to order some food :grin: , so I have no clue wether terzerol describes the civillian counterpart of carabina or not.