J A Kuchenreuter in Regensburg

Kuchenreuter spring pistol c.1840 

Pics copyright Hermann Historica.

The auction blurb was:

"Windpistole mit Schlagpumpensystem, Johann Adam Kuchenreuter, Steinweg bei Regensburg um 1840

Brünierter, achtkantiger, glatter Lauf im Kaliber 10 mm, durch einen Entriegelungshebel an der Unterseite des Vorderschaftes zum Laden nach vorn verschiebbar, gravierter Sicherungshebel. Auf der Laufoberseite eingeschobenes Korn und höhenverstellbare Kimme sowie Signatur "I. ADAM KUCHENREUTER". Druckzylinder aus Messing mit Randgravur, Schlossplatte und Hahn mit feiner Rankengravur. Stecherabzug (defekt). Nussholzhalbschaft mit gravierter, eiserner Garnitur. Brünierung fleckig und berieben, Schaft mit kleinen Bestoßungen im Bereich direkt hinter dem Druckzylinder. Länge 51 cm. Johann Kuchenreuter (1794 - 1869) war Hofbüchsenmacher der Fürsten von Thurn und Taxis. "

John G's reproduction Kuchenreuter pistol  

With thanks to John G.

First pic: original (top), reproduction (bottom)

B J Kuchenreuter in Regensburg 

Barthololmaus Joseph Kuchenrueter (1782-1864), Johan Adam Kuchenreuter’s brother. 

Kuchenreuter - case for reproduction air pistol 

With thanks to John G.

He said:

There is nothing like a well-cased pistol or rifle, and there have been several fine examples shown on this forum in the past. For a long time, I have wanted to case my repro’ Kuchenreuter pistol, pictured below, but my search for a suitable second hand cutlery box on Ebay (my usual first port of call) proved fruitless. The pistol is exceptionally long (60 cm) and it seems they just never made cutlery boxes that large.

So eventually I decided that I would have to make a bespoke box. I decided to go a bit upmarket and use solid walnut for the sides and walnut veneered plywood for the rest, which unfortunately made it a lot more expensive than a repurposed cutlery box off fleabay.

The box sides were rebated, mitred and glued:

The plywood top and bottom were glued in place., and the top was then veneered with American walnut:

And the whole thing given three very thin coats of silk PU varnish, and fitted with brass hinges and latches.

An added touch were these restriction corner hinges, which are useful with long boxes and heavy lids like this. Not only do they provide additional support to the traditional hinges, but they also protect the lid against accidental bashes and crashes when you open the box.

The box was fitted inside with green baize, using the continental style of fitting, which is more appropriate for a continental gun. The general procedure for this has been covered in a previous thread (  https://www.airgunbbs.com/showthread...ht=pistol+case ) . I had already made various tools to accompany the pistol and the shown depressions were shaped to accommodate these snugly.

The tools included a dart extractor, dart inserter, ram-rod and cocking aid. Handles were turned down from walnut blocks to match the gun and case.

These were all designed for my own convenience, rather than historical accuracy, as there is nothing on record about accessories that might have come with the original Kuchenreuter air pistols. I like to shoot my pistol, which gives a surprisingly good account of itself with lightweight darts even at a range of 30 feet, so the tools were items that were intended to be functional and useful. Whether or not the original Kuchenreuter pistols came with a cocking aid I have no idea, and you can easily manage without one, but it does make the cocking effort extremely easy:

This is the final case with its contents:

J A Kuchenreuter in Regensburg reproduction test 

With thanks to John G. He said on www.airgunbbs.com:

Some tinkering with a repro’ Kuchenreuter pistol.

Steve (45Flint) recently gave me the heads-up that Beeman’s Kuchenreuter pistol was coming up for auction in August ( https://www.rockislandauction.com/ca...lotNumber=3274 ).

With an estimated price of $3000-4,500 (and likely to go for a lot more) needless to say it is not something I will be bidding on, but it did make me take another look at my reproduction pistol. It occurred to me that I had never really looked at its accuracy or power, so I decided to give it a whirl.

To the best of my knowledge no one has tested, or even fired, an original example of a Kuchenreuter in recent times, or if they have, it has never been reported, so we have no idea of how good these veritable antiques were as target pistols. As my repro’ pistol was made to be a very close copy of an original Johann Kuchenreuter pistol, right down to cylinder size, piston stroke and strength of spring, my tests should give an interesting insight into how these unique air pistols might have performed in their day.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Kuchenreuter pistols, these are dart-firing spring air guns which are unique in having an external V-spring as the power source. This spring is cocked by a hammer and the whole of the lock assembly closely resembles that of a typical flintlock pistol. The pistols date to the early 1800’s and were made by the noted German Kuchenreuter family, most examples being ascribed to Johann Adam Kuchenreuter, although at least one example is known signed by his cousin Bartholomeus Kuchenreuter. My reproduction pistol was closely copied from another original pistol, which was cosmetically different, though mechanically identical, to the Beeman pistol. The reproduction pistol and original are shown in the following comparison:

You can seen the repro’ pistol in operation in this video: 

The first thing I wanted to know was the power output of the repro’, but unfortunately I could not do this with darts as my chrono does not work with these. Something to do with their length I suppose. So I had to go down the lead pellet route. The pistol has a calibre of 6.3mm, just under .25 inches, so I was able to downsize .25 waisted pellets to give a sliding, airtight fit in the smoothbore barrel. The pellets were pretty heavy, at 1.2 grams, and using these, the pistol gave an average muzzle velocity of 140 fps. This calculates as a muzzle energy of 0.83 ft lbs, which is not bad for a gun that is much easier to cock than many air pistols. The relatively low strength of the spring is compensated for by the large diameter of the cylinder, which gives it a good sized swept volume. Presumably the pellet would then be propelled in what Gerald Cardew called the ‘blowpipe’ mode, rather than the more usual ‘popgun’ mode. In other words, the relatively large volume of compressed air can keep the pellet or dart accelerating steadily for the full length of the pistol’s long barrel, even though its compression may not be very great.

I next wanted to have a look at the accuracy of the pistol. With a power level of about 0.8 ft lbs Kuchenreuter pistols would not have been suited to shooting conventional steel darts. For example, a 6.2 mm steel dart weighing typically about 2.5 grams would leave the barrel with a velocity of only about 95 fps, which is much too low for accurate target shooting. So it is obvious that originally these pistols must have used lightweight darts. As there are no known surviving examples of these darts, I had to design my own, and after a bit of experimentation I decided to make them with a hardwood carcase, rather than steel or aluminium, in order to save weight.

This was the general construction of the darts.

Hardwood dowelling was drilled out in the lathe to give a cavity with a wall thickness of 0.65mm. A panel pin was used as the point. The flights were made by wrapping polyester sewing thread around two pins to produce a skein of thread made up of 170 loops. One end of this was glued into the dowel cavity and when sliced across this gave a flight consisting of 340 individual threads.

Here are four of the darts, which each weigh only 0.62 grams, virtually the same as an average .177 waisted lead pellet. It was calculated that with an energy of 0.82 ft lbs, the darts should achieve a muzzle velocity of about 200 fps, which is ideal for indoor target shooting.

I tested the accuracy of the pistol indoors at a range of 10 yards, using a 12 cm diameter target:

The pistol is heavy and I was most comfortable firing it two-handed. The set trigger was adjusted to a light let-off, and the recoil was small but unusual, in that the pistol pulled slightly to the right. This was presumably because the mainspring is right of the central axis of the gun. I am not much of a shooter but I was able to compensate for the recoil and get the darts on the target almost every time.

I then tested the accuracy more scientifically using a rest, and I was pleasantly surprised at the result. Consistently tight groups could be obtained, and the following is typical for three consecutive shots. Not bad for a pistol at 10 yards

So it seems that, provided suitably lightweight, matched darts were used, the Kuchenreuter pistols would have been adequately powerful and accurate for indoor target shooting, and must have provided a lot of entertainment for the gentry, justifying their obviously considerable expense.