[Sticky] Linden & Funke model 52 - connection with Falke underlevers?

Linden & Funke model 52 - connection with Falke underlevers? 

Falke 80 (top), LUFI 52 (bottom):

These rifles bear an uncanny resemblance and were apparently introduced in the same year, 1952. They both have curved, concealed underlevers and very similar sloping trigger blocks, similar to the BSA Airsporter, which was launched in Britain a few years earlier. There are relatively minor differences in the mechanisms used to retain the underlevers and in the location of the stock screws. The rearsights - on both brands nicely machined units - are similar but different designs.

The Anschutz LG54 (basis for the Hakim military trainer) is also very similar.

More significantly, the Linden & Funke (LUFI) 52 has a fully automatic loading tap, in which the tap is both opened and closed by the cocking lever, not semi-automatic, manually closed by the operator after loading like on the Falke.

But what makes a connection between the designs of both seem much more likely is that LUFI 52s have now turned up with rear sight fixed in front of the loading port, as well as those which, like the Falkes, have rear sights which move along dovetailed rails fixed above the cylinder. While the Falkes were apparently made only with floating rearsights, the first Falke catalogues (in 1952 and 1953) did show fixed rearsights in the same location as the fixed LUFI rearsight before being altered in later editions. 

1952:

1953 revised:

The timing suggests there must have been a connection beyond simply two companies competing for the same customers in the same market. The differences between the two designs also suggests some distance between them, perhaps a project that started with collaboration that then diverged some way into the project, yet early enough for both companies to tool up for separate solutions to the same technical challenges; with one taking good ideas from the other to build into later versions of its products. 

The companies could easily have shared an employee in common (ie. not at the same time). The factories were less than two hours away from each other by the steam train that ran along the line beside the Falke factory. Iserlohn and Bennigsen were roughly equidistant from Paderborn, the destination of the Bennigsen local train. (see here).

Of course the LUFI 52 maker seems to have decided a diopter sight was unnecessary whereas Falke chose to stick with the semi-auto tap. Time will tell whether a rifle turns up to disprove this statement!

My friend Eberhard adds (translated from German with Google Translate):

I see this a little differently.

After the war, the Diana works were completely cleared out by the English.

So all air rifles and air pistols (several hundred thousand), all D.R.P. as well as all DRGM and trademark rights, and most of the modern machines were shipped to England.

There are long lists of them (but there were no Diana mod.48 and 58?)!

When air guns were allowed to be manufactured again in 1950, there were no longer any suitable companies in the Western occupation zones.

At Diana, new air rifles (mod.0 + 10) and an air pistol (mod.0) were quickly developed and brought onto the market.

Many smaller, unknown companies tried their hand at copies of old Dianas and Haenels.

The English occupiers probably made the patents available to the BSA AirSporter.

These were certainly recreated independently by Linden&Funke, Falke and Anschütz.

In Switzerland they took a different approach: they bought BSA AirSporters straight away and converted them according to their specific wishes.

Lienhard developed the “LATOMGE” model, with a tube magazine under the barrel, the loading roller opens and closes automatically.

LienhardATOMatischGEwehr:

For more pics of the LATOMGE, see here:

https://forum.vintageairgunsgallery.com/post-war-bsa-airguns/custom-bsa-airsporter/#post-9306