By Larry B. Schuknecht
Very little is known about Karl Streng the man, or his firm. In 1999 Mr. Gunter Retz, a master gunmaker in Goldlauter at the time wrote the following to Dietrich Apel in response to an enquiry-
“Karl-Emil Streng, master gunsmith, born November 8, 1875, ran an independent business in Goldlauteer with 30 employees and apprentices. The business was located on Heidersbacher Strasse, right next to a restaurant (Brache) that is still there today. Mr. Streng died of a stroke in the middle of his work at the age of 46.(1921 LBS) He left behind 5 children, and the whole thing was probably a bit of a tragedy at the time. The eldest son then closed down the business.”
The advertisements for him first appear in 1905 and one authority gives a date of 1904 as the start of the business. Karl specialized in manufacturing Hammerless multi barrel sporting guns such as Vierlings (four barrel), Drillings (three barrel) and side by sides of both shotgun and combination configurations. Several of the advertisements show a under lever drilling the receiver and barrels of which were obviously sourced from Romerwerke who supplied gun parts to the trade. According to the Pape and Kellner archive, there is the implication that there was a Karl senior and junior, both in the management of the firm. Pape and Kellner also states that they made Drillings for Burgsmüller in Kreiensen, Paul Weiß, later the director of the Suhl Beschußanstadt learned from Streng. One source states that the firm closed around 1924 while Pape and Kellner gives a date of 1927.
The first three advertisement’s all appeared in the 1905 Deutsches Waffenhandler. The third shows the underlever based on the Romerwerke action.
The next advertisement appeared in the 1911 Deutsche Jager Zeitung.
The following advertisement appeared in the Der Waffenschmied and mentions a D.R.G.M. no. 247,569 for a safety and shows the drilling made on the Romerwerke action, and another possibly built on a Geb. Merkel action.
The Jan. 25, 1910 issue of the Waffenschmied carried the following report about the testing of Karl Streng’s single trigger mechanism.
“The single trigger device (Genial) from Karl Streng & Co. in Goldlauter near Suhl, which is legally protected to the inventor, was submitted to the research institute for testing. A lock was sent as a model and a double-barreled shotgun equipped with such a lock.
If there is a desire for a single trigger system, it must be admitted that the strict construction effectively prevents the defects previously observed when using the single trigger. If, as usual, the locks are tensioned when the rifle is opened, the left lock will immediately be reliably secured automatically, while in the event that the left barrel is to be fired first, the right lock will not open by pulling back a slide further secures.
The examination and several shooting tests have shown that all parts of the mechanism work well with each other and that the annoying firing of two shots at the same time is ruled out.”
The May 15, 1912 issue contained an article about single triggers and mentioned and illustrated Streng’s single trigger design.
The Aug. 7 and Aug. 22 , 1903 issues of the Deutsche Waffenzietung carried notices of D.R.G.M.’s no. 202929 and no. 205460 issued to Karl Streng.
