By Peter Ravn Lund

All rights reserved. Copyright 2008/2009

Photos: Styrbech Photography

”Funk war der Mercedes unter Waffenherstellern”
(Hans Joachim Muller, Bonn, Germany)


One of the fine old gunmakers from Suhl, Germany
One of the seldom mentioned gunmakers in Suhl, Germany is Christoph Funk.
Allthrough this firm has been just as innovative in model developing and solutions on weapontechnical challenges as f.i. Krieghoff and Thieme & Schlegelmilch.
The historical facts are by no means well documented; but that follows the usual patterns, where the end of WWII in Germany resulted in the loss of valuable documentation as well as thousands of excellent hunting guns from the zenith of german gunmaking art.
It is not that easy to figure out details and historical facts from the german gunmakers production. Often you have just the maker’s product from which to work.

Christoph Funk Gewehrfabrik, Suhl, was founded in 1835. But many years before there were Funk-gunmakers in Suhl, among them A. Funk established around the year 1820 and a company that was active from 1820 to 1850 named Valentin Funk & Söhne. Valentin (1775-1850) was the uncle to Christoph (b. 1809) – founder of the company, who in 1849 was a ”Stadtverordneter-Stellvertreter” and from 1866 to 1873 ”Schützenhauptmann von Suhl”.


Funk and the drillings
A catalogue from 1939 with the company’s selection of drillings contains a lot of interesting information, that might change the understanding of some important technical facts in weapon techniques. The first information states, that Christoph Funk from 1852 until 1860 made drillings in serial production to be delivered to a large weapon company in the US. These were percussion guns and the writer of the catalogue text, who might be Ernst Funk (s.l.) tells us, that this could be the first drilling-guns ever made. Perhaps you might need a new understanding here, because the official story tells that the percussion-drilling was invented in South-germany in the middle of the 1800, allthough the possiblity to make a patent was not present in the state of Preussia before 1877. From that year onwards it is possible to identify the origin and year of all inventions. Another case is linked to the drilling-specialist Heym, who in 1891 got a patent on the 3-barreled hunting gun without external hammers and therefore stands as the inventor of the modern drilling.

Another correction could be the use of light-alloy metal for receivers. Norbert Klups tells us in his book ”Der Drilling”, that Imman Meffert, Hubertus Gewehrfabrik, Suhl, was the first company to use light-alloy metal, but Christoph Funk mentions in his catalougue, that he (probably still the company-owner at that time:Emil Funk) as the first manufacturer in 1933 make use of the refined SM Spezial-Einsatz Stahl  (Siemens-Martin electro melting process). It is steel with the strength of 55-62 kg/mm2, where ordinary receiver steel has a strength of 37 – 45 kg pr. mm2.
The better steelquality made it possible for Funk to make the parts thinner without loosing strength and thus making his guns lighter then guns with ordinary steel receivers.