Andrew, Adolf, Jacob and William Wurfflein, a family of Philadelphia gun makers from 1835 to 1910. A zimmerstutzen. Auf Anglais, zimmer bedeutet "room" und stutzen bedeutet "carbine." a target rifle similar to the 17 caliber salon pistols of the 1850's. While they are rifle length, the hammer is connected by a toggle link to a rod that goes up the center of a hollow barrel. there is a cutout under the barrel, about 8 inches from the muzzle where one can place the percussion cap on the nipple. The actual rifled portion of the barrel is only 6 to 8 inches long at the muzzle. The hammer pushes the firing rod forward where it strikes the cap on the nipple about 8 inches from the muzzle, hence it is a rifle, with only a pistol length barrel insert contained near the front. Some are quite fancy with expensive peep sights and yet only require a short 8 inch ram rod. In a way, they were the original "in-lines" Some had traditional hawken or half stock designs with side locks and double set triggers. Mine has a revolver style box lock, but has double set triggers. A very few, had interchangeable barrels and could have an indoor .17 0r .28 barrel for indoor shooting and a 40 or 45 caliber barrel for traditional out door shooting.
Just as in some areas of this country and England, there are dart leagues and competitions in Taverns, in Germany, Austria, & Switzerland, there are still zimmerstutzen competitions, although they now use very low powered cartridges in the guns. For some pictures of modern zimmerstutzens and ammo go to
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmerstutzen. The ammo is very small and consists of a 4.4 to 4.65 primed shell similar to a cb cap and a seperately loaded bullet/pellet. These guns were developed toward the end of the muzzle loader era and were in their birth, muzzleloaders. A friend of mine once a muzzleloader zimmerstutzen, using a piece of a .17 caliber air rifle barrel as his rifled insert. He made his to fit his TC hawken action out of scrap materials . He shoots .17 caliber balls using solely a percussion cap. the toggled rod was connected to the flint hammer using the clamp that holds the flint.
