Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters A. O. Niedner

A parishioner stopped in this morning for a chat. He's getting up there in years, and before long he was telling me a bit about his upbringing. He mentioned in passing that while his family was involved in the manufacture of fire hoses (actually I think that at one time they were the largest manufacturer of fire hoses in the world), he had a great-uncle who was a gunsmith out in Wisconsin: A. O. Niedner. Small world, huh? Does anyone have a picture or two of a Niedner rifle? I'd like to show him sometime.

Thanks

RM

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=511044033

there's a couple others on GB

Thanks.

Neidner was in Michigan after he started his company in New York. (I think New York is right... not sure.)

Anyway, he was in Dowiagic, MI for years until the company went out of business around the end of WW2. Tom Shelhamer started his gun stocking career workingfor Neidner and, after Neidner went out of business, went on to become one of America's premier stockmakers. If you examine one of the last pics on the link above, it shows "A. O. Neidner, Dowiagic, MI" on the barrel.

I've owned one Neidner and quite a few Shelhamer rifles. They are really "Pieces of Americana" and are rightly revered by knowledgable collectors.

Thanks for the correction. He did say Michigan; that was my mistake. Evidently A.O. was the mayor of the town as well. They were originally from Massachusetts. It's an interesting story as A.O. had no interest in the family business but built rifles instead. From what I understand he was a better gunmaker than businessman.

They are nice looking rifles.

I have some hand loading tools made by Niedner from his Malden, Massachusetts days, as well as some odds and ends stock furniture pieces that are slated to be used in my next build. I also have some odd parts that were from an experimental rifle he designed. The stuff came out of Michel Petrov's estate, he having been one of the premier collectors of things Niedner.

A good synopsis of Niedner's history can be found in the two volume "Custom Gunmakers of the 20th Century" privately published by Petrov. (Leftover copies can be found on eBay, being sold there by the guy tasked with disposing of the estate.)

Everybody who worked at Niedner's did whatever was needed to be done around the shop, although each man had a specialty. Niedner himself came in every day to work at the bench until the day he retired at a very old age (then he sat at home making trinket-like stuff). Tommy Shelhamer complained about having to spend untold hours working a hand press making custom .22 jacketed bullets. Interesting photos of the shop show a nondescript wooden building, crammed full of machine tools and work benches, and never more than a half dozen guys at work.

I seem to remember that Niedner made some 410 barrels for attaching to Savage 99 takedowns?

I have a .410 barrel for my .303 Savage. Used it in Quebec several years ago on a caribou trip. After we tagged out on 'bou I wandered around shooting spruce grouse with the .410. Don't know if Niedner made the barrel, though.

The ones I remember hearing about had a Niedner stamp on the barrel. A Savage made 410 barrel will have a Savage Arms barrel address. Have heard of a couple with no maker marks though.