I have a prewar BBF guild gun that I just got in the last few years. It is gradually replacing my drilling as a favorite. I read somewhere, I think in an issue of DGJ that most of the actions for these rifles were made by a single maker. If I recall correctly, it was Sauer.
With the wealth of knowledge among our members, I'm curious if this is correct or if it's just oft repeated.
Thanks
Bfly

Nope. There were many makers, small and large.

Merkel made many for higher grade and best quality guns.

The contenental makers who built the vintage BBF's typicaly used their local reciver forgings and keep in mind that the better part of these gunmakers came from communities where gunmaking was the main industry.

What I'm saying is Suhl makers used Suhl forgings as Ferlach makers used Ferlach forgings. All of the gun making communities had a foundry that supplied the local gunmakers.

It is likely that the foundrys were owned by one of the larger gunmakers in the village. I don't know but it would'nt suprise me that Sauer owned the foundry in Suhl before the company fled the town at the end of WW2.

Gunmakers outside of these communities just had them shipped in. A Buchsenmachermeister from Munich might order his ruff forged recivers from Ferlach or Suhl or even Gardone,Ulm, etc. The trains ran in all directions so getting the materials was no problem.

Today many of the gunmakers have cnc equipment of there own and would have the ability to make there own recivers from scratch if they wanted. Still all those foundrys are still there and the makers are still bilding their rifles with their forgeings but I'm sure a lot of those ruff forged recievers get a work over in mill that at least have digital reads if not cnc.

You might be quite right. If one looks at the BBF and also shotguns from this area, the action seems to always follow a very similar style. Like you say, most likely they were sold as parts in raw and lateron used by the different manufacturers and gunsmiths. I feel that even many Ferlach combinations do hyve that particular Suhl look.

Maybe someone here knows more on the background of this theory.

BBF from Suhler gunmaker 1954:



Sauer BBf 1955:



Ferlach 1966: