Hämmerli 212

[CLASSIC12]

LGS had this cute little Hämmerli 212. It is called Jägerschaftspistole, and is used for a special discipline of the DJV, the German hunter's organisation. It is a timed event, 3 seconds at 25 m, drawing and shooting at the old silhouette duel target (thanks to Andyd for that info).

It is derived from the International / 208 / 215 series but simplified. It has low profile sights, adjustable for windage only.

As with many Swiss firearms it oozes quality and workmanship

My 215 for comparison

I took it straight to the range, and as expected it worked flawlessly

 

[krsmith58]

WOW, very nice. congrats, i looks to be in great condition. great catch, krs/kenny

 

[6string]

Very nice!
The sights are very similar to those used on the earlier post-war Hämmerli-Walther Olympia. The rear sight leaf is held in place, and adjusted by, two opposing screws on either end of the sight base.
Windage adjustment can be made with the front sight. On the early Olympia, the sight was held in place with a set screw which, when loosened, allows the front sight to rock in the curved base cut in the barrel.
For the 212, you can change the front sight insert for ones of different height.

Jim

 

[Andyd]

The Hammerli 212 is basically the updated version of the old Walther Jaegerschaftspistole - a version of the 1936 Olympia - but had the safety changed. Early Hammerli pistols still had the old safety that Walther and then Hammerli Walthers used.
In the DJV rules the guns needed to have a safety. The Hammerli 212 safety is quite odd and I took mine off a long time ago since I use the gun as a plinker only. I really like this slender little gun!



This is an early Hammerli with the old safety, that old safety works well. The new one doesn't work well.

My 212 with the safety

 

[CLASSIC12]

WOW, very nice. congrats, i looks to be in great condition. great catch, krs/kenny

Thanks, I’m quite happy I found it

 

[CLASSIC12]

Very nice!
The sights are very similar to those used on the earlier post-war Hämmerli-Walther Olympia. The rear sight leaf is held in place, and adjusted by, two opposing screws on either end of the sight base.
Windage adjustment can be made with the front sight. On the early Olympia, the sight was held in place with a set screw which, when loosened, allows the front sight to rock in the curved base cut in the barrel.
For the 212, you can change the front sight insert for ones of different height.

Jim

I didn’t spend a lot of time with it yet, but it seems to shoot fairly close to point of aim luckily

 

[CLASSIC12]

The Hammerli 212 is basically the updated version of the old Walther Jaegerschaftspistole - a version of the 1936 Olympia - but had the safety changed. Early Hammerli pistols still had the old safety that Walther and then Hammerli Walthers used.
In the DJV rules the guns needed to have a safety. The Hammerli 212 safety is quite odd and I took mine off a long time ago since I use the gun as a plinker only. I really like this slender little gun!



This is an early Hammerli with the old safety, that old safety works well. The new one doesn't work well.

My 212 with the safety

Thanks. While researching this model which I didn’t know, I found some of your older posts on other forums.

 

[oysterer]

wow...cute little...yeah right.

Never held one of those but the basic design strikes me very similar to the Smith model 41. Could it be that Smith got some inspiration here in the 40s or even flagrantly copied? Does the barrel release by dropping the trigger guard down similar to the Walther PP here as well?

 

[6string]

The S&W 41 blatantly lifts much of it's design from the Olympia. One difference is the easily detached barrel, which comes at the expense of a slightly higher boreline over the grip. Also, the barrel extension for the rear sight, while being advantageous for retaining zero, comes at the expense of ejection reliability.

By the way, the goofy trigger guard mounted safety on the Hämmerli 212 was added, I think, to comply with US import laws under the GCA-68 law. In fact, Hämmerli tried a number of equally goofy safeties on the 208 and 208s, those being built into the rear of the slide as manually operated firing pin blocks.
It's almost as if Hämmerli was poking fun with these devices, all of which can be removed by the user.
Fortunately, the ones made for the domestic Swiss market, as seen in the nice pictures above, are not so encumbered.

Jim

 

[Andyd]

The safety was originally meant for the DJV matches , not to comply with the 1968 GCA. That safety was therefore only on the 212. Hammerli pistols imported here officially had been retrofitted with a different safety.
The Walther Olympia won five medals in the 1936 Olympics. Incidentally a member of my old pistol club in Hamburg, the German General Hax, was one of those winning a medal with the Walther Olympia 1936. While I am old and feel old, that was before my time .

 

[6string]

The safety was originally meant for the DJV matches , not to comply with the 1968 GCA. That safety was therefore only on the 212. .

That's interesting! I didn't know that.
I wonder why, then, the pistol in the OP doesn't have that safety, since he is in Switzerland and mentioned the DJV match?
Was it possibly removed?

In "Hämmerli Pistolen und Revolver" by Schweinfurth he says:
"Die Pistole war für den Export auch mit einer Sicherung am Abzugbügel lieferbar." See attached.

In any case, I'm just glad they didn't add any such devices to the Hämmerli free pistols!

 

[CLASSIC12]

That's interesting! I didn't know that.
I wonder why, then, the pistol in the OP doesn't have that safety, since he is in Switzerland and mentioned the DJV match?
Was it possibly removed?

In "Hämmerli Pistolen und Revolver" by Schweinfurth he says:
"Die Pistole war für den Export auch mit einer Sicherung am Abzugbügel lieferbar." See attached.

In any case, I'm just glad they didn't add any such devices to the Hämmerli free pistols!

I mentioned the DVJ because I got this info from Andyd

I am in Switzerland and so is Hämmerli, so this was was not an export pistol.

 

[CLASSIC12]

By the way does anyone know when it was manufactured or has a source for Hämmerli serial numbers and years ?

 

[6string]

According to Ferdy Hediger, who was for a long time the company CEO and historian, most of the serial number records were lost in a fire at the factory. So, dating by serial number is problematic. Ferdy was the "Roy Jinks" of Hämmerli!
Especially back in the 1950s and 60s, Hämmerli had incredible customer service and great employees.

But, in my above post, you can see the book entry on the attachment indicates a production run from 1978-1992.

Going back to the Hämmerli-Walther Olympia (the progenitor of the 212 in the OP), attached are a couple pictures of mine. If you look closely, you'll notice that it is a left hand model. Rather than just slap on a left hand grip and call it "good enough", Hämmerli fitted these with an extended magazine release (see pic with slide removed) and a safety on the right side of the frame behind the trigger. Of course, the frame is machined accordingly. I have wondered if the "L" on the frame, between the hammer and mag well, denotes "left hand"?
The target shown is a 25 yd offhand target, not a benchrest target.

The third picture shows some of my Hämmerli free pistols from the 50s-60s era. There is a mix of right and left hand models. The left hand versions have a special left hand set trigger mechanism and use a left hand only frame.
The last pictures are of my Hämmerli "Luxus" model 105 free pistol, left hand, with carved grip and high polish bluing. The test target shows 10 shots fired at 50 meters.

Jim

 

[Heinz]

Thanks for posting. Hammerlis are precision equipment and I enjoyed the extra information.

 

[Andyd]

After WWII Hammerli agreed to continue production of the Walther target pistols and according to W.H.B. Smith, Walther Pistols and Rifles, p. 151, started manufacture in 1945 as the Hammerli Walther Model 200 or Olympia. From there it evolved into the Hammerli International.
The 212 differs from the International not only in the length of the barrel but the low profile sights, the pivoting front sight that is adjustable for height and the drift adjustable rear sight. It also has a shorter magazine release lever to fit flush with the grips. All 212s that I have seen have the wide trigger blade.
The Hammerli pistols were available as a 210 in .22 Short, in 208 configuration with the adjustable palm rest and as a 211 with sports grips with a thumb rest.

I guess, without having any proof, that the 212 was available with and without that odd safety.

Hammerli 211


Hammerli International 208


Hammerli 210, .22 Short with a compensator

Retrofitted with a safety to comply with the 68GCA

 

[Andyd]

In "Hämmerli Pistolen und Revolver" by Schweinfurth he says:
"Die Pistole war für den Export auch mit einer Sicherung am Abzugbügel lieferbar." See attached.

...

Schweinfurth also says, that the 212 was developed out of the 208. His comment strikes me as poorly researched and is just wrong. The Walther 1936 Olympia came in five variations, one had a four inch barrel, was not equipped with weights and had a J in the model designation. J for Jägerpistole and this was the gun that Hammerli based the 212 on***.

As I pointed out before, the Hammerli was not marked 208 but International and the model number depended on the grip option, this is manifested in the older manuals. The Hammerli 215/215S and 208S are marked with model numbers on the slides.


P.S. ***
This is also the model that Norinco loosely based its TT Olympia model on, just that they added the weights of the longer versions.

 

[Daimler1989]

@CLASSIC12
I always love to see those guns of your fine collections and your swiss shooting. Now glad to see there are some Hämmerlis too, some kind of a smaller swiss watch than a SIG 210. I alway loved the look of the 212, so classic and slim.

I own a Hämmerli 208 as well, but last year it started to give me troubles to feed and to eject. My gunsmith, who worked in Switzerland for many years, found out that the slide stop was broken. He could not fix it as the available new spare ones of recent make could not be made to fit properly Now I shoot it without slide stop, but I don't like it this way. Do you know if there are new old stock slide stops or good used ones available in Switzerland?

regards from Germany
Ulrich

 

[Andyd]

The typical problem with high-round-count Hammerli Internationals is that the slide stop pin is getting loose. The hole in the frame has been stressed and largened. The best fix is to install a bushing. FWIW, Walther had eliminated the slide stop on the GSP because of the exact same reason.

 

[Andyd]

I just wanted to add another gun to this thread and expand the thread to the common DJV hunter's guns. The Erma ESP85A is rarely found on this side of the pond but is an excellent target pistol and also exists as a short Jägerschafts model. It could be bought as a target model with a conversion, extra short slide and extra grips. The hunter's model had two different rear sights over the years and was quite popular in DJV and later German IPSC rimfire matches.