Anyone own a drilling?

[thriller]

Based on your advice and @MontanaGrant, I am leaning to one without a scope.

Fair choice but if you want to go to claw mounts later it’s expensive just fyi. They are fun to hunt with. Also you may already know this but the fast majority of them have push forward set trigger for the rifle in my experience.

 

[Red Leg]

I am not European, but I did live on the edge of the Spessart Mountains in Wertheim a Main for five years in the late seventies. The smartest acquisition that I made during that period was 16x16x6.5x57R drilling. It was equipped with a Sixties era fixed 6 power Zeiss scope in claw mounts. I helped a state forester with his shooting plan on a huge revier in the mountains. On any given afternoon or morning, I might have an opportunity at fox, roe deer, red deer, or wild boar. I usually kept a .22 mag insert barrel in the right shotgun barrel.

Every fall, I participated in at least half a dozen drive hunts where hare, pheasant, huns, and the occasional wild bore and fox were encountered. It was the perfect choice for those hunts, and the majority of Germans participating in them were also carrying drillings.

I have no idea how many roe deer (the shooting plan included a proportion of does and fawns along with cull bucks) and small game I took with that drilling but it was a lot. It also took a cull stag and probably half a dozen hinds. I know that it took thirteen wild boar from a a couple of good Keilers to assorted other Ueberlaeufers. The little 6.5 and M/F choke barrels were deadly.

Based on my more recent hunts in central Europe and visits to gun shops where wonderful drillings languish in the racks, it is clear that those very practical solutions to the ideal field firearm are indeed being abandoned. More is the pity.

In the States, I have only used one regularly in two areas. One was the Sabine River bottom some forty miles north of the Gulf. The area is fairly thick swamp which we would drift in pirogues. The typical morning produced wood ducks, woodcock and squirrels, but a whitetail buck was always a possibility. The other was while living in Northern VA where I had a lease in the mountains overlooking the Shenandoah. If hunting mornings, I would take the drilling and let my pointer have nap in the truck while I sat a stand for an hour or so. I would then retrieve her, dismount the scope, and spend a couple of hours working the ridges for grouse. Great use for a drilling. That drilling was a 16x16x8x57R which I still have. During that decade it took at least a dozen whitetail, numerous braces of grouse, several foxes and two eastern coyotes.

This is the drilling I used in Northern VA. It is a "Guild" gun built in 1939. Probably a GI bring back because it had mounts but no scope. JJ Perodeau fitted rings. They are magnificent creations and perfect for their intended use - now almost totally abandoned in the nation of their creation.

 

[CJNJ]

Hope I find one that nice!

 

[steve white]

I'm a big fan. I have two three barreled, one in light 12 ga. and one in 16 ga.--the 16 is actually a half pound heavier. I have a combo gun as well. All are 8X57 JR. I have killed deer, pheasant, rabbits and doves aplenty. My longest shot at a white tail was a lazer measured 250 yards--with a drilling.

 

[CJNJ]

I too am from PA but haven’t had it out in the field - only range.

Thought maybe I could hunt whitetail, bear, and coyote with less than full chokes resulting in 3 possible shots, one longer range with the rifle barrel and two close range with slugs through the shotgun barrels. Might be a fun change of pace.

 

[Red Leg]

On a drive hunt where boar were sighted, a slug was placed in left barrel. With the selector on rifle, the front trigger fired the rifle and the rear trigger the slug. Brenneke style slugs with the attached base are typically surprisingly accurate in most drillings.

 

[CJNJ]

That's a great idea, wish I thought of it! Basically turns the drilling into a double rifle.