Modern ones usually sport large scopes (for hunting in low light) in Suhler mounts, so they just the ticket those living countries where ability to own more than one piece is difficult or expensive if not impossible. They are not "mixed bag" guns in true sense as most Americans think. Oh, I think 20x20/.30-30 with LW Kahles 2-7x in Suhler mount would be nice. It's the season for C-mas tree, grog,......and lushusly carved drilling.
Actually, the need to address a "mixed bag" is exactly why they exist and why they evolved where they did in central Europe. They are, to my mind, and to several generations of German sportsmen at least, the ultimate mixed bag weapon. Remember in Germany a revier (lease) holder is responsible for the total conservation effort associated with his lease (a lease which he is required to hold for no less than seven years). He, therefore, spends weeks in various highseats culling primary game such as roe deer, but also keeping problem poulations such as fox and feral cats in check. On a given afternoon he may have to take a yearling doe of forty pounds, a fox at 20 yards or 200 yards, a wood pigeon, or a three hundred pound keiler (boar). Dragging a shotgun and two rifles around to accomplish that is hardly practical.
If his lease is mixed cultivated crops and forest, he likely hosts at least one drive hunt each fall, and participates in several others. On these, game will range from hare, pheasants, and huns to that 300 pound keiler again. By simply removing that fabulous piece of glass from its removable mounts, he is now ideally equipped to deal with such a range of game. I well remember once manning a stand in a clear cut during a drive in the Spessart. I had a typical Sauer SXS and the fellow on the neighboring stand had a drilling. A huge boar marched safely past me a 60 yards and my colleague calmly put an 8x57r through his shoulder at about 80.
As a young lieutenant, I couldn't afford a high end gun, but I scrimped and saved and bought a well used 16x16x6.5x57r from a gunsmith friend and over the next several years slew everything from hare to a 500 lb red stag. Today, likely as not, I take a drilling with me to my lease in the Blue Ridge.
In the same way that the long stocked game gun evolved to serve the hunting styles of Britain, so the drilling became the solution for most situations in central Europe. They can be equally useful here where our complex game laws and seasons don't make rifle shotgun combinations impractical.
