doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com BRNO ZH series O/U

I've been shooting a BRNO ZH-305 in 22 Savage Highpower over 12ga. The gun has been great, a little heavy but very accurate shooting sub MOA groups at 200 yards. The barrels are very well regulated putting the shot charge right at the rifle aim point at 50 yards. It has been doing well on coyotes for a couple of years. I just picked up a set of ZH-101 skeet barrels with forend for $150 that fit perfect. I'd like to turn this into an all purpose travel rig and am looking for a set of standard 27 1/2" shotgun barrels. Any leads on a set of barrels with forend would be appreciated.

Thanks

oskar

Oskar,

Sadly, I don't have what you're looking for, but I've always been interested in these guns. Can you touch on any interesting points about these Brnos and maybe give the weight and handling characteristics?

They have high mounted trunions so they can mount the rifle barrel on the top which makes loading/extracting the rifle cartridge a little easier. Changing the barrels is just a matter of pressing a button on the left side of the action, forends are semi permanently mounted, my skeet barrels have a screw, the combo barrels have no visible means of attaching the forend and is very solid, I haven't figured out how to remove it. with the rifle barrels, scope and cheek rest/ammo pouch it is near nine pounds, I'm guessing the shotgun barrels will run at eight pounds. It has two triggers which makes barrel selection simple which is really important using it as a combo gun. The safety is in the front of the trigger guard and does take a little getting used to but not any harder than a Greener safety on my drilling or left side safety on my Darne.

It is a very solid gun, like I said the rifle barrel is very accurate, the 22 HP is loaded by S&B with 70gr SP's and should be adequate for deer, I load 55gr Buffalo Arms 55gr .228 bullets for coyotes.

I have a V. Bernardelli Combo gun in 5.6x50R Mag/12ga that is in the seven pound range all up and just as accurate but I find myself grabbing the BRNO most of the time. With the extra barrels it will be the perfect travel gun, I spend months at a time traveling the west hunting coyotes and it will save having to haul a skeet and SC gun for my days relaxing which I do now.

oskar,
If Simpson Ltd. doesn't have barrels, I suggest you buy a shotgun from them and use the barrels with the combo setup, when traveling( I think they will fit). When at home, it will still be a "stand alone" gun. These guns are very heavy, but also very robust. Combo barrels were available for full caliber cartridges and are pretty easy to "scope", a combo set in 7x57R would make your "set" very useful.
Mike

That was my next thought about a full gun from Simpson. My combo gun came from Simpson with the original rings and I have it set up with a Leupold VX-2 1-4x20 scope for coyotes. I rarely hunt big game any longer and if I did it would be a dedicated hunt not something on my travels coyote hunting. I have a number of rifles, both suitable caliber bolt actions and drillings with 9.3x72 and 7x57R chambering's.

Thanks
oskar

I have one of those as a skeet gun, a 302 I believe. Not at all a heavy gun and the only downsides to me is that it is only an extractor (actually NBD) and the double triggers are of no utility on a skeet gun and kinda goofy besides. Not that crazy about the shape of the stock but it is OK in an un-modern sorta way.

If anyone has a recent kinda stock laying around I'd be interested in knowing.

Wonko,
My memory might be failing me, but if I remember correctly, either of the triggers can be used as a single trigger. T think you select the barrel by which trigger, then a second pull fires the other barrel. Apologies if I'm wrong.
Mike

I've also read this of the 300 series...though I've often wondered how that would work with a combi gun...

The front trigger fires the top barrel only. The back trigger fires the bottom barrel and then the top firing as a single trigger. It would be much more happy for me if it were the other way around since the back trigger is sorta clumsy to get to.
I seem to recall looking at it and changing it or eliminating the front trigger was semi-problematic
JMO of course