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Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 707
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Raimey,

The gun diagrammed in the bottom picture is NOT associated with the 8x58 Sauer and Sohn Express casting photo you included. They are two different guns.

The diagrammed gun is a 8x57JR. I took a casting and then used a dial caliper to precisely measure each location of the casting to make 100 percent sure it was truely the 8x57 and not some sort of very closely resembled extinct cousin. Of course, the 8x57 has a neck on it and looks more like a 7.62x39 or a 7.62x51 than does that odd extinct 8x58.

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Alright, Raimey asked for the "full story" on my foray into drillings so I'll try to abbreviate it as best I can.

About three months ago I decided that I wanted a drilling at which time I saw an advertisement for what I learned was called a "Henri Roux" style bottom lever opening shotgun/drilling. I then went onto Cabelas website for some other reason and ended up browsing over to the gun library and searching for "drilling".

Up popped a beautiful drilling that we'll call #1. #1 was a Henri Roux type drilling that Raimey went over the proofs in detail in another thread. The drilling had some rust so I did several home remedies on the gun such as using 0000 steel wool and gun oil all over the receiver, then used gun scrubber several times to flush out the dirt, and finally used a pink eraser (a gun engraver's trick) to thoroughly clean the engraving. In the end, #1s engraving was what I consider to be, fabulous. The shotgun barrels on #1 were really nice and clean with a decent 1" forcing cone and overall it was a lovely gun.

The first inkling of disappointment with #1 happened when I looked closely at the gun's stock and realized the stock was a crude replacement. It was checkered using a box cutter and even though the fit was pretty good, it didn't match the forend. Oh, and it was really short.

The second thing was that some of the screws were buggered because somebody opened up the gun with a flathead screw driver once upon a time.

Even with the problems above, I still loved my cabelas drilling they shipped in from WV for me. Then came the chamber cast which raimey posted above. The chamber cast was for a 8x58 Sauer and Sohn Express and I specifically bought a gun 8x57JR. I was more than angry about this point. The gun barrel was also really fired out with almost no rifling left in it.

The mislabeling was the final straw for me and I marched the gun back into Cabelas and said "you know how you don't do returns on guns? You do now!". They agreed and gave me a credit for Drilling #1.

Cabelas felt pretty sheepish over several errors in representation they made on #1 including the chambering error so they decided to make it right. They found me drilling #2 at their Maine store and they shipped it in to town for me.

#2 is a beautiful drilling with PERFECT bores on all three barrels. The engraving is not as good as #1 but it is still very nice. #2 also has a Greener safety which #1 did not have. #2 also had a beautiful bullet trap in the stock and 27" barrels that made me think this gun could be my standby hunting gun in the future.

Cabelas worked out a reasonable deal in exchange of #1 for #2 and I paid the difference since #2 was more money. Cabelas also appreciated that the gun #1 came back to them in MUCH better condition than it was sold to me. The pink eraser work on the engraving brought the gun back to life.

The next day I returned to Cabelas excited to get my gun and then head to New England for a family vacation. My wife and infant were in the packed car and I went in to Cabelas to literally grab #2, put it in a case and drive 15 hours that day.

This is when Murphy's law set in. Someone at Cabelas had played with #2 in the 24 hours since I had purchased it and through jamming the gun together and tinkering with it, they broke the lever spring on #2. Since I had already paid for it, Cabelas told me to take the gun and just send them the gunsmithing bill.

After driving through the night I made it to New England, dropped the family off and went into town to the Orvis Flagship store to see world renowned gunsmith Jordan Smith about this drilling. Jordan took the gun for 3 weeks in which time he did the following work: He removed the horn butt plate and created a 1-1/4" leather covered pad making the LOP 15". He choked the gun IC/M for me. He forged a new custom spring. $950 in repairs later, the gun arrived on 8/9 and I had the first chance to actually touch the gun I had bought a month earlier.

I open the gun case to find the brand new pad had been sliced and split (a $300 pad mind you!). The lady that packed the gun up at Orvis grabbed this plastic hang tag that held the broken gun spring and put it back in the box with staples extended open, right on top of the gun pad. During days of UPS travel the gun shifted and those staples cut that pad open severely.

Of course Orvis offered to replace the pad immediately but I decided to just keep the pad as it is. I have 3 lovely guns on the for sale list and I intend to keep the 1 or maybe 2 that don't sell. I didn't want to be without the drilling #2 in case it ends up being the one that goes.

The nicest thing about Jordan Smith's pad is that he created a 1/4" spacer and shaped it to the curved butt of the gun, then covered it and the pad in leather so the pad fits flawlessly, yet the gun has its original horn butt still and they can be swapped out since the stock hasn't been cut in any way.

So that is my drilling adventure! Now I have to go into Cabelas and see what I must do to get the $500 custom fabricated spring reimbursed that they were kind enough to break for me. (which Jordan replaced)

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Raimey,

I've uploaded more photos of the gun as requested to this site:

https://moritz.homeserver.com/PhotoViewer/album634135129003437500/index.xml

I still can't figure out how to extract a single picture and post as you have done for me in the past, but there they are.

I have a nice shot of the forend lug that shows the "St" we've discussed and the gun's serial number. (the action has no serial, only the barrel) I want to point out something in that same photo. Look closely at the forend lug and you'll notice a tiny dab of gold foil at the north end of the lug. If you look really closely there is a faint outline where there may have been more gold in the past. Why did someone put gold on the lug itself? I have no idea. But it does appear to be a gold alloy of some sort and not brass. (not 100% positive though) It looks like a faint outline of a shield on the lug... Maybe its nothing.














Last edited by Rookhawk; 08/12/10 09:31 PM.
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Originally Posted By: Rookhawk

In other news, the bore cast tonight shows that indeed, the gun is positively a 8x57 rimmed contrary to what the German Gun Collectors guys swore to me. They claimed that Henri Roux actioned guns were NEVER 8x57 and when proofed as mine is, were usually 8x57/360.

Well, I am that "German Gun Collecctors Guy". Rookhawk did not quote my then statement correctly, so here is what I wrote on July 13, 2010 when questioned about this drilling and Ströver of Nordhausen:
"I looked up the Drilling on the doublegun forum. It is a quite ordinary so-called "Rouxdrilling" as made by several noname makers for the trade in both Suhl and Zella-Mehlis. The Ströver one was proofed January 1929 and probably made in Suhl because of the word NITRO is in block letters. The A.Schüler / Palatia one on the same thread was certainly proofed in Zella-Mehlis up to 1911 because of the gauge number and the "731" ledger number.
I very much doubt this Drilling to be a 8x57IR (the rimmed version of the Mauser case) as these Rouxdrillings were never made for these (for the day) high-pressure numbers. It rather is in 8x57R360, a much slimmer case in the 30-30 class. If someone has rechambered it to take the 8x57IR it is an outright dangerous piece of junk!
Today I called the nowadays Adolf Ströver, Stolberger Str.9, 99734 Nordhausen, Tel. 03631 992119, and had a short talk with the 80 years old gentleman. Yes, the company still exists and is still owned by the family, but they call it "The oldest bicycle shop in Thuringia"! He remembers his grandfather was sort of a gunsmith too, besides selling and repairing bicycles, so here we have the classic case of a country gunsmith who retailed and signed some guns, but certainly did not make them. On April 3-4, 1945 the family home and shop were bombed out like 75% of Nordhausen, so pre-war documents, if they ever existed, are lost. As Nordhausen and surroundings were first occupied by the US army because of the Dora V2 factory nearby, guns sold locally by Ströver were liberated then."
CAVEAT EMPTOR!

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