doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Combination gun for pheasants/deer?

I used to have to same dilemma and as a poor college student in Alaksa I used to carry my heavy Stevens 311 12 bore, and have a light Mosin-Nagant carbine slung on my back. Man that was heavy...

Years later, with less energy and slightly more money I've more on to an old Merkel drilling in 16/16/7x65r. If you want the drilling to handle well the 16s and 20s handle better than the 12s in my limited experience.

Its been my go to gun since I got it!

If you could get your hands on one of the Valmet O/Us that was mentioned above, and found you liked the way it handled, it would be ideal. I have a close friend who owns two, and has used them for years. The rifled barrel on the Valmets are much more accurate than you would think. A whole lot more quality there than with say, a Baikal.

SRH

Some years ago I went on a deer hunt in the Adirondacks, we packed in on horseback to a camp about 12 miles in from the roads.

I brought a rifle for deer and a SxS for grouse. Whenever I was out chasing deer with the rifle I would see nothing but grouse, when I decided to pot some grouse and carry the SxS I was jumping deer.

When I got back I started looking for a drilling, the next year year I found a lovely 16x16 over 8x57 Nimrod.

I carried it on my next Adirondack trip and saw nothing but snow and tracks for 4 days , but at least I have a nice drilling....

I agree with Stan that the Valmet O/U combination guns are very accurate as rifles. My .308, loaded with a .300 Savage handload of 3031 and a 170 gr. Silvertip ".30-30" bullet, will group 3 shots under an inch at 100 yards every time; many groups are smaller (this is my go-to handload in .30-40s also--doesn't kick but kills). I can do almost as well with a 168 gr. GC bullet cast of wheelweights (which are becoming a rare commodity in CA). It will not hold this accuracy for five shots, but this is strictly a hunting gun.

Problems: the Valmets, both the "Savage" and Valmet-branded 2400s and the later Valmet and Tikka 412s are not ideal bird guns. You only get one shot. They are very short and heavy for their length (especially the 412) and don't swing well, although they point well for most shooters. They tend to have a stock more like a rifle than a shotgun, and don't fit all wingshooters very well. And many rifle shooters, including almost all the old ones, need a scope. Many people find the scope impedes their wingshooting a great deal. Since they were originally designed to shoot birds "on the sit" (like we shoot turkeys), the shotgun barrel tends to be choked full, full, full. That can be fixed with a choke tube but be sure to remind your gunsmith that Valmet barrels are tougher than the proverbial woodpecker lips before he wrecks a reamer or two, and possibly your barrel.

I tried to solve the sighting problem by scoping my 2400 with a Weaver V-3, which has enough magnification for woods rifle shooting and can be turned down to 1X for shooting the shotgun. But while it works fine for the rifle barrel, I'm just put off by the scope on a shotgun barrel, and it makes the gun swing even more slowly. NOT a birdgun in my hands.

So I retired the 2400 from dual bird/deer duty. It would make a great turkey gun in areas where you can use both a rifle and shotgun. It makes a great single shot rifle and that's what I use it for. If you were hunting something that might bite back like black bears or wild pigs, it would be VERY nice to have the shotgun barrel stuffed with a slug or buckshot for backup.

Unless you can afford a drilling or a better-balanced combination gun (both pricey in my experience) I'd still go with a scoped handgun (if you are of Elmer Keith marksman quality, you can forgo the scope) to accompany your shotgun.

Slugs work in the woods, but out in the baldies where you hunt any deer within slug range is going to be running like the wind. The confession about shooting a whitetail with birdshot above aside (and that deer was flying, not running) I don't shoot at running deer; my last experience when I was a teenager led me to forgo those shots. They seldom end well.

I envy you your hunts in the Breaks, although I'm not mobile enough for that stuff any more. Good times....Good luck!

Great stuff Mike, thank you. I'm going to try patterning some slugs to see if that is even remotely an option, but if it isn't, I like the handgun idea quite a bit. A drilling would be nice, but it's hard to justify for a gun I might only need once or twice a year.

This is really personal and it comes from experience like Mike's. If I hunt well with a gun or rifle of my preference, the best that day for the mission, that's enough, birds or animals bagged are just a bonus. A drilling is too much compromise for me.

Well said King, as usual.

I have nothing but respect for anything that King contributes to any of these discussions. With regard to the drilling, I must respectfully disagree. We are all products of our experiences, and in my case that includes fiveyearsin Germany as young company grade officer. There, I became facinated with drillings, scraping together enough of a LT's meager pay to purchase a guild 16x16x6.5x57r. I took Huns, pheasants, hare, red and roe deer with it. It was ideally configured for stand or drive hunting where a load of sixes might be launched at a fox, or the 6.5 at a boar. There is lessutilityin the States, but to my mind, only because of restrictive game laws which often prevent a rifle on certain small game hunts. My current favorite is another guild gun in 12x12x8x57r. It is a true MOA rifle and I have broken 40 at clays with it. It is an exquisite tool for a multiple game environment (ergo the Blue Ridge where I hunt deer in the morning and kick up the rare grouse on the hike back to the truck). Rather than a compromise, it is a beautifully created tool for a very special purpose.

All this talk spured me to take the drilling dove hunting this evening



Only show one dove but the gun took lots more

Was shooting 2.5" Cheddite hulls loaded with 7.5 shot

No the 8x57R cartridge was NOT in the gun while I was hunting doves.

Mike

Mark, This would work.
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=249070767