doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Practical combination gun?

I find that people that disparage drillings most often either don't have much experience with them or the experience they do have is with one that is poorly thought out. Often, one chambered in 12x12x30-06 is erroneously regarded as the most appropriate, and then often with too long barrels. Such a drilling will be too heavy and unhandy. A 16x16x one of the rimmed 57mm long cartridges is much more appropriate, especially if it has 60mm to no more than 65mm long barrels. In addition, it should be scoped in claw mounts to be useful. After the scope, a 22 LR or mag. insert barrel and quick shortening sling are handy additions. Where I live, deer, bobcat, racoon, opossum, beaver, fox, coyote, otter, ground hog, Ferrel hog, rabbit, squirrel, quail, crow, and dove are in overlapping seasons. I have often gone deer hunting and come home with something else.
Mike

Not sure what you do with a dead otter…


Best,
Ted

Bock-Büchsflinte


https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=48ef46338efe197f&rlz=1CAVARX_enUS1061US1061&sxsrf=ACQVn0_RNvcl2xcSTJqrDU0B34ph1jj-ZA:1706656551320&q=Bock-B%C3%BCchsflinte&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiozvqLn4aEAxXkrokEHVgqAYAQ0pQJegQIChAB&biw=1920&bih=911&dpr=1

or

https://www.gunsinternational.com/g...un-222-rem-20-gauge.cfm?gun_id=102533424

I can admire the practicality of combo guns, but they are just not my cup of tea, though I tried one for a brief time, early on. When I go hunting all my focus is on the particular game species I'm after, and equipped for. I do not subsistence hunt. If I did I might feel differently about these guns. If I am hunting deer I'm after a big buck, or a doe for meat. I will not ruin my chance by shooting a squirrel. If I am shooting doves I have zero use for a rifle. If I'm hunting ducks I will not shoot at a deer that may present itself. I want ducks.

I'm not out there just to kill something. I'm out there to kill something in particular.

It doesn't make me right, or anyone else wrong. It's just how I like to hunt.

I also admire the practicality of a combination rifle/shotgun. As a "wilderness shack gun." My ideal of the type would be a 12-gauge 2-3/4" over a .22LR. Cylinder-choked shotgun tube. Shortish barrels. Ready to deal with anything non-deliberate.

Would I ever be likely to carry and shoot it? No.

Would I like having one at hand? Yes. I've watched a (probably) rabid and uniquely intrusive red squirrel try to chew its way into my shack through the aluminium screen door for a few straight days, and I purely wished I'd had a convenient ballistic way of, ahem, elegantly solving the problem. But everything I owned that had a firing pin was 235 kilometres away that weekend.

Back about 1990, I bought a drilling as part of a 5 gun deal. It's a pre-war C.K. Ansorg 16x16x 8x57R. It's a lovely gun with extensive engraving. It is extremely well finished with very fine checkering and internal parts that have a mirror polish. I love the selector on the tang to switch the firing control from right barrel to rifle barrel, while at the same time operating a linkage to raise the rear sight above the rib. It isn't at all heavy or clumsy, but I have only taken it grouse hunting a couple times in all the years I've owned it. I thought it would be nice to try to take a deer with it, but for many years used nothing but my flintlock for deer hunting. Maybe I'll have more time to play with it when I'm retired.

The old German gunsmith who had a shop not far from my parents house had lots of combination guns, piled up like cordwood. He had smuggled them out of Germany after WWII, how I'll never know. They must have been very popular there, but just never caught on over here. We do have some true combination guns, but seem to gravitate more toward stuff with multiple interchangeable barrels like T/C Contenders or the old H&R Toppers. He had a bunch of drillings, and also had Vierlings (4 barrels), Fünflings( 5 barrels), double rifles and cape guns. Many of them had incredible engraving, gold and silver inlays, ivory and intricate stock carving. The four and five barreled guns had some odd configurations and combinations of shotgun and rifle calibers. One gun to cover about every conceivable hunting situation is an interesting concept. I could only imagine the complexity of the lockwork in those. Having worked on a lot of German machinery, I find it to often be somewhat over-engineered. Sometimes I found myself thinking that if the Germans built tanks, airplanes, and U-Boats like the machines I repaired, it's no wonder they lost two world wars.

I've got time on my hands so I get to contemplate these oddities. I think Stans explanation is the closest thing to how I seem to feel about it all, and Fudds situation is probably the best argument for having one available. I keep thinking about the Luftwaffe's lovely pilot-supplied drillings during the second world war and how they might have been used. As a practical matter, the really nice drillings that I have gotten to see (and then hold) are pretty expensive and... at that point I'm probably out of the equation. Moreover, when I look at the Savage 24's online (and the one Ed just listed here) I'm just not captivated by them. The nicer ones are fun to contemplate though.

I have always admired the craftsmanship and engineering of the Drillings. I happened to find one in my price range last year and the Southern SXS. It did need some TLC and turned into an amazing gun. Its a guild gun from pre WWI with and underlever 16X16 with a 9.3X72R barrels. For my location in central NC it works great. 16 gauge is good for birds and four legged animals, the rifle is contemporary with the 30-30 that has taken thousands of deer in my part of the US so i dont feel undergunned with the 9.3x72. Most of my shots on deer are less than 75 yards and usually in heavy woods.

I was able to take my drilling on a quail hunt last november, it did great and i didnt feel that it was cumbersome to carry and it didnt get too heavy as the day went on. It felt good to take a 100+ year old gun into the field and use it for what it was intended for.

A friend used a nice drilling with a low power scope in Africa. He mostly hunted birds, but back "home" we used the scoped drilling to shoot clay birds. Shooting clays with a scope was actually quite easy and much fun.