The original purpose of the Drilling was to be a "jack of all trades", to be the only gun a hunter needs. Considering the hunting conditions up to the 1960s, it saw most use as a shotgun for fur, feather and waterfowl. On hunting hare, ducks, rabbits, partridges and upland birds only the shot tubes are loaded for safety reasons. The most popular shot sizes were #5 for "general purpose" use, #3 for hare and fox, #7 for rabbits, doves and snipes. On a stand, the Drilling is used most of the time as a single-shot rifle, scope attached, perhaps with a #3 shotload in the left barrel and an insert barrel in .22lr to 5.6x50R in the right one, a fox may appear anytime. I already described the loading for driven boar hunts. Drillings were everytime more popular in northern Germany than in the south, where, for lack of fur and feather, over-under cape guns were preferred.
Due to changes in farming and forestry, hunting in Germany has changed a lot since the 1960s. Hare, pheasant and rabbit numbers are reduced by about 90%, partridge are an endangered species now. Deer numbers have tripled and quadrupled since then, wild boar numbers doubled every ten years. So there is little upland bird shooting in Germany, those who hunt pheasant still abundant in some parts of Germany rarely use a drilling now, but shotguns. German hunters now have much more use for a repeating rifles, see the popularity of the Blaser R93, double rifles and dr-drillings. When I was a young hunter in the late 60s, a Drilling was the "dream gun" of most German hunters. This has changed. Drillings are a low priority now. Sauer & Sohn have stopped making them. As the generation of hunters active during the 60-70s, who could afford an expensive Drilling then, is diing out now, the used gun market in Germany is full with Drillings of that time. A then "standard" Drilling in 16/16/7x65R, claw mounted with a good Zeiss or Hensoldt 6x scope, goes for about EURO 1000.- at best, regardless of make, be it Suhl, Sauer, Krieghoff or Heym.