doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Sporting Clays short barreled drilling

This past weekend my friends and I shot 5 Stand and Sporting Clays in Virginia near Mt.Airy,NC. My 16Ga SXS is at Briley's getting flush mounted thin wall tubes installed. I was intending to trade my 20/20-.270Win Heym drilling with 24" barrels and a weight of 7 1/2 lbs for another SXS. I decided to use this drilling one last time - the 2nd time I've even shot it.

Another point is that I'm 6'4" and wear a 52XL suit - yes, from all that is written about stubby guns and Churchill XXV barrel lengths, it shouldn't work and a bumblebee also cannot fly. The happy news is that the gun suprised both myself and friends the way it hit the targets with I.C. and mod chokes using standard 7/8oz No.8 loads.

I had recently added a 1" leather recoil pad to the pistol grip stock - the LOP became 15" and the gun now obviously fits me.

Frankly the gun handled great and I'm planning now on keeping it and using the gun occasionaly on clays. I tried the gun again this past Sunday at an other clubs 5 Stand - I got the same good performance - why fight it!

I think that I'm about to open a new chapter again re: the Churchill XXV theory. Possibly Robert Churchill did have a better idea for we older guys.

This is an interesting experience. I hope to add George's gun to my handling database next Sunday. There may be some insight as to why GP shoots it well in those numbers. 7 1/2# is a hint!

That third barrel provides an MoI closer to a trap gun than a Churchill style XXV ... ?

Balance of a "Normal" SxS is totally upset by the addition of the "Extra" rifle bbl of a drilling. Your short bbl'd drilling likely has much the same feel as a much longer bbl'd SxS. Just another proof that handling cannot be determined by bbl length alone. Many early drillings had longish bbls, but were found lakicg in quick swinging so over the years the bbls were shortened till most later ones have very short bbls (& a reputation of much better handling). In spite of many tales to the contrare, I don't think the makers were reading much O'Connor or being overly influenced by Churchill but working on input from the users.

What George failed to mention was his score of 24x25 bested 12 other Carolina Vintagers and a few Virginians.
The trapper had never even seen a drilling in real life. He was truly amazed that such a strange gun could be shot so well.
George showed up with some line like "I couldn't sell it yesterday, so I might as well shoot it." Boy! Did we fall for that one.
We split up into 3 teams for a 100 round clays following 5 stand. George shot the high score on his team too.
My guess is the gun is off the market.
Oh yea, it has a CHEEK REST.

Is that where the phrase "really drilling them" came from?


Sorry,sorry,sorry.

Well, this thread pretty much states my reasons for preferring some of the shortbarreled drillings, cheek peice and all.

Actually, my all time best grouse gun was a kombi with Lyman 1X4 scope set on about 1,5X. Barrels are 67 mm and that gun was faster and deadlier on grouse with the scope than without it. Yea, it has cheek peice and lightweight sling.

Must admit that one reason I got so many grouse with that gun was that I nearly always carried it when I went grouse hunting. Of course, I took it because I got so many grouse with it.

Niklas

This Sunday Rockman will spin the Heym to determine the MOI. I'll also shoot SC at another club on Saturday. This is turning into a fun project. The Heym drilling was mfgd in 1968 and frankly is still not broken in. I think the previous owner had a genuine closet queen. Who ever bored the barrels at Heym apparently knew what he was doing - the bores are mirror bright and did not lead up with all the shooting this past weekend. Chokes measure 0.007 right barrel and 0.016 left. I also plan to do some patterning shortly. More to follow.

I know little of drillings beyond what they are, but have to wonder if the short bbl thing is not much more due to mounted use. Ever try & use a long bbl'd gun from horse or mule? Not handy. Aside from the difficulty of removal from the scabbard, there is the mounted animal's head to contend with.