doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Grouse hunting with 8 and1/2 pound gun?

I have been looking at acquiring a drilling for bird and some big game hunting. I hunt mostly grouse and occasionally elk/deer/bear or the random varmint. Most of the drillings are heavier guns in the 7-8 lbs range. How is it hunting grouse with a heavy gun like this? Is the swing too slow for the fast ruffed flush? Most my grouse guns are around 6 lbs or thereabouts. I know there are guns with duraluminum frame that are in the 6 lbs range, but I dislike the aspect of that frame.
On another line, what are the drilling features one has to have for a quality gun/experience? I am talking features like scope/open sights, safety setting like top tang or Greener style, trigger setting, sidelocks for low trigger weight of pull,separate rifle cocking lever/safety?
Thank you for your input.

Have hunted hungarian partridge with my 7 lb 2 oz DARNE 10 gauge, using gaugemate gold chamber reducers to shoot one oz. 12 gauge shells. No problem handling the gun at all.

Now, I'd be reluctant to use my 8-3/4 lb (with its 28" barrels) Lefever C in ten gauge for an extended walk in the grouse fields. But, I used it with the 30 inch barrels (9 lbs or so) for geese on Maryland's Eastern Shore this past weekend, and it handled easily standing up to shoot, including a double on geese. I had taken it out for a round of sporting clays the previous day, using the chamber reducers, and had no trouble getting on the birds despite the weight.

Key is how well the gun balances, with weight between the hands in my limited experience.

Regards, Tim

I hunted ducks and pheasants in South Dakota with a rather heavy 12 ga. I would have prefered my lighter 20 ga. in the field but I shoot the 12 better and the pheasant loads were quite stout.

That said, the fellow I was hunting with had no problems with a sweet little 16 ga. and 1oz. loads.

I roughly class drillings into two groups -- those that handle like well balanced doubles (longer barrels, generally 16 gauge and generally lower powered rifle barrel, no scope, about 6,5-7,0 lbs) and those that do not handle like well balanced doubles (shorter barrels, generally 12 gauge, more powerful rifle, claw or rail mounts for scope, usually 8,0+ lbs without scope). Both can be shot well on flying birds, assuming good shooter, decent stock dimensions, etc., etc.

I used a kombi for grouse etc. for many years. It had 16X67 shot barrel and 7X57R rifle barrel - 7,0 lbs empty, no scope. Sometimes it had 1X4 powered scope, sometime not. It was and remains one of the best balanced shotguns I own -- Killed far more grouse with it than with all my other shotguns together.

I never did find a nice 16X16X7X57R drilling, with claw mounts and 1X4 scope, that handled well as shotgun AND had a price tag I was willing to pay.

ANY drilling will take some getting used to, IF you wish to use it as a drilling, thanks to the mechanisms required for the rifle barrel. Generally much simpler to use as double, kombi or single shot rifle.

Niklas

I have a 16x16x9.3x72JR that weighs 6-11 and I managed to hit some bobwhites with it after I carried it a fair distance. That is without a scope.

Not as lively as a Purdey but not bad.

Best,

Mike

There is a man in Houston that for years has been shooting a ColtSauer 12X12X30.06 at Sporting clays and ZZ. All I can say is he has won some very big shoots. He also does well in wobbel trap flurries and five stand.I would think also that his gun was closer to nine pounds.

The big problem with grouse is that they tend to flush at the end of the day when you are TIRED. Come to think of it, that holds sorta true for all upland game birds--some stange correlative of Murphy's Law? The trick is to be in good enough shape to handle the gun when you've walked 7 leagues over gully, stone wall, and drift (and thru bramble). Most of us are now desk jockies, so saving a few pounds on the gun weight makes it that much more likely we'll get that gun up and bangin' at the end of the day. This goes "double" for chukars.

I also could never hit a flying bird with a scoped gun. When I need to hunt deer and birds at the same time (overlapping seasons), I carry a handgun on my left hip to keep it out of the way of the shotgun. Works well enough--I've got all three major subspecies of deer that way and a few injudicious coyotes.

Drillings are beautiful machines that apparently make sense in European legal/hunting environment. But there are good practical reasons they have never caught on over here, and it isn't just that most Yanks are poor and/or cheap (although I cop to both).

That said, a drilling that really doesn handle like a fine upland double, including WEIGHING like a fine double, oughta work fine. Say, a long, slim scalloped boxlock Sauer or Simpson or Merkel 16x16x6.35x52R....THAT, I could "get behind"!

How about safety button?

Do you handle the Greener safety fast enough or you prefer the top tang one?
In regards to scopes on the gun, I suppose you hunt for birds without it, but carrying in your backpack allows for a fast mount should you run into big game?

8 1/2# for grouse? Not where I hunt them. Too much one-handed carrying involved while crashing the brush. There are plenty of people that hunt open country birds (pheasants, huns, prairie grouse etc) with guns that heavy (although I am not one of them), but there's a reason most people go a good bit lighter for grouse.

Greener safety takes some getting used to, otherwise OK.

Those detachable scopes are not something you are going to have time to put on "once you see big game", that is, not unless you have found "big game" with binocs or spotting scope and now is time to stalk them. More often, scopes are attached once hunter has gotten to high seat (stand on game pass). If you are not doing stand hunting, scope may not be advantage.

I shot a lot of grouse with 1X4 scope set on about 1,5X. It is slower but, since I only had one shot barrel, I was always picking my shots in any case. I used scope for grouse and turkey for many years -- did not affect by take much, if any. I seldom hunted really heavy cover -- average distance to dropped grouse was well over 20 long steps. Practice on 16 yard trap with unmounted gun.

Niklas