doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Small caliber drilings. how common?

I was out in AZ last month chasing javelinas around the San Carlos. The last two days of quail season on the reservation coincided with the first two days of peeg season and it crossed my mind that a drilling would be great to be carrying but my 8mm drilling seems like a bit of overkill for javelina. I haven't seem too many smaller caliber drillings, though I imagine there may be some 6.5mm's floating around.

Fast forward two weeks and I'm in a small gunshop in CT and I mention to the owner that I am interested in drillings and does he see many come into his shop? He tells me that a few months back someone came in and offered him a drilling that was 20ga over .243. Said the owner wanted $6K for it and he wasn't sure if that price was reasonable so he turned it down. Sounds to me as if it was a postwar gun, perhaps made for the US market, but I thought it would be perfect for peeg & quail.

Have you seen any drillings in similar small ga/bore setups?

I suppose I could always bring my Sav. 24 .22WMR over 20ga. but I'd rather have 2 shots at the birds.

Rob

Here in Sweden small caliber drillings are very common, most of them are East German Sauer & Sohns or Merkels made in 1960-1990. Usually 12ga and .222 rem or 12ga and .22 Savage High Power.

The most common combination by far is 12ga and 7x57R, followed by 12ga and 6,5x55 Mauser.

Quite a few pre-war guns were built in .22 Savage Hi-Power (sort of took the world by storm back then). The vast majority of them would be found in 16 bore. As noted above, one also finds quite a few .222's though I am not a huge fan of rebated rims in a break open gun. One of the most useful calibers in a drilling is the 6.5x57r. It will handle anything up to deer size game with ease and tends to make a very light package in 16 or rarely 20.

A Savage 24 with 20ga over .22, part of my aircraft survival kit, is not pretty but on those times when weather made time to fill the cylinder barrel and rimfire were perfect for filling the pot with grouse and rabbits. Not so hot for javelinas.

RR,
There's a modern Kreighoff drilling in 6.5x55 and 20 gauge. The combination of my favorite rifle and shotgun cartridges in one gun is pretty neat, but the guns are pretty ugly.

I think the 9.3x72 would serve for my type of little pig hunting; up close. The rifle barrel in these is relively light- weight compared to high-velocity bottle necked cartridge guns as there isnt much "meat" in the chamber area. A large, slow bullet might serve in a brush encounter too. Try the Nosler 35 caliber 225 grain Partition bullet, most 9.3 "Foerster Patrone" work with 35 caliber rifle or 38 pistol bullets. The 9.3 200 grain Hawk bullet would work too. Good Shooting,

C.

The .22 Mag. is the minimum for javelina and at 50 yds or less would suffice, I believe.

Ugly gun though.

Recoil Rob,

You can always go the insert route. MCA will custom make a 22 mag adapter for your chamber. http://www.mcace.com/rifleinserts.html

Also, I believe many of drilling makers offer full barrel inserts as well. Unless of course, you have your heart set on a new drilling. A .243 would be great round for javelina and serve for antelope as well.

You could look at the Merkel 96K 12x12x243 or the Blaser D99 20x20x222 or the Krieghoff trumpf dural 12x12x270

Speaking of the San Carlos... I came very close to doing a do-it-yourself lion hunt there about a year ago. Seems they have way too many lions. The reservation biologist gets daily reports and she is more than willing to share this information. The fees are some of the cheapest around.

Pete

Have a Hollenbeck 20 x 20 x .25-20 with steel barrels. Made early 20th century
Granite

At one time there was a fellow in southcentral PA who was putting permanent small caliber liners in drilling rifle barrels. Primarily they were installed in rusted-out rifle barrels. This might be a possibility to find a drilling with good shotgun barrels and a bad rifle barrel to make a drilling with a small caliber barrel. The germans are especially fond of the 5.6X50R for small deer. This is a rimmed version of the .222 Remington Magnum. Quite a nice caliber, but then so is the .22 Hornet.