Carcano's description of hunting in Germany today is correct. Listening to hunting stories told by my grandfathers, plus approaching 70 myself now, I have an overview of the last 100 years of hunting history.
Small game hunting and shotgunning is gone for good. There may still be regional "islands" with decent small game hunting somewhere, but they are exceptions, not the rule.
If I want to use my shotguns I need to go crow shooting.
The main game now is wild boar. No need for a shotgun barrel anymore.
In the last couple of years night vision devices and silencers or moderators became legal and were soon in quite universal use. No chance to mount these things to a Drilling.
Older hunters still have and use a Bockbüchsflinte or a Drilling, but what you mainly see are bolt action rifles with plastic stocks, often with the German over-engineered straight-pull actions, and often adorned with a silencer.
However: looking back the past 60 years I knew plenty of German hunters who did not like Drillings. These were certainly neither rich nor noblemen, and I grew up among them. So:
the Drilling is not the universal solution for most hunting situations, but a specialised and expensive tool that is suboptimal in most hunting situations.
Plus the loaded rifle barrel can be simply dangerous.
In the form of Doppelbüchsdrilling, Bergstutzen etc (with 2 or more rifle barrels) it is a potential nightmare regarding sighting-in and barrel regulation.
Up to now I have managed very well without a Drilling, thank you, and will never carry one.
fuhrmann
