doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion German & Austrian Sporting Guns @ doublegunshop.com Heym 26b opinions

A shop not too far from me has a Heym model 26 o/u double rifle, chambered for the .30-06, for sale, at not too bad a price. What troubles me about this rifle is it has an aluminium receiver, also information online about this specific model is scarce. An aluminium receiver and .30-06 seems incompatable to me.

Does anyone have experience of this rifle ?

bonny,
I don't have experience with the mod 26, but I do have experience with other Heyms and other makes of Dural frame guns.
In my considered opinion, you shouldn't have any problems caused by the Dural receiver. You may need to use the same bullet weight the rifle was regulated for; but o/u doubles are not as sensitive to bullet weight changes as SXS.
Mike

Thanks mike. I was worried more about rapid wear rather than strength.

My Imman. Meffert drilling is from 1935 or '36 and it has a Dural receiver. That's what, 81 or 82 years and it's still goin' strong and tight as a bank vault. It is chambered in 7 X 57R for the rifle barrel.

Sharps, thats good to hear. Somehow i assumed dural receivers were only a fairly recent innovation. I don't know why heym used aluminium/dural rather than steel, the rifle would be light even with a steel receiver, and its not a cheap rifle, so manufacturing costs can't be much of a consideration. But i will give the gun a second look.

And, how many times will the 30-06 be shot in 20 years?
Might look for a set of 20 gauge barrels?

Plenty if i have my way

bonny,
If you go back and ask to take the barrels off, you will see the wear points are mostly steel to steel. It will have a steel hinge pin, the steel barrel underlugs are locked with steel. While I can't verify(since I don't know)there will likely be steel bushings at the firing pins that are large enough to take the back thrust from the caseheads. Sharps 4590's Meffert, and mine are both made that way. BTY, Heym did ,I believe, produce a steel version of this model.
Mike