Took the two oldest to the range after looking at some old pictures and realizing how long ago it was we burned some 22 ammo.
Hand drawn targets by the artist in the family and a plate machine make for some good fun. Even better using the two 22s that came down to us from their great grandfathers side of the tree. All serious when its about beating your big brother.







But it got all kinds of better when the good Doc showed up to prep two rifles for the trip to Dover Furnace next weekend for a little work out.

The drilling was in 9.someting by seventy something? And its a shooter for sure. Cool removable claw mount german scope and a very nicely done set of Iron sights. Drillings have always fascinated me. This one was no exception. Number one son got a crack at it after the sight in.



The day wrapped up with a few shots out of the single shot falling block. This was an 8.something about as big as a 30-30. A hair trigger if I ever touched one after the setting of the back trigger. A shooter for sure.

Big Smile out of son number one as his sister was calling the shots for him with the binos.






Now to try to make this appropriate to the forum, just how do you gun writers keep track of all these cool european cartridge numbers? Much more complicated than the old '06 or even the 257Bob��. I have to start writing down notes instead of shooting these fine blasters. Not every day you get to shoot a pair of pre war euro game guns esp. ones as nice as these.

sweet Woodsman.....

The woodsman has the box it came in with the papers and the brush. On the back it has my grandfathers brothers name in pencil and next to that $27. It was picked up at the shop in Hartford down the street from where they lived. Still has the waxed paper. We only get it out on special occasions. The marlin is a little newer and gets out quite a bit.
The woodsman is a favorite.

Did a little research and it looks to me like the drilling is a 9.3x74R and the falling block is a 8.15x46R. These make finding reloading components for the '06 look easy even in the big panic.
Any one here have a favorite load or tips on keeping these fed?

Nice pictures.

Is that a German Tyrolean hat in fluorescent orange?

Thats awesome. Got a link for that?

Looks like a fine day at the range!

As for European cartridges, their standard designations actually make more sense than most of ours. For instance, our commercial .224 centerfires have names like .22 Hornet, .218 Bee, .221 Fireball, .222 Remington, .223 Remington, .222 Remington Magnum (which is far less powerful than several other .224 centerfires), .22-250 Remington (even though it wasn't invented by Remington), .220 Swift and .223 WSSM. These days ALL of them use the same diameter bullets, but their names sure don't show it, and the rest of the name usually doesn't tell us much either, aside from "Swift" (it's fast, though not as fast as the .223 WSSM), and .22-250, which means it's the .250 Savage necked down. But you have to know that to understand it.

European cartridges are fairly simple. Take the 9.3x74R as an example: 9.3 is the diameter of the bullet in millimeters, 74 the length of the case in millimeters, and an R at the end mean the case is rimmed, as opposed to "rimless" like the .30-06.

There are some exceptions. The 8x57 comes in both J and JS versions, the J meaning a .318" diameter bullet and the JS meaning a .323" bullet. But that's just a historical note, like the name of the .250-3000 Savage denoting the velocity of both the bore diameter and the muzzle velocity of the original 87-grain factory load.

It took me a lot of reading on late nights to get all the US ones straight. Not sure I can fit in the hours of study required for the advanced degree in rifle loony for non US rounds.
But if I had the time and money a prewar single shot and a drilling would be on the list of next projects.
Sure glad the next double gun get-together is far enough away so I don't get any bad ideas.

Looks like fun!