https://www.gunsinternational.com/g...o-12-gauge-8-57-jrs.cfm?gun_id=102637018



Anybody know what is the proper scope mount for the rails on these? Interchange with Baikal, Brno or anything obtainable? Hard to tell from the pics if there is a recoil stop slot in the rail. I don't want to rely on simple clamped on rimfire rings.

You did good on that!

Mighty fine.

ya,


GWB

I hope so. I've been itching for a combo to deer hunt with for awhile and have been waiting for a proper Valmet to pop up. I pray this thing shoots reasonably well. The Valmets can be "regulated", but with the "solid" barrels, I doubt there's any way to adjust this one. I'm not expecting benchrest accuracy, but hope the rifle barrel will at least hold a couple inches and most importantly, shoot the two barrels close enough to hunt with with buckshot in the 12ga tube. First thing I've got to do is settle the scope mount issue. I've got several scopes laying around that will work.

Looks like an 11mm rib, I had one and used three rings. They were too high and found an 11mm to Weaver adaptor it clamps onto the rib under the Weaver style rings.

It's a pretty firearm and I think you got a fair price but I was reluctant buying it because of the 2-3/4 12 ga chamber (not a 3") and that's a rifle caliber I'm just not familiar with

That is funny, only in America would someone look down on a shotgun because it doesn't have 3" chambers. I've been hunting most of western US with 2.5" chambered shotguns. Went to war with 2 3/4" shotguns. It will work just fine and for the 8x57, it's the German version of the 30-06 again more than sufficient for most anything in the US. It looks like a nice rig in very useful chamberings.

Link to rail adaptor. https://www.pyramydair.com/product/utg-11mm-3-8-dovetail-to-weaver-adapter-2pcs?a=4148

Use stout clamping rings.

As far as the scope is concerned, I share your concern for those rails. I hope it works well for you. People in my family have owned a couple of different European rifles with scope mounts that just seemed totally inadequate for the job. My father has a drilling in 7x57R under 16 gauge that threw the scope off every time he fired a shotgun barrel (this was one with claw mounts). But, it still shot to zero every time with the rifle with no issues. We tried doing some work on it and discovered that it had a crack in the mount. After getting a new mount, it still threw the scope. We eventually solved that problem by getting a much lighter scope (the one it came with had a 50mm objective and was simply way too heavy). So, if you don't have confidence in the mount, I think one thing to consider is making sure your scope isn't too heavy. When your weapon recoils, a heavy scope up on top of those mounts will put more strain on the mounts than a light one. To me - your scope does not look anything like the heavy monstrosity that was on my dad's rifle. I expect it will work well. But if you do discover an issue, I recommend looking for the lightest rifle scope you can find. At one point, we did have a rifle with a mount like yours, but I don't recall any issues with it. I guess it was stronger than it looked?

As for 8x57JRS, it's a great rifle caliber. It can be loaded just the same as an 8mm Mauser - which means you can hunt anything in North America with it. The hunt scenes on most German rifles are designed to give an idea of what you should use the weapon to hunt. Usually the ones with little roe deer are the smaller cartridges and the ones with nice stags are the bigger cartridges. Your rifle with double stags is good for anything in North America.

My family has used drillings and combination guns for white tails for years and years (although I personally prefer a bolt action these days). In case you aren't aware, you should bear in mind that JRS is something of a weird nomenclature. 8x57J (or JR) is the old .318 bore. 8x57S (or RS) is the .323 bore. Because of that, some gun companies load the cartridge way down to avoid catastrophic failure in the event of firing the larger bullet in the smaller bore. Get your ammo from a European manufacturer. The S&B factory ammo works really well in my experience. My family reloaded the cartridge for years and years using .321 bullets for a .32 Winchester in our .318 bore rifles (we never had any issues, but obviously not something with which everyone would be comfortable). Once the S&B stuff became readily available, we switched to using that because it is cheaper, easier, and accuracy is still good at normal open-sighted hunting ranges. And, of course, it will all be brass for whenever we want to reload again (my normal MO with any new rifle is to buy 200 rounds of factory ammo, use it up, then start reloading the once-fired brass).

My drilling is a J.P. Sauer 8x57JR made in November 1939. It is carefully marked on the top strap as 8x57JR. It lists the bore diameter in millimeters on the bottom of the barrel. It might be worth checking out the markings on your rifle to see exactly what bore diameter they list on the bottom of the barrel.

As for accuracy from a rifle like that, my experience has been mixed. My dad claims to have shot a deer standing at 300 yards firing up the mountain with his 8x57JR drilling. I have no doubt he killed the deer (we ate it), but I have yet to find a spot in the woods on my family farm where one could see 300 yards without obstruction. But we did have one other BRNO in 7x65R that wouldn't fire less than a 2-inch group at 50 yards from a benchrest. We tried factory ammo. We tried reloads. We tried to regulate it and discovered it had no way to do that. We bought that rifle cheap at a gun show. We sold that rifle cheap at a gun show.

I have a BRNO ZH304 that maintains a decent group - five shots under 1-inch at 100 yards. I was able to easily sight my rifle in for 200 yards using the scope and have the shotgun put a slug dead on at 50 yards. Maybe I was just lucky? When I carried that rifle hunting, I was perennially conflicted as to whether I wanted to have #6 shot in for a quick shot at small game, buck shot in for a second chance on a fast-moving deer, or a slug for close-range knock down power. I had one memorable hunt when I was about 15. I had set up in a spot high on a finger with a clear line of sight for about 200 yards. There were several game trails crossing the finger, including one about 10 feet below me. I sat there freezing my ass off, watching the finger, and sighting in on the various trails. I kept myself warm thinking about how wonderfully stable my shooting position was and what a great shot it would be if a deer crossed the furthest trail. Finally, I hear a crunch-crunch-crunch in the frosty leaves and to my surprise a beautiful 8-pointer comes up the draw to my right, hops onto the trail ten feet from me and walks right in front of me without a care in the world. I let him have it with the slug and he went down instantly. If I chose to hunt with that rifle again, I would probably just keep buck shot in it all the time.

Good luck with your beautiful new rifle and happy hunting!

I was thinking the same thing about the 2.75" versus 3" chambers. My family has used 2.5" chambered drillings for a long time with good results.

I am curious about the thinking behind putting the rail adapter on it. In my mind, that's not going to improve the stability. It is just going to put the scope up even higher. Yes, the scope will be securely attached to the mounts you linked, but those mounts will still be attached to the rifle on those 11mm rails. The only way I can think that this would be an improvement is if you put on a one-piece 11mm to rail mount adapter with multiple clamps. But I think that would look janky. I'd give the 11mm rib a chance before I started to work away from it. It will either work or it won't. Put a strong, but light, scope on the 11mm rails. Tighten it down. And then see if it holds a nice zero over an extended course of firing (and fire the shotgun a few times too).

The reasoning behind my choice of the little clamp is that as far as I could find there are no Low 11mm rings. With the little clamp on adaptor shown I could use low Weaver rings and get my scope down closer to the bore. The one piece adaptor with multiple clamp screw is much higher, might as well use the higher 11mm rings.

That makes sense. I have noticed a lot of European rings that insist on giving you the option to use the iron sights when you have the scope mounted. While I understand why you might want this with a combination gun, it does put the scope up really high. Life is a series of compromises and the thing that does everything rarely does everything well.

That's one reason I like the very strong BRNO mounting system. It gets the scope down low to the rifle bore and I have actually taken the scope off and put it back on and had it return to zero. So, for instance, on the days when it was legal to hunt deer and turkey simultaneously, I often took the scope off and used iron sights, while keeping birdshot in the 12 gauge barrel. When I put the scope on, I usually used a slug or buckshot in the 12 gauge.

Difference in height between one piece clamp on and little adaptor.



I use them on my CZ 455 to give me the option of any rings. They are spring loaded so they will stay in the ring set for removal.

So, it is high up and doesn't let you see the iron sights! Wow! I didn't realize it was that bad.

As far as the claw mount that keeps jumping out. Something is wrong with it the Germans have just about perfected the claw mount and have had little problem with them.

Here's a set of claw rings I made from a set of Weaver Grand Slam X-high rings to get the scope lower for faster target acquisition on my still/tracking hunting drilling




I do like the BRNO system but I never take my scopes off, I use low power variables and with the low mount and stock fitted hitting flying birds on 1x isn't that difficult.

These are 11 mm rings.

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1781248886?pid=473724#questions

The 2 3/4" chamber doesn't bother me in the least. None of the deer I shot on dog drives in my younger years would have died any quicker with the few extra pellets a 3" magnum would have given me. The 8mm Rimmed is perfect for my purposes and I love .32 bores anyway. I'm hoping the S&B loads will shoot well, in which case I'll hit the easy button and order a couple hundred rounds and be done with it. I won't shoot that many in my lifetime.

I'll decide what to do about scope mounts when it gets here and I get a better look at the rail. I'm aware of all the clamp on rings and adapters but want something with a stud, provided it has a recoil stop slot. I don't trust clamp on anything to keep from sliding under 12ga recoil.

The little adaptors have a set screw in them, that you can lower into a recess in the rib.

I have a couple of rifles with dovetails, and haven't had an issue with clamp-on ringmounts even on the 9.3x74. Admittedly though I also like scopes which are as light as possible, so no 30 mm tubes or big bulky scopes for me. I like steel ringmounts, particularly those with lever releases, from Lynx.

If you wanted to be sure that the mount won't slide forward you could drill and tap for a small grubscrew into the rail, or alternatively drill and install a small pin, for the front mount to butt up against.

Here's the rib on the Churchill. I'm going to contact NECG and see if they have any recommendations for a proper mount.

Well...on a Merkel, O/U double in 8 X 60R Magnum with claw mount rings I've never experienced a difficulty. The same can be said for a Vierordt SXS in 8 X 65R Brenneke with claw mounts and a pre-war Schmidt & Bender scope. Something isn't right with your mount and rings.

SCGunnut,
I would measure the rail with a set of calipers. I too assumed it might be 11mm, but it reminds me exactly of a Valmet 412 / Tikka 512 / Baikal (and others) rail which is 12mm. If you are lucky enough that it is then there are several good options readily available. Someone here even posted about a mount they were purchasing direct from Europe which was quite reasonable (I would have to look for it).

Here is a link to a page on optics-trade.eu with several mount options:

https://www.optics-trade.eu/us/mounts/shopby/make-tikka_512s.html

I was looking at the INNOmount as a QD option.

I wonder of these would work on a 11mm rail also?

I've been in contact with Optics Trade and NECG. NECG offers to special order an EAW mount from Europe ($400) that is for a Haenel J9 single shot. He says it should fit. It is listed as for an 11mm rail. Optics Trade has a couple options but their sources list the Haenel as a 12mm rail. Calipers show my rail to be .460", which translates to 11.684mm. I'm not sure that difference is enough to matter, but don't want to order an expensive mount from Europe only find it doesn't quite fit. I've got to get the gun paid for, then will figure out which way to go. Sure wish somebody in the States stocked them...