Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Combination Guns and Drillings OK...Almost My Last Drilling

I had to sell my good Sauer 16/16/8X57JRS drilling to buy this, and sometime I'll replace it, but I NEEDED a Kreighoff Trumpf Dural drilling. This is the first I've owned.

It is in 16ga 2 3/4" and 7X65R with a 1.5-6 Zeiss with duplex ret. I'm having to opt for lighter weight guns now, and this dural gun sure makes holding my gun up much easier. It's experienced with hunting dings in the wood, but the metal is 95%.

It fits and swings like a good SXS double, made for me. As soon as the storms stop I'll shoot some groups and clays. I'm optimistic about this gun.

Very nice.

I don't like Dural except then I'm hunting, especially chukars and mulies. Then I love it.

Does anyone know of a Dural receiver gun that has actually shot loose? Never seen or heard of one.

This is a pre-war dural drilling from Triebel-Augsburg in 16ga and 8X57JR that I have used quite a lot as an upland bird gun and on a few deer hunts. It is still tight, so much so that I have to push the barrels down a bit to open it.

Neat drilling! Is the gold color a camera artifact or is the receiver plated with another metal (or is it my cataracts....).

Bruce, do you know when Dural and other light alloys first became affordable for firearms parts? AL was very pricey up at least to the end of the First World War; I wonder when it became an option for making guns?

I remember seeing some pre-WWI "modern" jewellery made from aluminum in a museum and reading that at that time it was much more expensive than silver at that time; a real luxury item. (About the same time some synthetic gems were all the rage and more expensive than the real thing!).

Dural was a luxury metal before WWII and started to become popular with the combination gun makers in the early 1930s. The dural guns commanded much higher prices and were a status symbol as much as they were practical. The fact that the guns were lighter, and the receivers didn't rust was no more important than the fact they were rare and expensive.

This Triebel is plated in 22K gold. I call it my "pimp drilling".

Dural drillings are more expensive to produce because everything that is critical needs to be reinforced with steel. Wear points, firing pin bushings etc. Dural or "duraluminum" is a high strength free machining alloy with some copper in it.

Yes I have seen one dural drilling shoot loose. It was a nice Sauer (7x57R 16 ga) that I sold to a loud lawyer in TN. He insisted on shooting max rimless loads in it, occasionally blowing primer pockets etc. Traveled a lot and hunted coyotes with it. I told him he would ruin a nice gun, which he eventually did. I told him he would never get another gun from me. It was beautiful luxus model.
I don't bring in a lot of dural guns, but do import a few as some people love them for the light weight. Properly cared for they seem to hold up as well as steel receivers. I just don't care for aluminum on my personal guns. The last one I shot was in 7x65 with a factory load and it was downright painful .

Thanks to both of you! I could see how the sighting-in process could be painful with Dural guns in the heavier rifle calibers.

But my experience of hunting is that the adrenaline blanks out the recoil when you are actually shooting at a live critter--the more stressful the situation, the less the pain is perceived. That's why shooting a light 12 with heavy loads at birds seems like shooting a BB gun and shooting a heavy 12 at trap with lighter loads can beat you up. Less shots in hunting situations and more adrenaline adds up to less recoil effects.

Sad story about the Sauer. If I ever get a Dural Kipplauf in 7x65R from you, I promise not to shoot .280 Remingtons in it!

Bruce, that gold plating is one heck of a way to save buying a can of Break Free! (Looks better than Break Free, I gotta say!).

It only took me around 15 years to warm up to the gold. It's a great gun otherwise, so I kept it all these years and now kind of like the gold. It has worn off a bit from use over the years.

I've got to see the rest of the outfit you pimp when hunting that drilling. It better involve breeks and poms.

The hat is out for re-blocking...

Boots?

You guys are such enablers. Have you no shame ?






Fantastic gun.

HaHa you are exactly right Mike about not feeling recoil when shooting big game. Heck, I'm not sure I even hear the gun go off . But I like to shoot my guns often that I hunt with. Usually sporting clays or offhand practice. I shoot them with the 22 einstecklauf for practice also. A light gun is harder for me to shoot offhand (I shoot a lot of ML matches) and I just don't like the look of aluminum recivers. But I have nothing against dural drillings, and those guys who do a lot of walking and carrying when hunting would sure appreciate theirs at the end of the day. Grouse or antelope hunting comes to mind :o).

Hey Luv, are you planning to shoot the game in that outfit... or just "knock em dead"?

Nice gun. I have a Krieghoff Dural-framed drilling myself, a Waldschutz model. It weighs 6 lb bare, and is a joy to carry. I don't find the recoil an issue - not enough to want a recoil pad (16/16/7x57R).

FWIW Aluminium metal was about the same price as silver until the late 1880s, when the refining process developed by Hall and Heroult made it so much cheaper to make that the price dropped over a few short years by about 95%. This in turn led to a wide range of new uses for the stuff, and development of new alloys. Dural, or Duralumin, was one of the earliest age-hardening alloys, with much greater strength than straight aluminium derived from the addition of a little copper and from heat treatment. The Germans were using it for aircraft (especially airships) and then other applications from about the second decade of the 20th century.

Thanks for the history lesson, Dan!

Unfortunately with the price of commodities in the toilet, I suspect AL isn't getting recycled as it should be right now in the USA.... I'm old enough that the stuff still seems a little magical to me! (And that's OLD!).

Actually, I blind them with it and slit their throats.


Honest...

Real hunters go barefoot.

Real hunters go barefoot. [/quote

And hunt with an asegai