Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Combination Guns and Drillings DON'T Push Drillings!

Someone loaded up his drilling with hot loads and cost himself $3K. This 8X57 JRS was no doubt loaded to the hilt, trying to get 30-06 performance that can be achieved in a strong bolt gun.

This is a Heym drilling, Dural receiver. I've found Heyms notoriously loosen up under frequent shooting of regular loads. Judging from the hinge pin the owner was pushing the gun hard for a while.

I suspect the shooter blamed the failure on the manufacture.

WOW!!°
I've seen a few loose and off face, but that looks like it had a tin cup of Bullseye under a 200 grain bullet, maybe be more than once.
I'm curious if it loosened the solder joints as well.
What a shame.
Bfly

What a shame. Good advice not to “push” drillings.

I’d suspect “S” bullets were at play, maybe even milsurp loads.

S bullets don't hurt J bore drillings. S bore loads in some drillings that were made as light as possible if fired a Lot will loosen them up. The S bore loads were hotter. That's where some trouble lies.

Heym drillings are not my favorites by a long shot. Over half of the ones I've encountered were off face, especially the ones in 270 and 30-06.

This gun shows a history of heavy loads. It's an 8X57JRS.

Now that is enough to make a fella cry!
hate to see needles damage to any gun.

Hate to see that when all he had to do was get a bigger rifle.

Its worthless now

And in general I have found "a bigger rifle" (or cartridge) makes less difference than many hunters believe....

I think the point he was trying to make is that a bigger, more powerful rifle with a stronger action would have been a more prudent and desirable option than pushing this rifle and blowing it up.

He wasn't trying to get into a "general" debate.

Just my take.

Okay. Thanks for your take.

My point (whether it is "the point" or not) is there's a pervasive belief among many hunters who handload that another 100 fps makes huge difference in "killing power"--which is probably why he pushed his drilling too much. What other reason would he have?

I have owned seven combo guns since 1974, currently own three, all in minty condition. Two are chambered in 7x65r. a Sauer drilling, 16 ga. tubes, Swaro 1.5x4 in claws and a Heym O/U, also 16 ga, Martin Hagn installed another small Swaro for me last year and a gorgeous Gebruder-Merkel, 16-8x57jrs.

This is a "dream gun" for me, wanted one like this gif 60+ years and finally found it.

These are fine guns for "meat" hunting here in BC and I am getting ready for the season already........

My father in law hunted moose in northern Ontario with a Savage 340 in 30-30. They ate moose meat. Why push a rifle/cartridge beyond its design tolerances?

Nick

Of course, if the receiver had been made of a suitable material, it may have been fine. Other than say-so, I have not seen evidence that the gun was loaded hot. Only the failure of a weak gun. H&R's don't fail at the hinge. GD

H&Rs also aren’t chambered for 50K psi rifle cartridges like the 8x57.

That was clearly a case of an overcharge, not an issue with the frame material.

The Germans proof each and every one of their guns to a higher overcharge than British guns. That’s why they are typically heavier in construction.

This....

German guns, even old ones, will usually hold up fine to abuse from ignorant North Americans. A good example is a "no-name" combination gun my wife Eileen purchased at a local gun show around 20 years ago. The seller (who was running the gun show, as he does many others in the state) had a tag on it stating the rifle chambering was 9.3x72R, a straight-case cartridge, which was originally a black powder round about like the .38-55 in power--but which was popular enough to make the transition to smokeless. It came came a box of RWS 9.3x72R ammo, about half of which had been fired in the gun, and was light, beautifully engraved gun in very good condition. The marks under the barrels indicated the gun had been proofed for smokeless ammo, and Eileen talked him down to almost half the price on the tag.

I knew there might small problems handloading for it, but felt pretty confident it could be done, partly because Norma still made 9.3x72R brass, and once home I did some measuring of the bores and the 16-gauge shotgun chamber. It turned out the rifle barrel was NOT chambered for the 9.3x72R, but the 9x72R--an almost identical case which fired 9mm bullets, considerably smaller in diameter than 9.3mm bullets, which usually measure around .366 in diameter.

The bore and grooves on Eileen's rifle were just about exactly .35 caliber--which made handloading for the gun considerably easier. I ended up loading the 180-grain Speer flat-nose Hot-Cor, designed primarily for the .35 Remington at about 1900 fps, which has knocked the snot out of the deer she's killed.

Anyway, this gun is probably at least a century old, but had around 10 factory rounds with .366 bullets fired through it with zero damage....

Mule Deer;
Good morning to you sir, I hope you and Eileen are well on this Memorial Day Monday.

Thanks for that experience with Eileen's drilling rifle, I remember now reading about it before, but it made me wince just a little bit this time - again.

Other than seeing the odd drilling at the local gun show, we just don't run across them up here so it's all a foreign thing to me, in all senses of that definition.

Way back in the '80's we ran into a German chap a couple times who had I want to say a Zoli combination rifle - likely either a 6.5x57R or 7x57R with a 16 gauge under it - again if memory serves from 35 years back and so help me it might not.

One time I ran across a fellow with a Cape Gun which was .577/450 on the left side and 12 gauge on the right. I want to say that was a Belgian made one and quite old, but again that's a long time ago.

Anyways John, yet again I appreciate you and the rest here adding to my education by sharing your knowledge and direct experience with stuff I've never messed with.

All the best to you both.

Dwayne

Dwayne, etc.-there are FAR more of these guns here in BC, than most realise, they do NOT, however, hit the gunshows as there are better ways of selling/trading and so forth good guns than the typical BC gunshow.

I bought my Sauer mint drilling from Elmwood Epps site in late 2920 and both my fine "bockbuschflinten" from Reliable Gun, in Vancouver, again from their site and at VERY good prices, in 2002 and early 2003. The Gebruider Merkel, rates as perhaps the finest of the 200+ guns I have bought since my first Cooey, in 1964.

They, are out there, one simply has to know the guns and have the financial wehertrewithal.........

That 12.577 Cape Rifle. was probably British, as Alan Lever, used to stock a lot of that old stuff which he imported from the UK, for years.

Dwayne,

Thanks for your comments!
Thanks for your comments!

However, Eileen's gun is not a drilling, but an O/U combination gun. Here's a photo of the first deer she took with it:



Our friend Bruce (luv2safari) handled it in person a few years ago during a visit, and really wants it. (However, he wants to buy just about every good combo gun he sees, and Eileen doesn't want to sell it....) With the 1.5-5x20 Leupold it weighs exactly seven pounds--and six with the scope detached. She's used it with the scope off to take a number of upland birds.

Good hunting,
John

Later H&R single shots were available in 270 Winchester which is loaded pretty hot. They don't fail at the hinge. Guns with steel frames don't fail at the hinge. Nonetheless, the advice to avoid hotrodding these guns is sound advice. GD

I've owned a Merkel single-shot K1 .308 Winchester break-action rifle for close to 20 years now. It has an aluminum receiver, but the bearing/locking parts are steel, which lock up very well. Have not only shot a bunch of factory ammo in it but handloads that may have exceeded the SAAMI pressures by more than a bit. It's just as tight as when purchased, and weighs 6-3/4 pounds with a Meopta 6x scope, despite having hunted with it in various parts of the world in widely-ranging temperatures. You might investigate how the Merkel action works before generally condemning "aluminum actions."

Have also owned an aluminum-receiver Sauer drilling, a 16x16/7x57R. It worked fine with "modern pressure" 7x57 loads, and still does for its present owner, a good friend.

Aluminum is NOT necessarily a "weak" metal for centerfire rifles, if the engineering is done right--and I have yet to encounter an aluminum-receiver German gun that failed due to the "inappropriate" metal. And neither have any of my friends who've owned a bunch of break-action German guns with aluminum receivers, whether rifles or combination guns.

Have you ever fired one? Or even seen one?

That tilting block (or whatever it’s called) used in the Merkel and others is very clever. Sometimes I fantasize about selling a bunch of rifles and putting the money into one of those for my old age, but as a practical matter, I now have several bolt guns that run about 6.5 pounds all up and won’t break my heart if I drop them.

Not quite the same thing, but similar in principal are all the bolt and semi autos that use an aluminum receiver as a shell to hold the steel breeching. I suppose eventually we’ll see polymer used more frequently for that. Wonder if anyone had tried engraving polymer?🤔

I have not owned one, MD, but I have seen many and fired some. I don't necessarily condemn the use of aluminum for this or any other purpose, but in this particular instance, it is the aluminum frame which failed. Perhaps it failed due to an overload; perhaps it failed due to a flaw in that particular frame. I don't honestly know. On the gun, the bearing points are steel but the hinge pin is supported by the frame which was the point of failure. It's just an observation.
This is not quite the same as a bolt gun using an aluminum receiver because in that situation there is no stress on the receiver. In a tip up action, stress is transferred directly to the hinge pin, and thence, to the frame. There are numerous designs which do have additional contact surfaces in addition to the hinge pin, but I can't see that this one does. I would like to know what load or pressure was involved. I didn't intend to be a pot stirrer! GD

Right. I was just trying to say, “don’t try to turn a 222 into a 220 Swift or an ‘06 into a 300 Wby”. Whether it makes any difference or not, if you want extra velocity, more cubic inches is the easy way to go.” 😊

Yeah I want it! It's a gorgeous little BBF, a delight to hold. I also want your JRS drilling now that it has a better scope.

Bruce,

I suspect some of your "want" involves the detailing of her "little" gun, aside from its superb balance and light weight:

Any idea when it was made? That’s a real beauty.

Not exactly. The proof marks don't include a year, just general era from their specific style. I would guess its pre-WWI.

That should be Mine!

Eileen should have a nicer one.

Judging from the engraving it sure does look pre-WWI.

It's too old and is dangerous.
There's no ammo for it.
A BF is much nicer to carry than a BBF.



Kisses to Lena
...no more head pats for Eileen...