Henry Rifle Forums

Hi, posting alot as a new member but it feels like you appriciate guns and hunting here so I just wanted to show a rifle (depends how you look at it hope it fits the category in the forum). Anyway I got this rifle handed down from my father a few years ago. I have many huntingstorys to tell when he hunted with this rifle when I was young and followed him hunting. All memories like see him dive/falling into deep snow barrels first shooting his first lynx, hunted alot of white/forest hare with it with his old harrier. Waiting in the cold for the dog to come back late in the evening. Really nice memories. My father have trouble cocking the hammer because of arthritis in his hands, so he bought another one that have easier manual cocking system.

You probably know the feeling when hunting you sometimes wish that you had a shotgun or a repeater Rifle, well this kind of rifle might be the answer I see it as a shotgun with the capacity to fire rifle round. I guess its quite uncommon in USA, its a combiweapon called Drilling here in Europe its made by a company in Germany named Krieghoff. They are pretty expensive but the craftmanship, accuracy and quality is top of the line however this rifle is one of their simpler models. The rifle weight is 8.3lbs with scope on it has sidebyside 12gauge 12/70 shotgun and 6,5x55 Swede rifle barrel, it has manual cocking system, barrel selector and you can set a hairtrigger on the 6,5x55 for the long accurate shots needed on longer range. The scope is a detachable older Zeiss Diatal 1,5-4,5x18 with a ordinary crosshair. The open sights is adjusted at the factory to the 6,5x55 barrel with 156grain bullet at 100meters, krieghoff guarantee 3shot groups within 1,5" at 109yards with cold rifle barrel. With the use of rifled shotgun slugs with open sights it groups about 6" at 55yards, but in Sweden its illegal to hunt with slugs in a non rifled double bore shotgun.

This rifle is really a all in one rifle when I hunt alone, I use in on small game like roedeer, hare, grouse and capercaillie. But the 6,5x55 is allowed on all big game in Sweden, but I prefer a higher roundcapacity rifle for that kind of hunt but I can if I want. With the hairtrigger set I have accuracy out to 200meters on the first shot with good support but mostly I keep it within 100meters, however when the barrel gets warm the impact changes after 2-3rounds beacuse of the heatspread with soldered barrels.

I've only seen and gotten my hands on one Drilling .... that was back in the '60's and as best I can remember it was a 12 ga 30-30 .... the fellow who had it was a guest at the bear hunting club I was a member of back then .... I fired it at the club house and seem to remember it had a typical kick for a 12 ga 00-buck round ..... we hunted in the thick woods in the NC mountains and it made a great deal of sense

Krieghoff,
Thank you for sharing that with us. I've never seen that. What a beautiful rifle.

Hi ruler

Yes, I'm familiar with the Drilling, though I've never owned one. Have seen them for sale in some high dollar gun shops, though, over here. Impressive quality.

The closest thing we've had, over here, is the Savage 24 over and under double. Nowhere near the quality of a Drilling, but same concept with a rifle barrel on top and a shotgun barrel below, exposed hammer. You could choose which barrel to shoot via a selector. No longer made, but has been around a long time in various configurations and was very popular as a farm/utility gun or a varmint gun. Not very popular for bird hunting, what with only one shotgun barrel, but it's had a lot of fans over the years. When one shows up for sale, it is quickly sold.

North Country Gal wrote:Hi ruler

Yes, I'm familiar with the Drilling, though I've never owned one. Have seen them for sale in some high dollar gun shops, though, over here. Impressive quality.

The closest thing we've had, over here, is the Savage 24 over and under double. Nowhere near the quality of a Drilling, but same concept with a rifle barrel on top and a shotgun barrel below, exposed hammer. You could choose which barrel to shoot via a selector. No longer made, but has been around a long time in various configurations and was very popular as a farm/utility gun or a varmint gun. Not very popular for bird hunting, what with only one shotgun barrel, but it's had a lot of fans over the years. When one shows up for sale, it is quickly sold.

Ive seen some gunshows on TV and dont remember what it was but someone mentioned that combi weapon was really unusal in USA. In Europe its more common, often used on driven hunt with dogs choose barrel depending on situation and distances. Germany have makers like Krieghoff, Blaser, Merkel, JP Sauer & Sohn. Popular calibers are 20, 12 and some 16 aswell on shotgun and riflecalibers are often chosen in Sweden based on what you are allowed to hunt big game with called klass1. Requirement for Klass1 is it has to have a expanding bullet weiging atleast 139grain and reach 2700joule on 100meters or 156grain and reach 2000j on 100meters, it makes calibers like 6,5x55, 7x57r, 8x57 and more on combiweapon more desirable and more expensive on the used market. Other calibers that dont reach klass1 like 5,6x52r, 222 are often much cheaper on the used market on combiweapons.

When combiweapons are sold new they are often delivered without scopemounts (except Blaser have their saddlemount fitting on both R8 and their combiweapons) and fitting a detachable scopemount is really expensive where a gunsmith customfit everything around 1000-1500dollars over here where they solder the mount and grind down the mount the fit to perfection and take measurement of the shooter where he get sightpicture, height of the mount and such.

Coincidentally, the owner of the gun shop that I like had a conversation about these types of guns about two or three months ago. She had one pass through her shop on consignment. Price was $8500, I believe. Can't remember the make.

The Wiz wrote:Coincidentally, the owner of the gun shop that I like had a conversation about these types of guns about two or three months ago. She had one pass through her shop on consignment. Price was $8500, I believe. Can't remember the make.

Yeah the prices can be extremely high, my drilling is the simpler and cheaper version.

Here are krieghoff cataloge for those who are interested in their products: https://www.krieghoff.de/fileadmin/krie ... ch_web.pdf

To be sure, the Drilling is one tradition that never caught on, here in the U.S. and with those prices, I can see why. Our gun tradition is much less aristocratic. For example, finely crafted side by side double shotguns are pretty much extinct, now, in the U.S. gun market, due to the costs and the great ones from yesteryear are now highly collectible and very expensive.