The arrival of my Brno Combi gun this summer coincided with a reasonably turbulent period of life; what with unemployment, moving house and generally being skint, so despite having had it sat in the cabinet for 4 months, its only had two outings after rabbits and pigeons so far!

For those of you that don't remember, this was the photo provided by the seller:




Anyway; those few outings on pigeons and rabbits confirmed that the shotgun barrel does, indeed, work! However, both me and my GF's Dad (who had a go too) have struggled with it a bit; the open sights tend to confuse me a little, and, at the end of the day, it is a very short barrel with no discernable choke at all, so its never going to have the range and pattern of 30" with good chokes. Nonetheless, it is perfectly functional as a few pigeons and rabbits in the pot can testify!

Sadly, the rifle barrel took longer to test; owing to my inherent tightarsedness, I plumbed for S&B Brass at #6.95/20, rather than RWS at #20/20. There were issues. Of the first batch I loaded, only 3 would chamber properly, although these did confirm that the open sights were pretty spot on. The primer pockets were far far too small, the bases were of indeterminate thickness, and, as I discovered, break action rifles can be fussy about chambering and primer depth!

So far, I've loaded 35gr of H414 underneath a Hornady 175Gr SP bullet, as seen here:



Whilst the bullets are not the cheapest or the most modern design, they are far more in keeping with the gun and the calibre. It seems somehow wrong to load a gun like this with a light BT bullet, and, as its never going to be a fast cartridge, it seemed sensible to chuck a brick slowly rather than a pebble slightly quicker!

So, after no small amount of aggravation, I had 38 Rds of ammo, a day off work to myself, and enough spare diesel to get to my favourite haunts...



My 'range' is on a friends farm, which is also where I do most of my hunting these days. Its actually an old Home Guard range from the war; the remains of the firing points are detectable at the open end of the valley (To the right in the photo) and the butts were further up to the left. Once the sheep have been cleared out of it, the valley allows me to shoot safely to some 500/600m.

The 'range' is about a kilometre from where I park the car, and as usual, I loaded both barrels of the gun just in case anything exciting popped up on the walk in. However, lumbered with target boards, shooting sticks and all other kinds of paraphanalia, I wasn't going to be able to get a quick shot off! About 75 metres after I'd left the car, I heard what I thought was a flock of pigeon leaving the trees to my right, but as I turned around, I realised it was, in fact, a very surprised looking Fallow looking at me from about 15 yards away. My eyes were slowly drawn from his head to what I had first thought were branches, but were in fact a respectable set of antlers, festooned with undergrowth!

Of course, he disappeared sharpish, and I didn't see any more of him, despite a careful stalk through the wood. The wood is quite small, with lots of very heavy cover in it, so it was a toss up whether to try to intercept him on the far side, or stalk through slowly and hope to encounter him inside, or push him out into the open and get a shot out of the treeline. A look around confirmed his rutting stand was in the centre of the wood, I'll be back....!

After all the excitement, I got down to the range and set up;



I started at 25 yds with the open sights, as I had found last time, they were spot on at this range, moving back, they were about 3 inches high at 50 yds, and then back on again at 100. With the scope fitted, I set to zeroing and testing, and found that I did not get the same apparently 'loopy' trajectory with the scope as with the open sights, zeroed at 100 it was pretty much 'on' at all ranges (bearing in mind I hunt deer, not mice) below that.

Group produced at 100m:



The squares are quarter inch and the flyer to the right was firmly my fault, so I'm pretty happy with that!

I did learn a few things though; you cannot rest this gun on shooting sticks, even the foreend, or it jumps about. You can however, rest your forearms/hand on the sticks, but you need that layer of flesh! Its also quite a hold sensitive gun, I'm not sure I got the hang of it but it seems to need quite a firm hold. It can also be tricky to use with the scope fitted. The shotgun shaped stock means that you don't have 'cheek weld' as such, using the scope, more 'jaw weld', and a couple of times my efforts to see through the scope resulted in it not being held firmly enough in the shoulder. This was only a problem when using a rest/sticks however, freehand, kneeling etc were fine, and when you consider the use this type of gun was designed for (driven game) you can see that this makes sense.

As a final bit of fun, I loaded with a rifle cartridge and some SG's (00 Buck) and fired both barrels at a target from about 35-40yds, using the open sights.



As you can see, the buckshot has missed the deers vitals.....



But the rifle was spot on.

The target was a British Deer Society vital area target. (The lifesize deer target its supposed to stick to disintergrated)

Overall then, this gun is far more idiosyncratic to shoot than, say, my Howa 1500 or a similiar modern bolt. However, it is also far more pleasurable to use; although by no means luxurious, the engineering oozes a quality and robustness not seen on many modern guns; like a zippo everything clunks and clicks just right! It seems capable of excellent accuracy, given practice and maybe some more load development, and I am confident we're going to be friends for some time!

Great write up,

one more shot barrel and you are there

The Hornady SP is a great bullet for the cal and works wonders in game.

Best regards Chris

Don't, I'm getting tempted already!

I also really fancy a Kipplauf (spelling?), something like a K-95........

You should, give in that is, a K77 is a better rifle though, all steel, no plastics and great for stalking too,

the one down side is that they are not fit for moderators and that they tend to exclude taking multiple game at the one spot/time.

Best regards Chris

I take it you don't mean a Ruger K 77? Krieghoff? They look expensive! I must admit, I was not aware there was any plastic on a K-95!

I might give in one day, but giving in to spending that much is likely to be a long slow process of saving up!

63- No that would be a Blaser K77, the privious model to the K95,

They are they all steel and preferd by some shooters/hunters/stalkers.

A 95


A 77



Both a really nice guns in my opinion.

Best regards Chris

63

Never underestimate the power of the dark side!

Good to see that the damage is done, and you appreciate the benefits of being able to take whatever you see on your ambles. That buck would now be grassed - while the pheasant population is also in serious danger!

If you are really unlucky, I will let you play with the Sauer .... at which point you will start to consider that perhaps your gun cabinet is not yet full!

Looking forward to our next 'combi' outing!

Rgds Ian

Ian, funny you could say that but that Bucks head is now sat in the garage...sadly not through my efforts though. I was working my way through that patch of woodland when I came across him already dead.

His head was wedged in the fork of a tree, I gralloched him, removed the pluck and opened the rib cage, and from the look of the meat damage (massive massive bruising!) I think he was hit by a car.

Glad you liked my K95( Where did you steal the pic from ,,, lol ) The Roe Buck on the pic above was shot on Averøy Norway 110808. Here a pic of the same buck from another angle. Then a pic of the rifle with zeiss 5-15x42. The caliber is 30R Blaser.I use RWS cases. Sierra 165 grain SBT. 64 grain Norma 204. 924 m/s .
I have two more barrels 257 wby and 270 wby. No plastic on that rifle execpt for the red dot on the front sigth

The receiver on both the K95 and K77 is and was made of aluminium. The tilting block is made of steel.
It is possible to order a K95 with a steel receiver but the price is fairly high. Mehrpreis 4641 Euro just for the receiver.

The last pic the buck from 2007 shot with the 257 wby barrel. Scope Swarovski 6-24x50