Hi,

I thought i'd share some pics. and a bit of the "story" of my drilling..

The gun is a Krieghoff Sempert Drilling 16-16-8x57jrs that was made in Oct. 1935...

It came to me in 1983 from someone i knew that took it out of a castle durning WW2. He took it durning a "sweep" looking for German soldiers.

By the time i got it, it was pretty beat up with dented shot bbls, blueing loss and a broken stock in several pieces. It had not been fired much but it spent most of it's life getting knocked around in a barn in California. So, i set out rebuilding it to the gun "i always dreamed of owning". I had the work done by those that i thought was best for that part of the job, and it came out quite nice as you can see in the picts. I picked everything from the checkering to choke tubes..

The stock blank i used came to me as a personal gift from Andy Garner, who sawed all of Pachmyrs wood for many, many years. It's a "naturally grafted" Bastone/Circassian walnut, that is very rare. Andy told me he had only seen two of them in over 45 years of sawing, so he "saved it for something special".

I've drug this gun from all over the interior of Alaska, to blk. tail hunting in the coastal rain forest, to Texas desert country, to the midwest for whitetails and many other places.











Over the years it's been a VERY effective gun for me, putting tons of meat in my freezer!! Includeing moose, bear, deer, ducks, rabbits, phesants and much more!







Hope you enjoyed the picts...

DM

very nice, never seen anything like that. Thanks!

Great post. A gun with a lot of history and one that you have extended through your own efforts and use.

A very special project with great results. Makes me think of the happiness my own projects have brought me.
Where did yo find the .22 barrel insert. I want some for my drillings. No problem getting them in Germany if I'm willing to shell out about $1000,00.

Wonderful thing to do with that poor old drilling! They deserve more respect than they get. I have a 12ga and a 16ga insert for two of mine, both 22 mag Kreighoffs. Yours appears to be a Kreighoff, also.

I enjoyed the photos. Are you a lefty? The safety on your drilling is for a southpaw.

quote:

Wonderful thing to do with that poor old drilling! They deserve more respect than they get. I have a 12ga and a 16ga insert for two of mine, both 22 mag Kreighoffs. Yours appears to be a Kreighoff, also.

I enjoyed the photos. Are you a lefty? The safety on your drilling is for a southpaw.

Yes i'm a lefty... All of the origional safetys i've seen on drillings had "too short" of buttons, and weren't rotated far enough foreward, so i had a new one made with a longer button, rotated foreward, and flopped over for a lefty...

I hated the old safety, as when my hands were cold i couldn't even feel it. I would go into the bush for weeks at a time and live out of a tent, sometimes in the winter, many times by myself and rarely with heat.



I have (2) Krieghoff inserts, 22lr and mag... I also have slide in sleeves to shoot 20 ga. shells in the 16ga bbls., and numerous other adapters...




My drilling has been a GREAT hunting companion!

DM

quote:

Where did yo find the .22 barrel insert. I want some for my drillings. No problem getting them in Germany if I'm willing to shell out about $1000,00.

At one time i sold them, and i had them in stock all the time. I put a few away for myself, but now i would like to have more of them too, as they were about $100.00 back then.

DM

Lovely, you should be very proud. A couple of questions, Who did your stock work and did you have a hard time finding someonw who would do it? and What kind of accuracy with your 22 inserts. I have used others most were not really good enough for small game, but, I am an eternal optimist.
Thanks again for the posting and photo, nice job!
Bfly

quote:

A couple of questions, Who did your stock work and did you have a hard time finding someonw who would do it? and What kind of accuracy with your 22 inserts. I have used others most were not really good enough for small game, but, I am an eternal optimist.

When i received the gun origionally, i made the missing pieces for the broken origional stock and put it back on the gun. The guy i got the gun from used a "lot" of what looked like "motor oil" on the stock, and it took it's toll bigtime! The stock would crack about every 20 or 30 rounds, so i had to keep fixing it untill i could get it replaced... Anyway, i then kept altering it and hunting with it untill it fit me "perfectly".

Once i had the stock where i wanted, I then sent it off to have the "altered origional stock" copied and made to my specs.. That work was done in Germany.

As for the Krieghoff inserts, i have nothing but good things to say about them. I think the targets speak for themselves.



I would call those groups "average" so small game is in big trouble even beyond 50 yards!

Thanks very much for the kind words..

DM

NOW! Gentlemen, here is one of the rarest people in the firearms community, a man who understands what a drilling was made for!

Unfortunetly drillings have never gotten the respect they deserve in North America, and as a result have not been used that much here. I have always loved German combination rifles, Cape guns,O/U combos, Drillings, and verlings.
That is a very nice drilling, and lives in a place where it is respected, for it's capabilities. Congratulations DM!

DM
Very nice Drilling.

It is a shame they are not more popular here in the USA. They are one of the beat hunting guns on the Planet, as you have proven.

Well done.

Thanks guys,

It really has been a great companion for me, and has done everything i've asked of it.

At 7 pounds it's a joy to carry, even in the mountains of the temporate rain forest...



and with claw mounts i can "instantly" pop the scope on for those longer shots.

My longest shot with it, was at coyote at close to 300 yards away. It was a cloudy day but the sun happen to find a small opening to shine a shaft of light through. If it had not been for the shaft of light, i never would have seen the coyote.

I reached into my pack, pulled out the scope snapping it into place. Resting on the pack i fired and the coyote turned and ran into the underbrush. Finding the spot was easy, as it was the only spot with the sun shineing on it.

Once there, i walked into the brush, found a blood reail and then the coyote about 20 yards from where it had taken a 200 NP through the chest.

I'm normally not into takeing long shots, but i'll remember that one for a long time yet...

DM

Nice pics and backstory. Thanks for sharing.