I learned recently these are still being made by at least one company, Ziegenhahn in Germany. De Haas felt this action was a bit lacking in extraction, and I've heard Grant wrote so as well.

Has/does any one here use a Heeren? I wonder if extraction might be of no concern when chambered for medium pressure cartridges, such as the Krag or the 9 mm Mauser, etc.

Decades ago I was offered a pair of cased Heerens by Glaser (or Glazer?, not sure of spelling) of Zurich, fullstocked rifles in .30'06 and .220 Swift, and tried them out. Actually had to kick the levers to get them to extract. Beautifully made and quite useless.

Elmer Keith wrote about single shots on several occasions. One of the articles I have was in Guns & Ammo in January 1964. He went over the single shots he owned at that time and the ones he had owned in the past. He wrote:

"I used a fine Swiss Heeren single shot action for a time for the .244 H&H Magnum cartridge. It was a fine, modern action with the trigger guard forming the lever, but it was also a very expensive action and I did not like it as well as my many Farquharson actions."

He also said the Hauck action did not have adequate extractors, not the Heeren.

He did not go into any detail on why he did not like it, at least in this article. At the time of this article, he had four Farquharson rifles, a Martini action, a Remington rolling block, and the prototype Sharps 75 rifle. He had owned several other kinds in the past.

quote:

and the prototype Sharps 75 rifle

I didn't realize he was such a connoisseur of single shots! Did he have any comments on that '75? When I move back to the US, I must obtain a copy of that article. I enjoyed his book Big Game Rifles and Cartridges. I was able to borrow an original (1936) copy through library loan, but I think I saw it is again in print. Hmmm, I think I recall his G&A articles have been published in a book as well; I'll have to look.

The Heeren is remarkably compact but has no leverage for extraction. It seems to me a medium pressure cartridge in a thick walled chamber should not have trouble with case stick, but that's just a theory. I didn't know it had been chambered for high pressure rimless cartridges.