WHY DON'T AMERICAN GUN MAKERS MAKE A DRILLING RIFLE/SHOTGUN?

Those of you like ZACH over at THE NEXT CHAPTER know of and indeed share my fascination with Combination rifle/shotguns. Just as cool to me, and probably Zach as well are Drilling guns and Double rifles. Drillings are three barreled guns, either two shotgun and one rifle barrel or two rifle and one shotgun barrels. The ones I've seen had two triggers, one that operates in sequence with the like barreled doubles (as with a single trigger double barrel shotgun) and one trigger that fires the single barrel. Double rifles are just what you'd think, a double barreled rifle.

Both of these types of guns are generally VERY expensive. And I mean very expensive. So much so that the average El Fisho like me can't even begin to afford one. They often stray into the five digit price range. Most of these guns are big game hunting guns used in Africa, Asia or South America on what is known as Dangerous Game, meaning game that is very capable of killing you before you can kill it.

So living here in Texas the only justification I can think of to get either a drilling or a double rifle is, once again, hog hunting. I've always thought double rifles and drillings were the essence of "cool", and there are a myriad of caliber combinations that drillings come in.

If I could make my own drilling rifle, it would have a double barreled 12 gauge with a very large bore caliber, and I'm thinking a .458 Socom would be just the ticket. Match that up with the mercury recoil absorber like in my Benelli Super Nova shotgun and a kevlar or better yet, polymer stock inner covered with a substantial about of Pachmayr or Hogue rubber like they use in pistol grips. It would ideally be a takedown gun a'la takedown double barreled shotguns. It would have a green daytime laser and very strong flashlight built into the foregrip, as one shotgun foregrip maker does with a flashlight mount, and fiber optic sights on top.

The double rifles I've seen and handled at high end gun stores were very large caliber guns, in calibers popular for hunting large, dangerous game in Africa. I've never seen one that cost less than $10k, although I'm sure they are out there under that price. But not too much under that price.

I know recently EAA began importing a double rifle priced at about $600, calibered in .308 and .30-06. About a year ago I was in a Gander Mountain store in College Station that actually had some tolerable prices on some sales guns, and I can't remember the brand but one gun they were selling for about $400 was a double barreled over/under .308. I'd have probably bought it right then and then save for the fact it had 18" barrels. Now normally I appreciate short barrels on rifles, but in a double rifle I'd sure like to have at least a 22" or 24" barrel.

If I'm going to have a double rifle or a drilling, I'd like to have it in a large caliber, something worthy of say a rhino or elephant, and certainly more than a .308 or a .30-06. Something manly and large, about as large as my ringfinger. I'm not knowledgeable enough about the large African hunting calibers to be talking about them, but I know on some of them the numbers are followed by the words Nitro Express. I know bullets for these guns are very expensive as well, but it's not the sort of gun you'd be shooting like a .22 or a .223/5.56 or 7.62 x 39. After getting used to shooting it at various distances, it'd be a hunting gun.

I think the whole reasoning about why a drilling rifle is cooler than a two barreled combination rifle/shotgun can be analogized by why Spinal Tap's guitar amps went to "11" instead of "10". You get one more shot than a regular combo rifle/shotgun with a drilling, and to paraphrase Nigel Tufner, well...that's one more, isn't it?

Which brings me back to the subject of this post. Why doesn't Ruger or Remington or Winchester make a kickarse drilling and sell it for under a grand? Surely there is enough of a market to justify making a drilling, wouldn't you think?