Thanks for the responses!
The answer to Doug's last question is typical Texas field trapsin' and a fishing gun. I'm middle aged, but most of my bird hunting days as well as deer hunting days are over. I did A LOT of both coming up and into my twenties, and I simply lost enthusiasm for those types of hunts. I shoot on a regular basis be it on a farm or a friend's place or at a local gun club. I do hunt hogs and shoot snakes and other predators when the need arises, and have hunted various predators such as wolves and coyotes on occasion. I'd like to do some turkey hunting again.
Most of my outdoor time is spent fishing, and as a fellow Texan, you know that gators, hogs and javalinas, skunks, snakes of several poisonous and sometimes hostile varieties, wolves, coyotes, various rabid animals, and bobcats are what are around respectively in east Texas, The Upper and Central Coastal part of Texas and Central Texas/Hill Country, which are all areas where I do a lot of my fishing.
A combo gun and a powerful backup handgun certainly fill the bill for me for most of my fishing and sporting situations. I don't have a real need for a drilling, I just think it would be cool to shoot one regularly and see the practicality of having one in the field. It would have been great to have had a drilling when in my youth bird, turkey and deer season merged momentarily and in our hunting lands back then, you might encounter all of the above on a daily hunt. Combo rifles were not unheard of back then but we used double barreled shotguns loaded with slug and birdshot to deal with the variety we would encounter, having some various sized shotshells, slugs and buckshot on an ammo belt. After getting a Savage 24 from a relative, I was hooked on the utility of a combo gun.
With a drilling, as you know, it would just be nice to have some #4 or #8 in one barrel, some buckshot in the other shotgun barrel, and then a rifle caliber of sufficient size to take out a decent sized hog with a well placed shot. I think that would cover the bases. Generally, I carry the combo guns I have with birdshot in the shotgun barrel and a rifle cartridge (obviously) in the rifle barrel, foregoing the buckshot that I could carry in the second barrel of a drilling unless I'm thinking I'm gonna see a hog instead of a big Texas-sized snake.
So there is some outside chance that I might be able to get a drilling one day. I realize a bargain is not always a bargain in terms of fabricating parts, and I'll take heed at your advice. I also have some interest in some of the "nicer" combo rifles that have been made in the recent and not so recent past, and I've learned about some of these guns at this forum. Realizing I could get a great combo rifle vs. a questionable and likely in need of some kind of smithing bargain drilling, I might be inclined to go with the combo. So for now I'll be content with my combos, and learn about drillings as much as I can in the meantime.
Any links to any websites about drillings or great threads elsewhere would be highly appreciated!
As an aside, I'd also like but can't afford a double rifle, except for something like the Baikal offering through EAA. That would be fun for hogs in .45-70 with a nice red dot scope or fiber optic sights.
