Pine Marten
Well-Known Member
Some of you who have been around a few years may have followed my drilling adventure. In 2014 I jumped through a load of hoops to import a J. P. Sauer drilling in 7x57R/16/16 from Germany. I then had it serviced, a little work done by Alan Rhone, and had a few memorable adventures with it which I recounted here and indeed in the pages of Shooting Times. But the 1960 scope was showing its age, pretty much useless at low light, and I had long planned to upgrading the scope to a modern one. Well back in April, I finally took the plunge, bought a scope for it, and sent both off to Alan Rhone to be united. This was to truly make the drilling my Everything Gun.
A week or so afterwards, I received an email to inform me that the stamp indicating barrel diameter was missing, and that the Birmingham Proofhouse were insistant that this made it officially out of proof, meaning that no gunsmith could do work on it and release it to the owner, or sell it, until it was resubmitted for proof. Credit to Alan Rhone's professionalism, they tried to argue that it was daft to apply rules retroactively to proof marks from a CIP country when the standards had been different when the gun was made, in 1960. But the rules are the rules, and after telling me the risks, we agreed to prepare and submit the gun before undertaking any expensive scope mounting work.
Three weeks later the drilling was returned, having failed proof, officially due to a bulge in the shotgun barrels behind the chokes. The thing is, that these bulges couldn't be detected, seen, or measured. The tag from the proof house said "strike off and resubmit", but that's a repair that doesn't make sense. Especially for an imaginary bulge. A week later, on re-examination, these bulges were still undetectable, but something else became apparent: barely visible rivelling halfway down the shotgun barrels. The significance was that there was no way the barrels would pass proof if resubmitted. These aren't polishing marks.
And so, having gone to the gun hospital for a routine cataract operation, my drilling succumbed to the retinal scan exam, imposed because of a completely imaginary ailment. As a result though, it is in a coma. To all intents and purposes, it is a write off.
Now no-one is happy with how this has gone. That gun could have had another happy fifty years if the proof house hadn't wrecked the barrels because of a retroactive rule change. So Alan Rhone have kindly offered to keep it for 12 months to see if they can find another set of barrels sitting around some gunsmith's workshop in Germany. It's not impossible, the Sauer 3000 was the most popular drilling in the world for decades, but it's something of a long shot. As I said, it's in palliative care now. The only hope left is an experimental transplant.
Well, at least it had a last hurrah with me for the last four years if its' dotage....
Pants.
A week or so afterwards, I received an email to inform me that the stamp indicating barrel diameter was missing, and that the Birmingham Proofhouse were insistant that this made it officially out of proof, meaning that no gunsmith could do work on it and release it to the owner, or sell it, until it was resubmitted for proof. Credit to Alan Rhone's professionalism, they tried to argue that it was daft to apply rules retroactively to proof marks from a CIP country when the standards had been different when the gun was made, in 1960. But the rules are the rules, and after telling me the risks, we agreed to prepare and submit the gun before undertaking any expensive scope mounting work.
Three weeks later the drilling was returned, having failed proof, officially due to a bulge in the shotgun barrels behind the chokes. The thing is, that these bulges couldn't be detected, seen, or measured. The tag from the proof house said "strike off and resubmit", but that's a repair that doesn't make sense. Especially for an imaginary bulge. A week later, on re-examination, these bulges were still undetectable, but something else became apparent: barely visible rivelling halfway down the shotgun barrels. The significance was that there was no way the barrels would pass proof if resubmitted. These aren't polishing marks.
And so, having gone to the gun hospital for a routine cataract operation, my drilling succumbed to the retinal scan exam, imposed because of a completely imaginary ailment. As a result though, it is in a coma. To all intents and purposes, it is a write off.
Now no-one is happy with how this has gone. That gun could have had another happy fifty years if the proof house hadn't wrecked the barrels because of a retroactive rule change. So Alan Rhone have kindly offered to keep it for 12 months to see if they can find another set of barrels sitting around some gunsmith's workshop in Germany. It's not impossible, the Sauer 3000 was the most popular drilling in the world for decades, but it's something of a long shot. As I said, it's in palliative care now. The only hope left is an experimental transplant.
Well, at least it had a last hurrah with me for the last four years if its' dotage....
Pants.
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