Merkel Drilling 96K

About the Merkel Drilling 96K

The Merkel Drilling 96K is a German three-barrel combination hunting gun (Drilling) built on a steel boxlock action, pairing two side-by-side smoothbore shotgun barrels over a single rifled barrel. Offered with 12- or 20-gauge shotgun barrels above rifle chamberings such as 7x65mm R, 8x57 IRS, 9.3x74mm R and .30R Blaser, it uses a Greener crossbolt with double underlug locking, a manually cocked rifle barrel with a combined safety and cocking lever, and a double trigger with a set trigger on the front blade for precise rifle shots. It is a versatile driven-hunt and stalking gun that lets the hunter engage both feathered and hoofed game with a single firearm.

Drillings like the 96K descend from a distinctly German and Central-European hunting tradition, giving a single hunter the ability to take a running boar with the rifle barrel and drop flushing birds with the shotgun barrels without changing guns - a practical answer to the mixed-game driven hunts of the region.

Merkel Drilling 96K specifications

The rifle barrel is manually cocked via the combined safety/cocking slide, an added safety feature typical of modern Merkel drillings. Chokes are typically 1/2 and full, with quarter chokes optional; the action can be prepared for a Suhl swing scope mount for repeatable optic exchange.