Thanks all for the welcome, and thank you Wayne for the loading info. I plan to put it to use.

I broke down and ordered the Asper, as I did not care for the enhanced/film-coated "triwood" on the specimen that my local shop had in stock. I wanted the oil-finished version, and was astonished when it arrived yesterday. The wood is beautifully coloured and figured, and carries the elaborate checkering pattern and wood buttplate shown in the catalog on the "prestige" model, although with the less ornate metal engraving of the two lesser models. A factory goof-up? Who cares? It is lovely.

The gun handles very well and comes up to my shoulder nicely. The fiber-optic sights, while not exactly classic, are right there in my line of sight when I snap the gun up with eyes closed. Trigger is good but not great, and I was a bit disappointed to find that the single trigger utilizes an inertial reset for the second barrel, so a dud round in barrel #1 leaves you with a useless second barrel (or is there something that I am missing here?). The adjustable barrel regulation feature seems to consist of a wedge between the muzzles with an allen-head screw in it, but the paperwork that came with the gun makes no mention of how this is to be used. I will contact Fabarms and try to get more info on this as I don't want to mess it up.

The wood buttplate, while attractive, will probably have to make way for a conventional rubber pad for practicality's sake. The scope mount is still on its way so I can't comment on that, and the aluminum case is nice but has no provision for a scope.

Shooting impressions and hopefully pictures to follow.

And yes, Wayne, this rifle has "bear gun" written all over it!

John