The challange: Two guys, one with a heavy double, the other with a heavy magazine rifle. Place four shots in a paper plate at 70 yards. If the shot touches the edge of the plate it doesn't count. Rifles ready at the shoulder. Who finishes first at the command to fire?

The guy with the double starts with two cartridges between the fingers of the left hand, bullets pointing towards the ground. On firing the second shot he works the lever while the rifle is rising in recoil, the action breaks assisted by the recoil and dumps the cases. Since it was a heavy with plenty of recoil and he is not trying to hold it down, the barrels are pointing up steeply enough for the cases to drop out with or without ejectors. (One of the points of low pressure in double cartridges.) He did not rotate the rifle sideways. The left hand comes around and stuffs in the new cartridges while the rifle is dropping back down and then returns to the forearm before the rifle has dropped below shoulder level. the rifle is closed and fired.

I cannot say how fast this was accomplished, but he beat the guy with the bolt action who was supposedly damned good with a bolt rifle. With either rifle this kind of speed would require plenty of practice.

One of the tricks here, as I see it, is that the left arm is extended out to the forearm and does not have good leverage for strength in closing the action. Over the weekend I am going to try closing both a non-ejector and an ejector gun this way to see how difficult it is.

Another point is that it seems to me that a doll's head might slow things down when inserting the fresh cartridges. A Greener cross bolt might be a little better. A hidden bite better yet. This would be easier with a bottle necked cartridge as opposed to a straight one.

the process strikes me as a bit rough on the rifle and not suitable for safe queens.