God - I can't believe you to missed the Big Game Shoot last month. I drove through Va. and we could have met up. Buddy of mine has a .470 Merkel and somehow cracked the stock in ways other than shooting. They restocked it free of charge to my amazement, but he was still (barely) in warrenty. I recomend you shoot the hell out of you gun while it's in warrenty to uncover any flaws. I've got about 6 months left on mine. Funny, in Germany, the warrenty is 5 years. They must not shoot as much there. Hell in 5 years I'll have about 2000 rounds through mine!