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I now have three of the big bore Sabatti double rifles; none with muzzle grinding, a .470, a .500, and, my last purchase, a .450/.400. They all shoot as well as my best English doubles, such as Westley Richards .375 I have. Yes, I have done some custom work on all three, simply because I enjoy working on doubles. Mr. Sabatti, the owner of the firm in Italy, was interviewed some time back, and he freely admitted that foolishly did the muzzle grinding on some of the rifles for one of the earliest initial large orders from the Florida importer (for Cabellas, obviously), because they were pressured into filling that order within a specified time, so took the shortcut in trying to fine tune regulate ones not regulated well enough initially for that order. He said that they learned from that tragic experience, and that they would never make such quick shortcuts again, no matter how much pressure was put on them, because he said, it creates too much difficulty from damaging their reputation. I have constantly examined a number of Sabatti double rifles over the past few years, and to the best of my knowledge, the muzzle grinding issues were, indeed, done only on early serial numbered ones, probably on that initial large Cabellas order, while newer ones simply no longer show such horrible butchering. To the best of my knowledge, no other issues have come up with the big bore Sabatti doubles, but we continue to see many guys who focus wholly on the one time muzzle grinding issue, and clearly want to discredit the Sabatti brand, and go out of their way to do so. If you want a Sabatti, examine it carefully, in good light, see to it that there is no muzzle grinding, and you will more than likely be pleased with your purchase. I like all of my Sabatti rifles, and would buy another without hesitation. They are well made of the finest materials, and will hold up as well as any of the modern doubles available today. However, I know that we will continue to hear from the Sabatti haters!

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