Sometime back in the early to mid 2000's it is believed a number of Americans got a DR completely free to heavily discounted in return for heavy touting especially on the net. They also used to rubbish all the other brands. I could paraphrase one post I remember which ran like this "Brand A has these problems, Merkel is made on "shotgun" actions, Brand B has these issues, for then other brands, Searcy, the sun shines from the arse end of the barrels ... "

About the same time Searcy became "popular", with one fool I remember commenting, it must be the biggest double rifle brand in the world ....

No I never got one, nor asked for one. Even though someone prompted me to enquire ...