Well, I spent a pleasent evening looking at some nice double rifles on various dealers' sites and have come up with some numbers regarding the ratio of back action sidelocks vs bar action sidelocks.

Here's how it breaks down so far:

Nitro sidelock double rifles in 375 or better.

Back Action: 19
Bar action: 3

Under 375:

Back Action: 3
Bar Action: 3

There are nine makers using the back action in the bigger bores that I looked at. There were three makers in the bar action big bores.

For the smaller bores there were three back action makers, two of which showed in the back action big bores. For the small bore bar action there were three makers, one of which also made one of the big bore bar actions.

No maker made both a back action and a bar action rifle.

Back action makers were:

Holland & Holland
Rigby
Jefferey
Watson
Westely Richards
Dumoulin
Francotte
Thys
Perugini & Visini
Genossenschaft (sp?)
Bury

Bar action makers were:

Purdey
Daniel Fraser
Lebeau Corrally
Arrietta
Saresquetta

So far 86.4% of the big bores have been made with the back action while 13.6% have been made on the back action. And its 50/50 for the small bores. Seems so far that the preponderance of big bore sidelock rifles were made on the back action, but the sample is small and there are other makers out there.

I'll try to look at some more sites tommorow. It not a bad way to spend an evening.

JPK