Curl:

I agree entirely. However, you know we're making a lot of people mad at us. To be fair though, as I've said here before, Searcy rifles have improved dramatically over the years. Butch himself has stated that his rifles have "evolved" and I'm all for that. I hear he has a new variant coming up, and I look forward to seeing it. It seems that maybe his rifles are still evolving, so there is hope yet.

I have nothing against gunmakers, new or old, trying their hand in the double rifle game and I wish all of them well. What frustrates me is that, every time a new model comes out, it appears that the gunmaker has either never seen a double rifle before, or suffers from the egotistical delusion that they can "improve" perfection. Mick is dead right, the British not only developed them, they polished the ball endlessly and perfected the formula. That achievement is the primary reason for the demand for double rifles today, a fact clearly evident in the changes in the market for pre-war British DRs over the last 15 years. Even among the British, there WERE differences in the proprietary formulae, but they were pretty subtle. There's only so much running room for stylistic interpretation before you wreck the geometry and end up with a boat oar. I'm not singling out Searcy here, I wish the folks at Merkel, Chapuis, Heym, Krieghoff, AND Searcy would pick up a good quality British rifle and LOOK AT IT!

(Note to self: That oughtta piss 'em off!)

Chasseur:

You missed one. A beavertail fore-end the size of an Amazon freight canoe - ala the large bore Chapuis.

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