NE450No2

The British gunmakers do make exceptional double rifles and they always had a great tradition to fall back on in doing this. That said, today, there are excellent German, Austrian, Italian etc manufacturers who make equally good gunsif you compare current production. But if you take the pre WW-2 years, the British did not have any competition at all. Sadly, many of the grand actions like the Woodward Automatic have been abandoned by the Brits though some others like the Facile Princeps and the Scottish Round are still being used to make double rifles.

MAny of the Italian guns - Famars and Piotti in particular - are unashamed copies of the British designs and probably even better made as are the fine Belgian guns from Lebeau Courally. The AUstrians also make fine double rifles, and they have been very active in experimenting with some traditional designs that the British have given up. One of the Winklers (Josef or Benedikt, I am not sure) made some 500 NE rifles on backlock actions as a design exercise and were able to bring the weight down to 8.5 lbs using Bohler Super Blitz steel. Just imagine that though, the recoil may have been punishing. They still impressed British authority Christopher Austyn who wrote about them and the guns sold for a fancy price at Sothebys some years ago.

Cheers!