Couple of points I would like to comment on:

Nothing wrong with a new working double at their current price, either Merkel or its competitors.

A .500 NE is not a good beginner's double in my opinion either. Too brutal at the range, and too heavy for daily practice in the woods. The .450 to .470 class is more sensible as others have said, and a .400 is a delight.

You and I rarely disagree, Curl, but IMHO Brit guns will not 'deteriorate' if used in the field. They were designed to do just that. ...and most have done just that for decades, before falling into the hands of modern collectors or quasi-collectors. I hunt with mine routinely in the tropics, where they are subjected to rivers of sweat, insect repellent, storm-rain, blood, etc on a daily basis. I'd like to see a Chapuis after a few decades of that! My Brit DRs have all doubled in value in the interim, BTW.

I'm having palpitations at the thought of the Brit DRs I could buy at auction in Australia or the UK with 15 to 20 thousand US dollars!

Savuti:
If I may, the message you get at time-out is this:

If you hit the back button, you should find your post is still there. Highlight the text, copy, and then blow it away and return to the thread. Scroll down to the 'new' reply box, and paste.

Then it should upload OK.

I certainly agree that this is a PITA, as I often go and look up some detail during a reply-post, and get the 'time-out' way too often.

Can you fix this, John?

Oops, posted in on top of you Curl. You're welcome to disregard my comments...