I was discussing the origins of the double rifle with a mate of mine today, but we have no idea as to whether our ideas are correct..or even close

We were thinking that the idea of two barrels originated as a method to get a repeater, probably from muzzle loading days. As time moved on and the repeater became available those repeaters were not able to handle the very large cartridges.

The value of the double rifle as a DG gun was not part of the original design but rather something that became obvious at a later date, that is, when being compared to bolt actions.

Mike