Well I really dunno about this! I would prefer to hunt with a badly rusted and half-buggered vintage Brit double than a shiny new Chapuis any day.

Of course, none of my BPEs are badly stuffed but all of them have the noble scars of a century or more of hard work and adventure. You can't buy that with any money...!

I have hunted in pouring rain during intense tropical thunder-storms, with rivers of rainwater running down my arm and sluicing through the action of old ULH BPE doubles. What surprises me the most is how little water is found inside the locks and action when I strip them down afterwards!

If you think that any 120-year-old double, which spent most of its life in the far-flung hunting fields of the British Empire, has never been caught out in the torrential rain of a monsoon before, you are simply kidding yourself. They were designed to take this in their stride. Fear not!

It's the modern shiny DR I'd be most worried about!