It's not Bond Street's finest, but my first double rifle showed up today. A couple of months ago I started looking for a 9.3x74R Merkel 140 with set trigger and ejectors; last week I found one in essentially new condition and I'm looking forward to having some fun with it. Overall I'm very impressed...a nice hunk of wood and steel, to paraphrase Bill Ruger.

The bottom of the chambers include a marking of "11AA". I think the "AA" portion means the gun was proofed in 2000 (i.e., A = 0, B = 1, C = 2, etc. if I remember the German proofing date codes correctly) but that doesn't seem to jibe with GSI's involvement with importing Merkels (the now defunct Cape Outfitters imported this DR). Am I reading the codes wrong, or did multiple companies import Merkels for awhile?