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Just watched it last night. Bit disappointed initially, but bear with me.

Criticisms:
1. Filmed outside, initially under a bunch of leafy trees on a breezy day, without a noise-reduction microphone. I resisted the temptation to eject the disk and pelt it into the nearest trash-can, and eventually the breeze dropped and later sessions were OK.

2. The level of expertise was not what I expected, being a bunch of good ol'boys in bib'n'brace denim shooting the breeze. I expected some considerable increase in experience from Ellis Brown since he wrote the book, but none was forthcoming. He kept dragging out the same old stuff photographed in his book (pre-1998!). Even admitted he had never re-regulated an existing double! Still talking about the blackie he shot with the .450 pictured in the book. Anything since?

3. The filming was not the best. When an item was passed around, the cameraman was slow to zoom in and usually missed the point. At one stage, he must have slipped and we are left looking at Ellis Browns shoes for several seconds! It's very basic amateur home video: dogs are barking, the wind is blowing, and for a long while there it sounded like the camera-man was continuously snapping twigs behind-shot.

Look, there's more, but it is what it is. Its not an instructional video, very little 'how to' of value to a potential builder. No staged close-ups to illustrate points, no shop-work at all, no vision of work-shop set-ups etc. The only tools shown are the clunky muzzle-tweaker and the home-made concave rib-roller illustrated in his book nearlt 10 years ago (of course, everyone else just cuts a tapered sliver out of the side of a length of 2-inch steel pipe to make concave ribs for DRs).

OK, now the plus side.
After initial frustration, I finally appreciated that this was not a formal Symposium but just a bunch of guys chewing the fat, and I really got into it. In the end, I would have to say it was an enjoyable session, although I almost choked on my shiraz a couple of times at what was suggested. Very entertaining in the end, and I would have to say its probably worth the money to join these guys in an interesting chin-wag about building DRs in a part of the world where such things are probably regarded as witchcraft by the general gun-owning populace.

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Marrakai
When the bull drops, the bullshit stops!
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www.marrakai-adventure.com.au