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I presently own four Sabatti double rifles, a .450/.400, a .450, a .470, and a .500. When I bought my first one, I had no idea about some Sabatti doubles having grinding, or filing, of the rifling at muzzles, in a vain attempt to "steer" the bullets, for "improved" regulation; it was sheer dumb good luck that my first Sabatti had none of this butchering. After that purchase, I learned about the muzzle grinding issue, so prior to buying the other Sabatti rifles, I examined them carefully, under good light and magnification, before laying down cash. All of my rifles are well regulated, thankfully--more good luck. I have done quite a lot of custom work on all these rifles, installing steel grip caps, or steel trap grip caps, on them all, installing much better recoil pads, of course, after cutting stocks for me LOP with pad, gold plated all internal parts on some of these rifles; will probably do the same on the others, for added corrosion resistance. Fine tuned internal parts, which were pretty good as original. Also, I altered iron sights somewhat to duplicate great British iron sights, installed mercury recoil reducers, stripped all wood finish, refinished using best British hand rubbed oil finish, which enhanced the grain and made for considerably better finish.
I re-regulated two Sabatti rifles for good friends, ones that had no muzzle grinding issues, by making, from scratch, new mid point regulation wedges and muzzle wedges, after removing top/bottom ribs, for installing the mid point wedge. Using regulation methods learned from W. Ellis Brown, prior to his writing his book, Converting Double Shotguns to Double Rifles, I did what needed to be done to them. I have had several guys ask if I would re-regulate their Sabatti, but I had to tell them that I would not; I am retired; did the two for friends only because of that friendship. In communication with JJ Perdeau, at Champlin's firearms, he told me that he twice tried to re-regulate Sabatti rifles, and both times failed, saying that the thought that they had no mid point regulation wedge. I assumed from this, that he did not completely remove the ribs, so that is why he didn't know for sure that they didn't have mid point wedge. I believe that he simply didn't want to take time/expense to make mid point wedge, so once he learned that they probably didn't have mid point wedge, he gave up on them. Ken Own, of Tennessee, has re-regulated a number of Sabatti rifles, and one can now see several .450/.400 rifles on wwew.gunsinternational that are marked as so re-regulated by him. I am sure there are others who have done this sort of re-regulation, and it is nice that Aaron Little, whom I don't know at all, is able to do it; I will have to suggest his name to the people who contacted me about possibly re-regulating their rifles. If anyone else is aware of
anyone doing this sort of work, let us all know, so we can include them in our references to others.
I happen to like the Sabatti double rifles; the actions are made of the finest strong tri-alloy steel, internal parts, of good alloy steel, well polished and fitted. All but one spring, are V or leaf springs, including the ejector springs (only the top lever spring is coil), while most modern double rifles have now moved to using coil springs. I know that there are a lot of Sabatti haters out there, but most of them don't know what they are talking about, or are deliberately trying to deceive, for personal reasons.