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My bore scope told a slightly different story. All three had leades that looked like a tractor had dragged a nasty farm implement across the lands within the throat. The rest of the bore was equivalent to the quality of a Remington. This is NOT a compliment. Tool marks, smeared lands, utterly disgusting lack of care and craftsmanship.

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Personally feel, especially based on your findings of the bore scope..in todays world as has been normally always the case, you get what you pay for..there are NO free lunchs...unless you are a democrat in the US, then you get a free lunch and a phone....

Simply put, there is a reason other than just name that you pay what you do for the other brands..

Ripp

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The above is not my experience with the bores in Merkel double rifles! The fact is these barrels are rifled by cold hammer forging, and there is np more accurate way of rifling a barrel. The carbide mandrel has the lands and grooves cut in negative on the outside of the mandrel. This is pressed into the bore, and cold hammer forged compressing the barrel steel to form a positive land and groove, then stress relieved at several hundred degrees below zero tempratures. There is no reason for tool marks to be present in a cold hammer forged barrel’s bore because no tools are used to rifle that type of barrel.

Some of the most accurately rifled barrels in the gun world are cold hammer forged. Rifles like Mannlicher Shoenauer, Heym, Suuer, and the like are all cold hammer forged barrels.

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Yes, that is my understanding as to how forged rifling is done. Is the chamber also formed this way or is the chamber / leade cut with a reamer after cold forging? Could a dull reamer smear the lands? I am at a loss to explain the tool marks. Possibly marks from a bad cleaning rod? I bought all three new so there have been no owners previous before me that could have mistreated the bores.

My pockets aren't as deep as some, and with the serious $ all these doubles cost, it really irks me to see less than what I'd hoped for. I don't expect match grade air gauged / polished Lilja, Krieger, or Hart barrels, but I do look at Sako factory rifles as a reasonable standard to compare to. I've had close to maybe a dozen Sakos pass through my vault and their bores were all very well executed: smooth transition between chamber to lands / grooves, very sharp and square lands. I know I'm being overly critical and a bit of a fuss pot but hey, it does kind of bug me like getting a nasty scratch in the paint of a new car bugs me after spending all that money.

I would again emphasize that my Merkels have been very accurate without dispute irrespective of what I see with the bore scope. Indeed, I still have the 9.3x74 140A and will never part with it. My .470 140AE was used to raise cash to pay for my Heym, but there was nothing wrong with it's performance at the range whatsoever.

These Merkels are beautiful well put together rifles. I wouldn't hesitate to buy another and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them. Beauty is one thing, but they do perform very well at the range and most certainly in the game fields where it counts.

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