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“Another thing to remember about doubles is that, even if you’re faster on the second shot, you’re also faster to an empty gun,” he says. “Most dead hunters that are found after being killed by dangerous game have empty rifles.”

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I think the quote above taken from the article is quite relevant and as I mentioned in my first post on this discussion, it is all very well doing comparative tests on the range to see which is the fastest to fire aimed effective shots but quite different under stress in the field. The double is just not that easy to reload when on the move. If the gun is a not an ejector it has to be tipped to empty the chambers or the empty cases have to be 'plucked' by hand and then the gun held in such a position so the new cartridges dropped into the chambers will stay there until the gun is closed. All the while the double gun is broken open with barrels facing in a different direction to the stock and lock. Try this on the run in brush or over uneven ground. I guarantee the double user will be focused on his gun and not the animal or likely the ground he is traversing if he tries to reload on the run, or, he will stand and reload before following the PH or arrive at the new position and then complete a reload.

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The above paragraph is very true but not relevant to the article we are discussing! The subject is stopping a charge, not chasing an animal through the bush. In a charge situation you normally stand your ground and shoot till the threat is over.

The tests of the licensing bodies that test the shooting skills of people wanting to be issued a PH license are testing the way I described for stopping a CHARGE. Even in a follow-up of a wounded the rifles are reloaded before one goes into the weeds, and if the animal charges the drill is still the same stand and shoot. The testing bodies thought originally that the doubles would be at a disadvantage to the bolt rifle shooters in the charge stopping test, and found in short order the double was at no disadvantage to the bolt shooters for two shots, but in fact faster. So they tried the double loaded and the bolt with one in the chamber and three down to see if that was better for four shots than the double. It turned out that the double were faster for shot two, and about even for the most part for shot three and faster again for shot four.

I will admit that I think in these test of PH applicants those who already owned double rifles may have been far more experienced than the young men shooting a conglomeration of bolt rifles, many of which may have been prone to jamming. However all our tests at the DRSS were shot by experienced shooters of both types of rifles and most long time hunters of all game including dangerous ones.

Loading while running is just as hard for the bolt rifle guy as it is for the double rifle guy. Even in a standing charge stopping, the bolt rifle must be re-loaded after every shot with working the bolt, while the double fires two shots before a re-load, and in a charge situation one is static while re-loading only after the second shot. The tests have found that the double is about even with the bolt for shot four after a re-load, and faster again for shot four.

If these tests are so invalid, how would you go about testing the timing?

In the actual charge stopping one would have to have a timer with a stop watch behind both shooters timing his shots, and then look at the bullet holes on the animal which would be indistinguishable because they would all be on the same animal.

The range testing has it’s draw-backs but there is no other way to do it IMO, and the article we are discussing was a range test.

The fact is with everyone shooting at his own target and trying to shoot faster than everyone else does create stress on the shooter. We had people jam their bolt rifles, we had people drop cartridges while re-loading but out of 20 shooters all shooting simultaneously the top three were double rifle shooters, and the accuracy scores were better for the doubles for four shots than most of the bolt rifle shooters. The bolt shooters who scored better in the accuracy test portion, were way back in TIME behind all the double shooters.

The fact is if humans are involved with mechanical things, crap happens, and there is no way of testing anything that is 100% reliable!


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..........Mac >>>===(x)===>
DUGABOY1, and MacD37 founding member of DRSS www.doublerifleshooterssociety.com
"If I die today, I have had a life well spent, for I've been to see the Elephant, and smelled the smoke of Africa!"

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