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Don't forget to look at the better European or Italian makes. Not frequently, but much more often than with the British guns you can find a really nice rifle for a very atractive price since these guns don't often bring the premium an English gun does.

Makers to look at would include Francotte, Leubeau Corrally, Marcel Thys (I'm biased here 'cause I own one), Baretta and many others in the English style and Hambrusch and others in a more germanic, european style. Some I believe, and all I listed come at least close here, have made rifles every bit as good and some examples are better than rifles from best English rifles. Every maker, even the best English makers made some dogs to be wary of. And any rifle can become a dog over time.

On English rifles, you can find some not so house hold name makers who made great guns without the big name premium, especially some of the Scottish makers and some of the other provintial makers, and lots of guns with big names on them that were actually made in whole or in part by makers who's name has less cache, and these guns typically still carry the premium.

FWIW, for a first double, I would be looking to a new or newer rifle. You would be less likely to be buying a problem and if its from one of the new makers it will have a warranty. Butch's history is great regarding this, even for second owners. A serious problem with an older double is an expensive problem.

The first rifle you buy doesn't have to be the last and there is a pretty long learning curve to be able to know what you're looking at and even what you want in terms of balance, calibre, ejectors or not, intercepting sears, sidelocks, shape of stock...

I went through your selection process starting a couple of years ago and really concentrating for six months before finding my rifle. I thought new but didn't have NitroExpress.com as a resource for some of it and the more recent info on Searcy might have steered me there - but not without handling some of his rifles to compare with the Brits or European guns. Every English rifle I looked at in hand or on the internet had at least an issue or two, some serious, in the max $20,000 price range I was comfortable with. I didn't like the other newer offerings mostly for astetic reasons, Chapuis and Merkel, or function reasons, Kreikhoff here, astetics too, or logistic reasons since I'm a lefty and require a rifle to fit me wrt drop, cast and length, less issue with pitch. I stumbled on my rifle and it had one issue that I researched the price for fixing. I negotiated the seller to a price that I thought good enough to pay the whole worst cost case to take care of it and still leave me in the black or damn close. Though my rifle was made for a righty, the stock measurements actually come really close to my perfect measurements. I jumped when it all came together.

I wholeheartedly recomend having the rifle inspected AND shot by a competent third part gunmaker. I would reserve the right for you to shoot the rifle during your inspection period to make sure it is suitable to you regarding fit and recoil, etc. All this at your cost. And you will need more than the typically offered three day inspection period too. If a seller won't agree to these terms for inspection then I would walk away.

My thoughts,

JPK

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