A most handsome gun, and if it handles as you describe - as I am sure it does - it is well worth lusting after.

You are lucky in your pusher: clearly an excellent salesman.

Is that the backsight just above the forend?

Very handsome!

"That way that it sits in your hands or comes up to your shoulder is staggering. It swings beautifully, just like .... well just like a well balanced shotgun. It was simply one of those Road to Damascus moments & I became a believer on the spot "

I have found that that is a typical reaction of people who handle a fine double rifle, particularly if they are already used to shotguns. If the stock of the rifle is a reasonable fit to the shooter, the handling characteristics are uncannily good.

I can attest to this - I went to the gunshop to buy ammunition one day, and suddenly found myself the owner of a gorgeous Browning Express 25, which cost me the equivalent of a year's beer money. Worth every penny: it took a boar and a red deer hind on its very first outing, and practically everyone who handles it has that same "road to Damascus" experience. Anathema to the purist, but consider adding a tiny Docter red-dot sight (or the new Zeiss clone thereof) for superfast target acquisition in dappled woodland settings.

Oh, wild BOAR not wild bore.

"It was simply one of those Road to Damascus moments & I became a believer on the spot."

A good double rifle will do that to you. The last one I ever fired in anger was a double .375 H&H -- the make escapes me, because it was borrowed but it was German, either a JP Sauer, a Heym or a Krieghoff -- probably the latter. It had (as all good doubles, shotgun or rifle should) side-by-side barrels, none of that newfangled over/under nonsense.

The good ones handle just like the best shotguns, and I'll be frank, I don't find the .375 H&H recoil to be that much worse than a 12ga when fired offhand. Certainly, when I fired this one, I hardly felt any recoil because of the adrenalin.

I wish I could say that the quarry was something big, but it wasn't: just a rabid wild dog, at about twenty yards distance. Not much left afterwards, though.

There was an article about double rifles in the American Rifleman recently. I think that most retail in the region of $9 to $15 thousand, so not cheap! In the UK I'd guess you'd switch the $ for a £ sign.

Kim/Rob - sadly it is yet another one of those lottery rifles, but I have at least bought a ticket for the weekends draws.

It's 'in the rack' at £3,250 but there is no doubt a bit of a deal to be done but only a bit of a deal !

Check out the Hummingbirdrifle double - 22 Hornet - cost like the mileage between stars.

http://www.hoferwaffen.com/hofer_52s.php?id=14&lang=en

Very nice indeed. I like the look of the Blaser single shot break action rifle, too. Another case of "when I win the lottery".

Don't have a pith helmet but I was born wearing a Topee, and I like to see a short little double - like a Howdah gun. My school-friend Chandal's uncle was the Maharaja up the street from us and had some nice tiger skins and old rifles - and an old Bentley that a Peace Corps kid tried to buy off him - ha!

Here's something I stole from Tam ....

a pic of a double in .22 Hornet ...

There's a really good site on doubles that is run by a guy in Dubai. If you're not familiar with it it's accuratereloading.com

I can see that im going to have to get you to meet a good friend of mine he has somewere around TEN double rifles!

Kristopher, thanks for that link - a gorgeous little piece.

"...once you have set it up, you are only going to use it on game..."

Such as liberal politicians

Col Beausaber