Double gun iche is creapin up again

Well just when I finally thaught it was over and that I had convinced myself I didn't really need one my friend asked if I would like to buy his 470 NE Chapuis and right back to it again that little iche in the back of my mind saying it a good deal buy it and we will find a use for it later.

Now the question to you guys out there with double is how do I justify it to my wife hehe now I love my 375H&H and 416 Rem and will be off to Africa in three weeks for my first elephant hunt so the time is to short to get the double for this trip but I have a Buffalo hunt booked next year in Mozambique that it could potentially work for it my problem is I am left handed and would have to have it restocked for me so do I buy it and have it restocked or hold out and find a left handed double I have been considering a B Searcy and the Chapuis but have limited knowledge on doubles and have only shoot the blaser, k gun and Chapuis in 470, 450 and 500 NE I thing I'm going with the 470 but there are so many rounds in the big doubles I have not seen or tried so for say one to two more elephant in my lifetime and say 6 more buffalo is it worth getting the double I know both my bolt guns in 375 and 416 would do the job

I don't know but it sounds like you already answered your own question if you already have the guns that would more then do the job then what is the Double rifle for? just to say look see what I've got I know they say that the double rifle is the perfect African rifle but if thats true then why do they build bolt action rifles that hold more then 2 rounds. Just something to think about.

Double rifle is best for following up on dg quickly because of the obvious second shot that comes so quickly in succession after the first, this can save your life and is most useful in Africa because of so much dg hunts in Africa - perhaps why it is called the best African rifle etc , and it is for following up on wounded dg quickly in thick brush/close quarters etc. (I'm sure you know all that)

Otherwise the bolt action IMO should be the first choice for any hunt as it holds more cartridges and tends to be more accurate further out. Your ph will fill in the gap if something charges you. The two of you plus the back-up ph will be enough rifle...

Don't buy it if you don't need it.

If you need to justify it then you don't want it enough.
Just do it and enjoy. If it's not what you want then pass it off to someone else. You won't go wrong with either a Searcy or a Chapuis. I have one each and like them a lot.

The 500NE is about 10% more than the 450/470 for everything. I load my own so I like the availability/selection of the 458 bullets.

This old Article from Field and stream should be standard issue whenever you buy a gun. Sales would skyrocket and gun enthusiats everywhere would rejoice. I am sure you will find something in here to get the gun past the wife.




Gunrunning past your wife.
By Patrick F. McManus (1984)

Most people think of gunrunning as a foreign adventure in thriller novels. My gunrunning, though, is a domestic foray through the home to get a new gun past my wife.

Hubert, a young married fellow of my acquaintance, confided in me the other day that he and his wife had just had their first quarrel. .

徹h yeah? I said. 展hat about? 鄭bout practically nothing, he said. 的致e been needing a new rifle, so I went out and bought one and took it home to show Joyce. Well, if she didn稚 hit the ceiling! Mad? Whew! Can you believe that?

典hat was dumb, Hubie, I said. 迭isking your marriage over a new gun. I thought you were smarter that that.

的 shouldn稚 have bought the gun, huh?

徹f course you should have bought the gun. You needed it, didn稚 you? You just shouldn稚 have shown the gun to Joyce. Have a little consideration for her feelings, Hubie. Wives have feeling too, you know. The only decent thing for a husband to do is to sneak the new gun into the house. Learn to sneak, man learn to sneak.

迭eally? Hubie said. 的 didn稚 know. During my talk with Hubie, it occurred to me that there are probably many other young married hunters out there who are equally in need of marriage counseling as it relates to wives and new guns. In the interest of averting as much marital discord in the hunting fraternity as possible, I have put together the following primer on strategies and tactics for bringing home a new gun.

First of all, let us consider the psychology of the young wife as it pertains to her husband痴 guns. It is important to note that the first gun the husband brings home is greeted with considerable enthusiasm by the spouse, and she may even brag about it to her friends: 擢red bought a new gun the other day to hunt elk and doves and things with, she will say. Of course Fred must then explain that the gun is limited to hunting elk or deer. For hunting doves he needs a shotgun, he tells her.

展hy can稚 you hunt doves with the same gun? she says. 的 really think you could if you wanted to.

Fred then explains the difference between a rifle and a shotgun, and his wife finally agrees that he probably does need another gun.

Now that痴 the typical situation the young hunter faces. He starts with a base of two guns, his wife granting him the benefit of the doubt that two guns are actually needed. After the second gun, the argument of needing a new gun will be dismissed by the wife with an upward roll of the eyeballs and a big sigh. We are talking only third gun here, remember, nothing more. If you池e just married, upward-rolling eyeballs and big sighs may seem formidable obstacles, but they池e really not that serious. Go buy the gun and bring it home. The eyeball-rolling and big sighs will let up after a few days. Now comes the biggie: The Fourth Gun!

With the mere mention of your need for a fourth gun, the wife skips right over the eyeball-rolling and big sighs and goes directly to a recital of your deficiencies of character, weird masculine quirks, and all sins committed to date. She will bring up such matters as saving for baby痴 college education, the fact that she is still is wearing the clothes her parents bought for her in high school, the threatening note from the electric company, and so on.

The fourth gun is the tough one and, in the face of this spousal assault, there is always the temptation to sneak the fourth gun. That痴 a mistake. Your wife痴 knowing you purchase a fourth gun is essential to further development of your gun collection. Here痴 why. After you bring the gun home and show it to your wife, she will shake her head and say, 的 don稚 know why you need all those guns. Note that she doesn稚 say 吐our guns but rather the vague and general 殿ll those guns. Henceforth, she will think of your gun collection, not in terms of specific numbers, but as a single collective entity預ll!

To thoroughly grasp this important concept, suppose your wife is dusting the gun case, 滴im and all those guns, she might say to herself, possibly with a very tiny tolerant smile. What she fails to notice is that there are now five guns in the case! Once the psychological barrier of the fourth gun is crossed, the gun collection can be expanded indefinitely without the wife noticing, provided the husband uses some common sense and doesn稚 add too many guns at once. Two or three a year is about right, spaced at decent intervals.

There is one pitfall in this strategy葉he gun cabinet itself. Although the wife will never bother to count the guns, she will notice that there are three empty slots in the cabinet. Therefore, you must make sure that there always three empty slots in the cabinet, even as your collection expands from four to sixty guns. If you plan on enlarging your collection, buy a gun cabinet that can be expanded by adding new sections so that there are always three or more empty slots. It works. My wife of 30 years told me the other day that she must be slowing down with age. 展hen we were first married, she said, 的 could dust that gun cabinet of yours in 10 seconds and now it takes me nearly half an hour.

But how do you get all those guns into the house without your wife knowing, you ask. Actually, it is all right if every few years you simply walk into the house and say, 鏑ook, dear, I bought a new gun.

哲eato, she will say, 的知 ecstatic. Now tell me, what did you want to buy another gun for when you already have all those guns? I値l be you haven稚 shot most of them in the past five years.
Shoot them? Yes, a wife will actually say that. She will not be able to comprehend the fact that you needed the gun because you needed it. She will not understand that you need the guns just to be there, to be your guns, to be looked at and fondled from time to time. She will not be able to fathom that you need the guns even though you don稚 need to shoot them. Tell her a gun collection is like wilderness. Even though we don稚 use it all the time, we need to know it痴 there. Probably it won稚 do any good to tell her that, but it痴 worth a try.

Stating the simple truth often works in explaining an occasional gun purchase to your wife. But why take unnecessary risk? Go with your best lie and get the gun stashed in your expandable gun cabinet as quickly as possible.

Oddly enough, there are few really good lies for explaining the purchase of a new gun. There is the classic 鄭 Fantastic Bargain, of course, in which you tell your wife that the gun you just paid $300 for was on sale for $27.50. If her eyebrows shoot up in disbelief, you mention that three men in white coats showed up at the sport shop and led the manager away before he could slash the prices on the rest of the guns. Indeed, you say, you could have picked up five more brand-new guns for a total of $85, but you didn稚 want to take excessive advantage of a crazy person.

The 撤lay On Her Sympathy Ploy works well on young, inexperienced wives. It goes something like this: Rush into the house wiping tears of joy from your cheeks. Then cry out, 鏑ook, Martha. Look! A man at the garage sold me this rifle. It痴 identical to the one my grandfather gave me on his deathbed. Gramps said to me, 腺oy, I知 givin you ol Gerty, here, because every time you shoot it, you will remember all the good times you and me had together. Oh, how I hated to sell that rifle to pay for Momma痴 operation! But now I got one just like it! Or maybe it痴 even the same rifle! Do you think it might actually be the same rifle, Martha?

Warning! Don稚 ever try the 鉄ympathy Ploy on a wife you致e been married to for longer than five years蓉nless you want to see a woman laugh herself sick. It痴 a disgusting spectacle, I can tell you.

The 擢antastic Investment lie will work on occasion, provided you lay the groundwork carefully in advance. 典hat ol Harvey Schmartz is a shrewd one, you say. 滴e bought this .48-caliber Thumlicker for $600 as an investment. Three weeks later, he sold it for $87,000! Boy, I wish I could lay my hands on a .48-caliber Thumlicker. We壇 sell it when I retire and buy a condo in Aspen and tour Europe with the change.

After you致e used up all your best lies, you are left with only one option. You must finally screw up your courage, square your jaw, and make up your mind that your going to do what you probably should have done all along耀neak the new guns into the house.

Here are some proven techniques for gun-sneaking:
The Surprise Party. Your arrive home and tell your wife that you have to go to a surprise party for one of your hunting partners and that you picked up the special cake on your way home. 徹h, how cute! she will exclaim. 鄭 birthday cake shaped like a rifle! This is also known as 典he Gun-In-Cake Trick.
The Lamp. You buy a lamp shade and attach it to the muzzle of a new rifle. 鏑ook, sweetheart, you say to your spouse. 的 bought a new lamp for the living room. She gags. 哲ot for my living room. She growls. 典ake it to your den and don稚 ever let me see that monstrosity again! A variation of this ploy is to tie a picture wire to the new rifle and call it a wall hanging.
The Loan. A hunting friend shows up at your door and hands you your new gun. 典hanks for loaning me one of your rifles, he says. 的値l do the same for you sometime. Make sure your accomplice can be trusted, though. I tried 典he Loan with my friend Retch Sweeney one time and he didn稚 show up at my door with the rifle for three weeks. He arrived on the day after hunting season, as I recall.
Spare Parts. Disassemble the gun and carry it home in a shopping bag. Mention casually to the Mrs. that you picked up some odds and ends from the junk bin down at Joe痴 Gunsmithing. Works like a charm! (By the way, does anyone know where the little wishbone-shaped gizmo goes on an automatic shotgun?)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Uintaelkhunter

Well just when I finally thaught it was over and that I had convinced myself I didn't really need one my friend asked if I would like to buy his 470 NE Chapuis and right back to it again that little iche in the back of my mind saying it a good deal buy it and we will find a use for it later.

Now the question to you guys out there with double is how do I justify it to my wife hehe now I love my 375H&H and 416 Rem and will be off to Africa in three weeks for my first elephant hunt so the time is to short to get the double for this trip but I have a Buffalo hunt booked next year in Mozambique that it could potentially work for it my problem is I am left handed and would have to have it restocked for me so do I buy it and have it restocked or hold out and find a left handed double I have been considering a B Searcy and the Chapuis but have limited knowledge on doubles and have only shoot the blaser, k gun and Chapuis in 470, 450 and 500 NE I thing I'm going with the 470 but there are so many rounds in the big doubles I have not seen or tried so for say one to two more elephant in my lifetime and say 6 more buffalo is it worth getting the double I know both my bolt guns in 375 and 416 would do the job

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you cant justify a double, but when you pick a double up and shoulder/play with it, and it is right(speaks to you) then go for it. you have the problem of not being able to do this being left handed, and the rifle having a right hand stock, so you have to go with your feelings on this one. i would say wait as you havent gone to yourself "i want this rifle!". you have come out with the logical reasons not to buy it... wait till you pick a double up and go to yourself , this is mine!!. :drooling:

I tried justifying the purchase of a double for many years, and just couldn't do it.

You wont buy one if purchase price is the obsticle, not whilst there are many fine bolt guns around at 1/3 to 1/4 of the price of a double.


If your going to buy a double then do so because you WANT one, you'll never convince yourself whilst trying to look past the price.

Now with regards to the specific offer you face, consider also the expense of having it re-stocked and the POSSIBILITY (there are many more on this forum that can confirm this with more authority than I) that if a re-stock is not done by a fully competant stockmaker conversant with double rifles, that the re-stock MAY effect the exisiting regulation(or so the "wives-tale" goes).

If you are dilengent and patient there are many fine rifles available over a period of time looking on the used guns market.
For example HeymUSA currently is advertising a second hand Merkle .470 with cast negative (both right and left hand) for about $15000. A very fine gun by the looks of it.
There is a three barrel set Kreighoff also for sale on another forum (500, 470 & 375) for $21,000.

V.C can also build you a feild grade model for about the same price as above and is a very fine gun.
By all acounts the Searcy is a very well made, fine rifle, the feild grade (extactors) is about $12,000.

(Searcy currently has two used .500's for sale, one a spectacular feild grade (with ejectors) for $12,000).

By comparison these rifles will set you back the cost of one 7 day buffalo hunt in some of the better areas with a reputable outfitter.

Is THAT worth it to you ?

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Not to bring up an old subject but the itch finally got the better of me so about 3 months ago when this Chapuis in 470 came around I checked it out even being a right handed gun the cast off felt good and the iron sites lined up great one quick trip to the range to confirm it and she is mine. Now to date 100 round thru her and wow it just seems to feel better and better why did I wait so long. Hoping to get about another 100 down the barrels before my buffalo hunt in July and it will be on it madden voyage to Africa but just to be safe the trusty 375 H&H is going too. Being new to doubles I was shocked at how accurate this thing is at 50 yrds it puts left and right barrel groups in the 1 inch range and about 1 and a half inches apart at 100 yrds it does the same but about 3 inchs apart. And seems to like both the federal and hornady factory loads in soft points. In the next month I'm hopping to work up some hand loads. I have read the book Shooting the British double rifle about 3 times now what a great book for understanding doubles

another one bites the dust!! congratulations on joining the exclusive double club :beer:

Buy it..you'll never stop thinking about it. The only cure is ownership. :beer:

Thanks Spike

Heym 88 I bought it then I when and bought a second cheaper double in 45-70 for practice. Then I started with 2 boxes of federal woodlieghs and 2 boxes of hornady after I found out the hornady shoots almost as good as the federals I ordered 10 more boxes of softpoints and 3 boxes of solids as well as 400 woodliegh softs for reloading. So it puts me just over 300 rnds loaded ammo less what I have shoot already. And a good start for working up some loads as for the 45-70 I already have ammo for it as I have a Wild West custom lever gun I've had for some time. They are both fun to shoot. I like to alter between them so my shoulder don't take to much abuse from the 470 although it is not that bad and I prefer it over my 416 actually. The ammo prices are going to kill me though if I keep this up!

I know what you mean...I have a 416 rigby that I havent shot yet..and working on getting a 470 NE. I'll have a 450/400 shortly and cant wait to see how that is compared to 458 and 375.