Let's talk doubles

I can relate to being a romantic about all things hunting. And I want to experience it all! I'm blessed that I live in a country with wilderness and game animals in great plenty, and have taken full advantage of the opportunities. Our Canadian hunting traditions are part of me, like family traditions. There's not a lot more for me to learn about local hunting, I just appreciate what I do every year and try to pass it on. But I also have always read about hunting in exotic locations for game we don't have here, and hunting with guns we don't need here.
So I made a decision to buy a .375 bolt rifle like everyone recommends to the beginner for dangerous African game. And used it first for our local moose, and elk, and bear. It was quite practical, useful, but not really an exotic rifle. Just a little bigger than the other rifles I was used to hunting with. I hadn't really experienced anything new.
So when the time came to book a cape buffalo hunt in Namibia, I was determined to carry a traditional double rifle. It cost more, it took some effort to learn to shoot it well, it make my hunting buddies look at me with a combination of concern and perhaps envy. It's been fun. I've used my Merkel 450-400 3" to take only one buffalo ( and one elk) so far, but I plan to use it more. I like how it links me with the past, with traditions that are not yet my own, and I like that it is an object of functional art.
It costs more to build a good double rifle, and I gladly pay that higher price because it's worth more to me.
As an aside, I also have a fine Beretta O/U 9.3x74R that I purchased for much the same reason. Only this time to experience European hunting traditions. I plan to take that rifle for driven wild boar in Turkey next year. It is a very beautiful rifle, in the German / Italian tradition, equally exotic to me and most useful for a type of hunting I don't do at home. I did use it to hunt a couple of bears, just to prove its effectiveness. But I can't wait to roll a few fast stepping wild boars with it.
 
Got this 20 years ago.

Kevin has convinced me that I need to upgrade to an 89, but I'll probably just keep this old clunker until my kids sell it with the rest of my estate...


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Who knows, I might need to whack one of those elephants that the Russian oligarch's can no longer afford to hunt.
 
Got this 20 years ago.

Kevin has convinced me that I need to upgrade to an 89, but I'll probably just keep this old clunker until my kids sell it with the rest of my estate...


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Who knows, I might need to whack one of those elephants that the Russian oligarch's can no longer afford to hunt.
"Old clunker" ?? How come I never see old clunker's like that ?? I suspect I'm not the only bloke thinkin; this ...
 
That is one lovely vintage 450/400 3 1/4...do you know when it was built..?

I have a similar Joseph Lang built 1906...also regulated for 60 cordite..

Thank you. No idea Pondoro,

Before the war. It spent some time in India before returning to the UK, and then to RSA. It’s built on a Webley PHV1 action with Southgate ejectors.
 
This Manton double 470 is heading to Zim this summer for buff. There is nothing like a properly built double rifle.

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Others have expressed the reasons "why" in a far more eloquent manner, but I can tell you exactly "when" the double rifle began to interest me. It was as a young boy, when looking through my father's copy of the 1962 Shooter's Bible. The words ".470 Nitro Express" seemed magical to me. I was intrigued with the illustrations of the double rifles contained therein, but knew even then that such fine rifles were far beyond our means.


Afro India Double.jpg



Ferlach Express.jpg


Ferlach Engraving Sampler.jpg


I eventually managed to own one of the lower-end double shotguns for awhile, but that was about it. There was simply no chance that I could ever afford a double rifle. And yet around 2014 my financial situation had improved to the point where it might be within the realm of the possible, and (as related in another thread) the quest became serious. I would keep a lookout for a double rifle. And it would have to be in a caliber containing the words "Nitro Express." As noted in the other thread, I was eventually successful in purchasing a Jeffery boxlock double in .450-400 Nitro Express.

And that 1962 Shooter's Bible? It still resides on the bottom shelf of the bookcase that my father built, just as it has for the past sixty years.
 
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