quote:

Originally posted by surestrike:
How many triggers does your rifle have Mike?

Two, but I would have no problem using a single trigger double. Cabelas had a beautiful single trigger Westley Richards double not long ago, I believe in .475 #2, that I would have dearly loved to own. Still think about that rifle.

I can tell you without a moments hesitation that I've had a two trigger rifle fail to go boom both times. Once.

And I've had a pile of trouble with single trigger shotguns. I just don't trust the system it's to complicated more prone to failure and that usually occurs at just the wrong moment if Murphy has anything to do with it.

I had a main action spring on a Searcy break once but I still had a single shot rifle even after the spring broke.

Guys get all wrapped around the axle on this stuff but in reality you should shoot what you prefer. It's not like you are going to be out for a year and have to depend on your rifle to put money in the bank, food on the table, and provide protection for your camp. Those days are long gone so the whole two rifles in one, and drop locks and all that redundancy stuff that once meant life or death or financial ruin is really pretty much a mute point now days.

Shoot what you like and by all means poke Will with a stick every now and then, it's free entertainment.

Right now I would hunt with a double with two triggers or one trigger, auto safety or not, 450-400 or 577 Nitro, maybe even a Blaser or Woodleigh bullets. I just wish I was back in Africa chasing after an elephant or buffalo.

quote:

I just wish I was back in Africa chasing after an elephant ....

Me too.

quote:

I just wish I was back in Africa chasing after an elephant or buffalo.

Yes sir!!

Alas we find common ground. Make that four.

quote:

Originally posted by MJines:
Be interesting to know the cumulative level of dangerous game hunting experience that all the detractors of single trigger doubles have. Just say'in, it would be good to know what credibility to attach to all those opinions. I can respect opinions on both sides where those opinions come from folks with a basis to express their opinion. For example, go back and read Chapter XIII in Big Game and Big Game Rifles and see what Pondoro Taylor had to say about single trigger doubles. Or James Sutherland for another. On the other hand, the opinions of folks whose doubles make a semi-annual, if that often, trip to the shooting range should probably be ascribed a slightly different level of credibility.

Mike that is a very good idea! Here is a guy with some experience with single triggers on double rifles! I hope he doesn't disapoint you and Will!

quote:

By John Taylor: From page’s 325 & 326 in his book AFRICAN RIFLES & CARTRIDGES

Single-Triggers. This, of course, applies only to double rifles. The only double rifle, that I have ever seen with single trigger mechanism were Westley Richards’ but have little doubt that you could persuade other firms to give you single-triggers on their best grade weapons if you insisted on it. The advantages claimed for only having one trigger instead of two on a DB weapon are so well known now that that I hardly think it necessary to go into that here. Generally speaking, I would not recommend a beginner use them because if you have one DB weapon so fitted, then you must have all your DB, guns and rifle similarly fitted.

If you were only shooting non-dangerous game, then it wouldn’t matter how many triggers you had, but when you are close to dangerous beasts you do not want to be having to remember things that you might easily forget.

You see it would be absolutely essential that the mechanisms should be the selective variety, so you could fire either barrel first, and you would have to remember to shift whatever mechanism there was before you could dare open the breech for the purpose of re-loading without firing left, so that if you were suddenly attacked before you had gotten the shell into the chamber you could snap-to the breech and fire the left barrel. If you had forgotten to shift whatever slide or other control mechanism before opening the breech, then, then you would find yourself snapping the lock of the empty right barrel when endeavoring to stop the charge, because opening the breech re-sets the mechanism of the single trigger device. Besides it is very, very seldom that you are called upon to fire so quickly that you couldn’t take the shot with two triggers. Really powerful rifle jump to a greater or lesser extent on being fired, so that you could hardly expect to fire them as rapidly as an auto-loader. Nevertheless, in fairness to Westley Richards’ selective single- trigger mechanism I must admit that on two or three occasions when tackling elephant in very thick stuff, and there were only two or three, and I knew exactly where they were, so that I didn’t mind firing the left barrel without first reloading the right, I am pretty sure that I was enabled to get two where with an ordinary double-trigger rifle I would not have gotten more than one. It was occasionally the same with rhino and buffalo when I would just get the merest fleeting glimpse of a vital spot as the animal passed across a small gap in the foliage on the heels of the first shot, or even as the first beast fell and exposed for an instant a companion. One step, in that stuff, and your quarry disappears. However, taking everything into consideration, I decided that it was better in every way to stick to two triggers for Dangerous game, and so discarded my 577. End quote.

Ol' John had a way of patronizing his book buying base. Guys read Taylor's ramblings on two triggers and it forms their whole justification for needing two triggers.

If one trigger mechanism fails there is always the other trigger, right? How often has that happened on a double rifle outside of Taylor's double?

quote:

Originally posted by Will:

If one trigger mechanism fails there is always the other trigger, right? How often has that happened on a double rifle outside of Taylor's double?

Like I said above I had a main action spring snap on my .470 on the right barrel. The right trigger went limp. However my left barrel was still fully functional.

So yeah, what are the chances of it happening on a hunt? Not high, but it can and does happen.

Now the big question is if it does happen will our hero have the training and presence of mind in a bad situation when his blood was up to smoothly and quickly transition to the other trigger or would he do like most would and stand there and pull the dead trigger over and over progressively harder until either the critter was gone or he got swatted?

A good stress drill guys, have somebody else load your rifle and do a drill where the shooter fires two quick shots on the same target. Randomly load the rifle with a snap cap in one barrel, forcing the shooter to transition to the other trigger. Repeat randomly until the shooter instinctively transitions.

It is exactly the same as training for a weapon malfunction in a combat handgun or carbine using a dummy round forcing the shooter to instinctively tap, rack, and reassess.

The drill on a double is transition triggers and emergency reload, reassess. You can add in moving off the line of force while reloading after the shooter progresses.

Remember that in an adrenaline filled moment of emergency either real or perceived we never rise to the occasion rather we fall to our level of training.

quote:

Like I said above I had a main action spring snap on my .470 on the right barrel. The right trigger went limp.

Thank God that rifle wasn't a Sabatti.

quote:

Originally posted by Will:

Thank God that rifle wasn't a Sabatti.

Especially if the functional barrel was the ground upon one.

NOTE: Then he went on to say:

quote:

By Taylor It is frequently stated that a single-trigger mechanism, being complicated, must detract from the general reliability of the weapon. But I can’t admit that argument. I grant that certain types of single-trigger are entirely unsuitable but there are others that would appear to be okeh. And since these mechanisms are fitted on shot guns that may be called upon to do more shooting in a season than the rifle will do in it’s entire life, and be expected to stand up to that hammering year after year – and do it satisfactorily- I fail to see why they should be considered unreliable if fitted to a rifle.

It seems what Taylor is saying is certain types are acceptable on double rifles but because they cause problems in the cases of a missfire, or other broken parts in the double rifle and cause too many things to remember in the tight spots where an elephant hunter often finds himself, Though he considers mechanical unsuitable, and the selective are far better, but both cause some problems with missfires, and are unsuitable when anything in one side of the double rifle's lock or in the trigger breaks! As quoted below from Surestrike!

quote:

Originally posted by surestrike:
Like I said above I had a main action spring snap on my .470 on the right barrel. The right trigger went limp. However my left barrel was still fully functional.

So yeah, what are the chances of it happening on a hunt? Not high, but it can and does happen.

Now the big question is if it does happen will our hero have the training and presence of mind in a bad situation when his blood was up to smoothly and quickly transition to the other trigger or would he do like most would and stand there and pull the dead trigger over and over progressively harder until either the critter was gone or he got swatted?

I agree with Taylor completely! I find nothing against the single selective trigger on a double rifle that is used for non-dangerous game, and I own several shotguns with a single selective triggers, and one double rifle with a single mechanical trigger non-selective but none of these are used for dangerous game. I also agree with Taylor that even on a shotgun or double rifle that is not used for dangerous game, the single trigger should be selective! All mine are selective except the one double rifle used for deer, and Caribou hunting!

All I have ever said about single triggers on a double rifle, boils down to the fact that I don't consider them a proper trigger system on a double rifle that is used for the hunting of dangerous game! Taylor seems to agree!
.......................................

Now wait till you see his opinion of auto-safeties on a double rifle used for dangerous game!