has anybody fired the merkel doubles in 7 x57 or any small frame doubles

I have a 141 in 8x57IR and have fired it quite a bit. What is the question.

I have a Merkel 141 in 9,3x74. I find it a joy to shoot. The regulation feature works (even for a layman), the scope system is light, quick to remove and returns to zero.

I have lots of confidence in the gun. I killed a buffalo with mine in September.

It is very light and a joy to carry, but I never suffered from recoil, shooting it 50 times in a session. It is, as advertised, sensitive to heating up the barrels by firing multiple shots without cooling, but no more so than any other double. BTW, I killed a zebra with it at 225 yards (Barnes TSX 250 grain). The gun shot better than 5" groups at that range, using a little 2.5x scope (so some of the spread was optical, not the rifle). It came regulated with 232 grain Vulcan (Norma) ammo. The test target had bullets touching each other at fifty yards and I was able to duplicate that with handloads and somewhat heavier bullets (250 grain). I couldn't get that accuracy with 286 grain bullets, though. They wouldn't get closer that 2" at 50 yards (big deal, huh?)... anyway, I went with 250 grain TSX's and they shot through a buffalo, so I guess they were sufficient!

yes i was just trying to see if the accuracy was good enough on the smaller calibers to shoot at long distance no farther than 300 yds.

My 141 which does NOT have adjustable barrels shoots 200gr bullets into .650 Approx groups at 100yds. Have no idea about longer distances as I have only shot at 100yds. It has a Leupold 1.5x5 Vari X-III in a MAK pivor mount. The srock is the traditional European 'hogback' style. It is a single non-selective trigger with ejectors. Have absolutely no complaints with it.

you would not go wrong getting the new small bore merkel.
it has the desirable features , is priced right and will not let you down !

quote:

Originally posted by zimbabwe:
My 141 which does NOT have adjustable barrels shoots 200gr bullets into .650 Approx groups at 100yds. Have no idea about longer distances as I have only shot at 100yds. It has a Leupold 1.5x5 Vari X-III in a MAK pivor mount. The srock is the traditional European 'hogback' style. It is a single non-selective trigger with ejectors. Have absolutely no complaints with it.

Zim,

Nice shooting, good combo of rifle and shooter!! I've had BIGGER groups than that with some varmit rifles

I love my 8x57 and thought it shot great but after Zimbabwe's target, I'll have to say mine just shoots decent. Wow! What shooting.

I find that if you do your home work on the loading bench, merkel double rifles are among the most accurate double rifle in the market today!

What you need to do first, is find a load the will print very tight groups in each barrel! Using a double like a single shot at this stage, you find a load that works equally well in each barrel as an individual. These groups are fired from a cool barrel, two shots between letting the barrels cool back to room temp, so to speak. A double rifle is designed to fire two quick shots, one from each barrel, from cool barrels, for the initial shots. The next two are either long going away shots, or getting so close accuracy doesn't count for much! Then let the rifle cool, and shoot from an ambient temperature rifle shoot a composite group, to see where you need to go, for a group that shoots to the regulation. The above is a step that guys new to double rifles often omit, and find most often, that it makes finding the regulating load far more difficult to find. The other thing often omitted is the use of a crono!
I find a corno a must if you are thinking a long term dealing with more than one double rifle! A couple hundred dollars for a good crono is a very good investment, when you consider the cost of components that will be wasted without one!

The reason for this is two fold. #1 to see if the load is the best you can get for each barrel, and #2 is to know which is the most accurate barrel. The composite group will never be better that the group the tightest barrel shoots, no matter what!

The group posted by Zimbabwe, is a very good composite group, and the lot # of the powder should be noted, and large supply of that powder set aside if possible!

MacD37,
This group was shot mostly as you describe. I was testing loads and bullet weights. Sadly the can of 4064 I was using is an old one as I rarely use anything other than IMR4350 and it was only about 1/3 of a can. I just decided to use it up. May never get that good a group again but definitely know the gun is CAPABLE of inch composite groups so I WILL find more good shooting loads if the next batch doesn't come up to snuff. This is the result of 16 different bullet and load tests. It would have to be with a SWIFT bullet and not with my old favorite Nosler Partitions. I can probably live with that if I absolutely have to. I weighed the box of Swifts and they weighed from 200.8 to 201.4 for whatever that's worth.I don't have a chrony so I just have to accept the book value for whatever load I settle on. As far as practical use it seems to serve ok.It would be nice to have one. I just have never used one and at my age why start now. Old dogs and all that stuff.