I agree that the auto safety should be disengaged for quick follow ups after my one experience. I have never been to Africa but I did borrow a nice little Merkel S x S in 7 x 65R on a driven hunt in Germany years ago. Sat the whole morning listening to shooting in the distance...heard the dogs and handlers come within ear shot a few times and just assumed it wasn't my day. At the horn, we broke for lunch and then went back out for the afternoon...and again...I heard shooting but didn't even see a hog, roe deer, fallow or red deer. About 3:30, I thought I heard animals moving down a stream bed about 70-80 yds from my Kanzel. Then came about 10-12 hogs, leading sow at the front....I shot an immature sow through the neck just behind the lead animal and then a yearling pig through both shoulders farther back in the group, ejected shells, slipped two more in and managed to shoot a third (another Ueberlaeufer) as the group ran nearly straight away from me...that shot entered high on the rear right flank going downward through the loin and chest and breaking the left front leg below the elbow.

And that's my only experience with a quick follow up with a double....

BTW, there was a very nice little Docter 1.5-4 x 20 (I think) on that gun that was just great for this kind of hunting.

Regarding posting some photos to prove credentials, that is probably not such a bad idea, and it got me thinking.
Mac and I actually own similar double rifles, these being the Winchester Grand European O/U doubles built and sold in the early 1980's.
I've owned one in 7x65R for a number of years, and Mac has had one in 9.3x74R for several years also.
We could start by posting some photos of game taken with these little Grand European doubles.
How about it Mac.
Want to show us some photos of your Winchester O/U with some animals you have shot with it?

Safari-lawyer: If you live that close to GSI, then I would suggest that you and the wife take a little trip up/down there to visit their Merkel orphanage, view the racks of all of their fine Merkel Doubles right then and there, pick out the one that is screaming for you to take it home with you, put your wife's money down on it, bundle it up and take the baby home!

I am one of those guys buying his first and most likely the only double rifle. It is a Merkel Mod. 141-1.1 and is in the lowly 308 Win. caliber. I have no plans whatsoever of hunting with it other than some whitetail deer which is not really hunting since the things are pretty much a pest anymore. I could buy a Chapuis double for less money, but have done a fair amount of reading and researching about the Merkel's and most generally they are considered a very solid firearm. Not that the Chapuis don't have a good reputation for notice many own them, but usually in 9.3x74 and I have plenty of medium to big bores if needed. Have been advised by some that the caliber I am buying is a detrement and not really a double rifle in the true sense of the word, but it would not suprise me that these same folks still believe in the "flat earth" concept. Biggest complain I have heard about Merkel is that they are very, very stiff and takes a long time to "break them in" and the ejectors are super stout and throw cases across the yard. I can live with those items. As for the caliber of 308, have buckets of brass, components, and happen to think highly of the round so it is a fit for me. If the tax man does not kill me, I'll have it paid for by the end of April.

Photo of a couple of happy hunters with double rifles and an elephant. One of those rifles looks like the Merkel that Mac has. The hunter sold it to once again become bolt rifle trash because he thought he was thru ele hunting.

quote:

Originally posted by BigB:
Photo of a couple of happy hunters with double rifles and an elephant. One of those rifles looks like the Merkel that Mac has. The hunter sold it to once again become bolt rifle trash because he thought he was thru ele hunting.

Cool, why not everyone and anyone, including Mac and Alan post some hunting photos with their double, especially Merkels seeing the topic of this thread. For fun and enjoyment.

It doesn't make a wit of difference if your double has an auto safety or not if you practice with you gun and become familiar with it. I have one with and one without an auto safety and have no problem with either. To be honest, I have come to prefer the auto safety.

Here are a couple of photos which are on another thread here. I'll post a link as I've no idea how to move them to this thread.
Before someone claims that I'm trying to get a free plug for my hunting and video business, I should point out that I am not currently offering any guided hunting nor do I have any videos or dvd's for sale.
Also any phone numbers or email addy's on that old thread are loooong out of date.
I've been having a break away from guiding over the last few years.
In the photos I'm the guy with the whiskers.
The photo with the SxS is me with a Joseph Lang .360 No2 Nitro Express PHV1 Webley, and was taken in outback Queensland.
The one in the swamp is in Cape York at the top of Queensland, and the rifle is a custom .358 Win on a very early tang safety Ruger 77 by Ron Webb.
The photo with the bull is in Cape York, and the double is my 400-350 Nitro Express custom built on a Ruger Red Label 20g, also by OZ gunsmith Ron Webb. (Retired)
The bull was taken by the client in the photo.
This guy is a very long term hunting client and friend. From memory he was shooting a 9.3x62 Sauer 202.
Others in the photos are hunting clients.
5seventy's photos

Mac, your turn now.

Those are some nice hogs.

I shot a meat hog with the 470 Merkel, tasted good but did not take any photos.

BigB

Thanks BigB.
The pig hunting up in Cape York is unreal. Boars have very good tusks there!

5seventy, I have a Lang .360 No. 2 which I acquired last October and harvested several deer with this year.

The gun was "completed on 13th November 1906.

It has brought me immense pleasure!

Thanks for sharing.

quote:

Originally posted by 5seventy:
Mac, your turn now.

Alan, I have tons of pictures but they are all printed photos taken by a 35 MM camera,many of them years ago, and I have no idea how to go about posting them on the website! Some of them Africa, and some in Alaska, and canada, and the western moutain states of the USA.

I do have a couple taken by a digital camera of a couple hogs, and some of some of my mounted trophies on the walls but I don't know how to post those either! When My middle son, who is the computer guy in our family, comes over here I can get him to do it if it can be done.

So is Mac37 going to post any pictures of his Doubles and hunting? That is the point of this isn't it?

To smoke out someone with Atkinson's Disease.

quote:

Originally posted by Gator1:
So is Mac37 going to post any pictures of his Doubles and hunting? That is the point of this isn't it?

To smoke out someone with Atkinson's Disease.

Gator1 you can kiss old bung! As a matter of fact the whole mess of you can kiss!

Mac,
No matter what if you wander up this way again the same invitation is there to stop by for a brew or two and do some shooting with the Ak gang.

Mac, if posting some photos is going to cause some sort of major meltdown, don't worry about it.
I thought you would have had plenty of hunting with double rifle piccy's. No problem.
No need to get angry. Hell, I've been called a few things in this thread myself!
I think it's time to try and steer this back on track.
Tell us more about your Merkels. What animals have you hunted in the USA with them?

quote:

Originally posted by Donald Soter:
5seventy, I have a Lang .360 No. 2 which I acquired last October and harvested several deer with this year.

The gun was "completed on 13th November 1906.

It has brought me immense pleasure!

Thanks for sharing.

Donald, would love to have a yarn with you about your Lang.
Probably best not in this thread though. It's too far off (the Merkel) track already.

At some stage we'll have to talk doubles!

Regarding the Merkel double rifles, I think there are enough good reports around, to say that they are good value for the money.
Something that I'm not overly impressed about on the latest models, is that they have gone to monobloc barrel construction.
My opinion has nothing to do with any strength issues.
I just think the monobloc to barrel join looks untidy on a factory built SxS.
The earlier models look neater IMO.

Here you go Alan

Some of mine.

Thanks John.
In that photo of mine with the red bull, you can see that there is not much blueing on the barrels of that double, only at the breech end over the chambers.
This is because I had just re-layed the ribs and re- regulated the barrels.
Hadn't had time to re-blue before the season started, so just used it as is.

Some great photos there of yours John.
You definately ain't no "keyboard hunter"!

quote:

Originally posted by MacD37:I have tons of pictures but they are all printed photos taken by a 35 MM camera,many of them years ago, and I have no idea how to go about posting them on the website! Some of them Africa, and some in Alaska, and canada, and the western moutain states of the USA.

Perhaps a friend of neighbour has a scanner that could digitize the pictures for you? I am sure we would enjoy viewing your adventures.

quote:

Originally posted by jbderunz:

quote:

Originally posted by MacD37:I have tons of pictures but they are all printed photos taken by a 35 MM camera,many of them years ago, and I have no idea how to go about posting them on the website! Some of them Africa, and some in Alaska, and canada, and the western moutain states of the USA.

Perhaps a friend of neighbour has a scanner that could digitize the pictures for you? I am sure we would enjoy viewing your adventures.

Or you could take them to the local Drugstore and have them put on a CD.

quote:

Originally posted by MacD37:

quote:

Originally posted by 5seventy:
Mac, your turn now.

Alan, I have tons of pictures but they are all printed photos taken by a 35 MM camera,many of them years ago, and I have no idea how to go about posting them on the website! Some of them Africa, and some in Alaska, and canada, and the western moutain states of the USA.

I do have a couple taken by a digital camera of a couple hogs, and some of some of my mounted trophies on the walls but I don't know how to post those either! When My middle son, who is the computer guy in our family, comes over here I can get him to do it if it can be done.

Mac,
You don't have to post tons of photos.
Just a few showing animals taken with your double rifles in them would be good.
If you don't have a scanner, you can photograph the 35mm prints with a digital camera and load onto your computer. It's not the best way to do it, but it does work.

hard to believe that someone would shoot a couple of buffalo and an eland in the last 8-10 years and not have a picture they could post. man, EVERYTHING i have shot in Africa is immortalized in enough pictures to fill a suitcase. i was so proud of the 1 buffalo i shot that i've got 8-10 pictures just of him.

jdollar,
some people hunt for the pictures and some do it for the experience,each to his own!

so you don't take a lot of pictures of things you shoot? as i get older, my memory fades a bit but my pictures are always there as a constant( and valuable) reminder.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill73:
jdollar,
some people hunt for the pictures and some do it for the experience,each to his own!

I'd say very few people would hunt just to get photos.
The vast majority would hunt for the experience but also take photos.

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
hard to believe that someone would shoot a couple of buffalo and an eland in the last 8-10 years and not have a picture they could post. man, EVERYTHING i have shot in Africa is immortalized in enough pictures to fill a suitcase. i was so proud of the 1 buffalo i shot that i've got 8-10 pictures just of him.

JDollar, I get the jest of your, not so subtle, post, and I certainly picked up on your insinuation. I’m sure that was your intent! First let me say I simply do not care what you find hard to believe.

Having said that, for others here, I’m simply not a cameraman, and am computer illiterate, and in over 60 years of hunting a full 90% of the animals I have taken were neither mounted, nor photographed, and most North American game was quartered in the field, with horns nailed to our barn, if taken at all. Horn size means zip to me, the hunt is what spins my wheels!

The animals that were photographed, in most cases, were simply of the animal, taken by me with a little instamatic, or a cheap 35 MM Minolta waterproof camera in Alaska’s rain. I have only recently obtained a little pocket digital camera, given to me by my two youngest sons for father’s day this year. I still don’t know fully how to use it, or to get the pictures into my computer, or to put them into a post on the website. In most cases I forget I have it with me. I’m old, and retired now and simply use the computer to replace the time I used to spend in the woods. I know how to turn it on, and how to turn it off, and that is about it. This thing is not what I know, double rifles in particular, and firearms in general is what I know.

All my life I have hunted alone in almost every place other than Africa, and Alaska. However contrary to the popular collective belief, expressed here lately, I don’t owe any of you any explanation and can live quite nicely without considering any of your opinions! This was a report on the reliability of the two Merkel double rifles that I own, but has become one of the famous AR Kangaroo courts that two or three people on the Internet love to hold, totally over shadowing the original intent of the thread. I can take different opinions on what I say about these two rifles, or how I think a good double rifle should be set up for hunting dangerous game, but this has become a personal attack, and I will not be interrogated by anyone who has zero authority to do so.

I will post some pictures once I get together with my middle son, but he lives 250 miles away, and I don’t see him that often. Until I do get his help, you can all go butt a stump. I don’t believe any of you wear a Judge’s robe, so you can believe what you want, but that doesn’t make your opinions worth sh*t to anyone other than yourself.
However, if your collective intent is to run me off AR, think again, because my name is not RAY, and I was here before you, and most of the other nosey A-holes here who think, for some reason, that I need to testify in their little mob court, think again!
.........................

PS: Here is an example of pictures taken of animals all but one shot with double rifle in two days. My four are amoungst them! I took two with each of the two Merkels. If anyone has doubts if this is true there are 14 members of the DRSS who were there when these were shot. The group included three PHs from Africa as well, one of which used my 470NE Merkel to shoot two boars. This is easy to post because it is already in syberspace on the DRSS website, and the link plus the [IMG] [/IMG] ! However that doesn't work for pictures in my computer, or on photo paper. I hope this makes somebody happy!

We should probable start a new thread if we are going to post hunting success photos though. Nice shooting there.

Mac-

You're just fine.
Keep it saucy, and forget about the whiners.
There is nothing that will please them anyway.

On killing with rifles and shooting with cameras - I do both, but I'm really poor at getting them together in the same event.
It seems like every time I'm out in the field getting the killing done, there's just no time to fiddle-fart around with the camera, and often little daylight left once things are caped/quartered/boned and packed out of the hole.
Last time out we didn't see camp until about 11:30PM from there it was time for much needed rest, and following that it was time to high-tail it out of the timber and back into the routine of day-to-day life.
Funny how it works that way.


For what it's worth, that snow-job shown above gives teeth to a 'bloody murder' sentence on Mac's Merkel double rifles!!



Cheers
Tinker

Test

href="http://s210.photobucket.com/albums/bb58/MacD37/4K%20Jun%2008/?action=view¤t=2d6f054a.jpg" target="_blank"><img<a


src="http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb58/MacD37/4K%20Jun%2008/2d6f054a.jpg" border="0" alt="470 Merkel"></a>" border="0" alt="Bigest hog"></a>

Well so much for that it didn't work!

Well on it!

Mac-

I did a little look into that to see if I could help you out with it - but got snagged on the light bore rifle with the set trigger.
What is that little critter?
Should I be trying to buy it from you?



Cheers
Tinker

quote:

Originally posted by MacD37:
Well so much for that it didn't work!

Here you go:

quote:

Originally posted by mouse93:

quote:

Originally posted by MacD37:
Well so much for that it didn't work!

Here you go:

Thank you Mouse93! Both were taken at the same time with two shots from the 470NE Merkel, with a double tap, at about 40 yds!

Almost everything I hunt today, which isn't much anymore, is shot with a double rifle, in one chambering or another! Much of what I've taken over the many years were taken with not only double rifles, but with handguns, bolt actions,single shots, combination guns and even bows!

These two pictures were taken with that new camera my sons bought me. It was already 9 PM when the pictures were taken, last June.

The picture BigB posted of the elephant, one of two that he took with this same 470NE rifle! It has taken nothing more than a couple dozen wild Boar by me. That is about all I hunt today!

HELLO MR MACD
HOW ARE U,I AM GOING TO SPRING BEAR HUNT IN QUEBECK,i gto my merkel drilling in 9.3,i just love that caliber,drilling is shooting well,iam bringing double rifle and drilling,want to get my drilling nloody over nice bear,anyhow if u are in canada pm me ,come by for dinner in niagara falls,would be nice to meet gentleman like u, all the best MACD

quote:

Originally posted by Bill73:
5seventy,
what is your f...ing problem ? why do you want to stir shit ? Mac is one of the most savvy people on this forum,having shared camp with him I can also say that he is a true gentleman and I am proud to have broken bread with him,drop this now and move back into the hole where you came from or identify yourself

Bill73,
I guess it's time that I answered what you have asked me in your post.
First, regarding my identity, I have never tried to conceal it in any way here. I registered using my usual email address which contains my real name.
I used the handle 5seventy knowing that anyone who knew of "4seventy" from the NE forums would easily make the connection and and be able to recognise who I am.

Secondly, in my first post in this thread, I asked Mac why he had not converted the auto safety on his Merkel 9.3x74R.
Now anyone who knows Mac would also know that he posts on many different forums. Over a period of years I've read many of his posts in a variety of different places on the net.
One subject which he has repeated over and over is his dislike for the auto safety, and particularly on rifles to be used for dangerous game hunting.
Another thing that he has mentioned regularly is that his 9.3 Merkel is one of his "go to Africa pair" of rifles.
I've read these two things so many times that I easily remember what has been said, so when I read here that he still had an auto safety on that 9.3 Merkel, I just couldn't understand why.
I also remembered him saying that the same Merkel 9.3 had been to Africa more than once and had actually killed a couple of buffalo.
So again I was astounded when he said here that he has never ever taken this rifle to Africa, and that it has never been taken after DG.
I just couldn't make any sense of it at all.
From reading Macs earlier posts, I had believed that the rifle had in fact been to Africa, and that it had actually taken dangerous game there.
In one thread the rifle has been to Africa not just once but three times, then in a later thread it has never been taken to Africa at all.
Well, I have no idea what's going on, but if you can clear anything up, I'm always willing to listen.
Cheers

5seventy,

Before I sold the 470 to Mac I took it to Africa 3 times and took elephant and buffalo with the gun.

BigB

5seventy,
I am sure you have your reasons for persisting in your line of questioning,whether they are are honorable or not is your problem,you learn a lot about people reading what they write,two things are clear to anybody who has been following this discussion,Mac DOES NOT LIKE AUTO SAFETIES,Mac WOULD TAKE HIS TWO MERKELS TO AFRICA FOR ANY FUTURE HUNTS,whenever I have shared camp with him,he had those two rifles with him,they are his go to rifles,we all have rifles that are still due for work as is the case with his 9.3,now I sincerely hope that I have cleared things up somewhat for you,I do look forward to hunting in your beautiful country someday!

quote:

Originally posted by 5seventy:

quote:

Originally posted by Bill73:
5seventy,
what is your f...ing problem ? why do you want to stir shit ? Mac is one of the most savvy people on this forum,having shared camp with him I can also say that he is a true gentleman and I am proud to have broken bread with him,drop this now and move back into the hole where you came from or identify yourself

Bill73,
I guess it's time that I answered what you have asked me in your post.
First, regarding my identity, I have never tried to conceal it in any way here. I registered using my usual email address which contains my real name.
I used the handle 5seventy knowing that anyone who knew of "4seventy" from the NE forums would easily make the connection and and be able to recognise who I am.

Secondly, in my first post in this thread, I asked Mac why he had not converted the auto safety on his Merkel 9.3x74R.
Now anyone who knows Mac would also know that he posts on many different forums. Over a period of years I've read many of his posts in a variety of different places on the net.
One subject which he has repeated over and over is his dislike for the auto safety, and particularly on rifles to be used for dangerous game hunting.
Another thing that he has mentioned regularly is that his 9.3 Merkel is one of his "go to Africa pair" of rifles.
I've read these two things so many times that I easily remember what has been said, so when I read here that he still had an auto safety on that 9.3 Merkel, I just couldn't understand why.
I also remembered him saying that the same Merkel 9.3 had been to Africa more than once and had actually killed a couple of buffalo.
So again I was astounded when he said here that he has never ever taken this rifle to Africa, and that it has never been taken after DG.
I just couldn't make any sense of it at all.
From reading Macs earlier posts, I had believed that the rifle had in fact been to Africa, and that it had actually taken dangerous game there.
In one thread the rifle has been to Africa not just once but three times, then in a later thread it has never been taken to Africa at all.
Well, I have no idea what's going on, but if you can clear anything up, I'm always willing to listen.
Cheers

5seventy you have made your point, why do you want to continue with this beating of a dead horse, or even care at all. I'm almost certain that you have never made a mistake in you life, considering your pious citizens arrest of such a dangerous offender.

I'm not saying the passages you quoted were the thing to do, but damn, for some reason you seem to take great perverse joy in continuing this till dooms day. Will you unclamp your pit bull jaws, My leg is starting to get sore!