Hate to bore everyone with this, but this is the issue with these guns. I'm going to start basic, so bear with me.
After you fire your double, you unlock the breach, and swing the barrels down. As you do this, there are rods in the action that are connected to the forend that push the hammers back, eventually cocking the gun.
What happens on the Sabattis that I have had contact with is this:
After you fire, obviously the hammers are down, firing pins are forward. You unlatch your gun and start to swing the barrels down. The problem is, the rods that push the hammers back don't push them back far enough, soon enough. So you have to literally shove the fired primer past the firing pin. I know that's what is going on, because it leaves a mark, a "swipe" on the primer where you can see the firing pin dragging across the primer.
The other problem is, in BOTH guns I've seen, there was a very similar defect in the muzzle. This one is harder to explain, but it looks like a little dished out triangle, like someone had a reamer of some kind in there and instead of the reamer being straight up and down, they pushed it over to one side and took a chunk of metal out. I've NEVER seen anything like this on a new gun. Maybe an old .22LR pump that someone cleaned for 50 years from the muzzle, but never on a new gun.
The best part is, rather than put new barrels on the gun, EAA just polished and cold blued the areas with the missing metal!!?!?
Look folks, I just can't sit around and not say anything about these guns. I don't have one bit of skin in the game, but I know that I was so disappointed that I was physically ill. And it wasn't even my gun--it was my father's. His boyhood dream. And the gun was a total lump.
Bottom line: I've seen two of these Sabatti double rifles, and both of them suffered the same two defects. A gun should open after its fired. Without breaking it over your leg. Maybe its coincidence. But I wouldn't bet on it.
