Hi 4winds,
The Merkel KR1 is a good rifle. May be over engineered for some people as gebuesch wrote in Europe thread but effective and reliable. Accuracy is really good. Changing barrel as with Blaser R93 does'nt induce variation of POI. Some had problem of feeding with the 270WSM but that problem was traced to the magazine and solved.
The scope mount is sturdy and you can count on him even if it's stange for most of american hunter's taste. If you like the KR1, buy it, learn to use it and have good hunting.
I had chance to play with it sometime till 2007, last year i use one to take 8 pieces of game in two days of monteria in Portugal shooting 11 cartridges.
In Lithuania i shot some boars with it always in driven hunt.
I don't own one but i used and use it time to time and i trust it.
Here some pictures in two batches...
Lithuanian wild boars double
then portuguese red deer does and stag and wild boar.During that hunt i used one mannlicher style and one standart model.