I bought one about 3 years ago. I had a gunsmith go through the triggers and the cocking mechanism so it would stay fully open without having to be held open - otherwise it took nearly three hands to load it. After that it now stays fully open when cocked without having to be held open and still retains the "half open" characteristic.
I've got a Nikon 1-4x20 mounted on it in a 22 rim fire base that has a set screw that happens to fall into the grove at the back of the rib - never has shot it loose and I've shot it a lot.
Played with a boat load of different loads and finally settled on just plain old Rem 405's at 1600fps. Got it regulated (took a lot of playing around with the jack screw and ..... a vice and large wrench - it is Russian after all) so that both barrels shot into a little more than a 2" circle at 100 yds.
Took it to Namibia last year to "blood" it on Gemsbok and Warthog. Don't know what happened between the last day on the range and the the proof shooting at the PH's range five days later but neither one of us could put both barrels on a typing sheet size target at 50 meters. Ended up just putting it back in the case. That was back in Aug and I still haven't looked at it. Guess this winter I'll get it out and try to sort out what happened and take it with me on next June's trip to Namibia.
The nicest part of it is the ability to use the jack screw to adjust the regulation to the load you want to shoot instead of having to adjust your loads to shoot where the barrels are regulated like on the high end doubles.
In any case it is fun as hell to shoot and I would use it on any plains game in Africa out to 150 yds and pretty much anything in North America.
Bottom line is once you get it sorted out how you want it (it will make you crazy in the process) you will have a ball with it.
