I can tell you about Merkels. I had a 12ga 147E with gorgeous wood. It was CNC machined to VERY tight tolerances and was pretty stiff upon purchase. The manual said it would be and would loosen up, which it did a bit. I'd agree on the aesthetics of the gun; the wood is a bit clubby, especially the forend. The buttstock was gorgeous and had a little cast for a rightie, which I liked. The barrels were absolutely stunning... bluing, bore polish, everything. They were flat out gorgeous. A bit light a gun for shooting 3" magnums through, which I only did ONCE at a duck just to see how the recoil was...it was too much for not having a soft recoil pad and I'm no recoil weenie by any means. I could take or leave the Germanic engraving; a bit too coarse and deep for me also, but this was to be a duck gun. Had it out and it suddenly wouldn't close... I took it apart in my lap as ducks circled 15yds overhead and laughed. It was made so tight that a few grains of powder under the ejectors bound it up. I cleaned under the ejectors with a twig and it was fine. Those things are built to very tight tolerances. I measured the chambers at home and they were .010" larger than any of my 12ga Parkers, hence the excessive blowby of burned powder and bound up ejectors. Sent it back to GSI and they told me "they were made to proper tolerances"... BS I said and sold it to someone in Hawaii. I don't miss it really but at that time I got it all tricked out in a trunk case with all the fixin's for $4200, just 2wks before a 10% across the board price hike. It was and still is a good gun for the money I think. It just had a few warts... If I still had it I would use it in foul conditions where I maybe didn't want to take a Parker out... which has to be pretty foul for me. If I still had it I could shoot up all this uselss steel shot ammo I have languishing in the basement too.... Hope this helps. And Don, you're correct... "Need" has nothing to do with buying that next shotgun...
