Hats off and unconditional appreciation to be attributed to Sabbath which in times that are certainly not easy sweeps with the eye and mind towards those horizons that recall Hemingway's “Green Hills of Africa” to all fans of great hunting. The very recent proposal is precisely dedicated to those emblematic wild animals that, in the common English language under the southern skies, are called Big Five, the Big Five who deserve to be mentioned one by one starting from the elephant to touch the lion, the rhinoceros, the buffalo and the leopard. The dangerousness of the different subjects suggests an endowment of a snappy physique, trained eye, cold blood and shooting ability completely above average: together it will be necessary to have a rifle in your hands that fully meets the needs of those moments in which you will find yourself face to face with these fantastic inhabitants of the savannah.
The characteristics can be concentrated in a decidedly exuberant caliber weapon with ordinary repetition to have more shots, but the Lords of the situation entrust to two shots, very safe and in rapid succession, their life and, if Professional Hunters, that of theirs. clients. The road traced at the end of the nineteenth century by the British Masters is still school because, despite modern executions almost completely free of risks due to malfunctions, the failure to fire a charge due to the various reasons that we can imagine, requires the movement of the revolving shutter. sliding with expenditure of time and change of posture at least of the right hand, the one which then has to act on the trigger again. Placing two identical and mirror guns side by side, equipped with separate batteries or locks and with two triggers, allows you to start the shot of the second barrel in an instant if the first has betrayed us, likewise to double the first shot to stop the charge of a game that he can quickly reverse roles by passing him as the hunter and placing us as the hunted.
The technical approach
In recent decades, various solutions have been seen, aimed above all at providing hunters of wild boars, and other local game threatened in pursuit, with two rifled barrels usually chambered in German collar calibers, with a preference for the historic 8 × 57 IRS to climb up to 9,3x74R. The receiver is derived from those for the smooth barrels, with some tricks to improve its resistance, but for the African cartridges where the British have always dictated the law, a specially sized and structured receiver is required: Sabatti tackled the subject with the usual sagacity bringing to fruition an express that can rightly boast the suffix Big five.and he did it by working everything in-house, having step-by-step controls that ensure the result.
The action starts from a solid forged high-strength steel worked on numerically controlled machines which guarantee absolute executive precision. The shapes follow those of Holland & Holland with strong thickening at the sides, especially at the critical point under the junction of the face and board lines, where the effort under shot tends to cause the horizontal part to flex. Current steels guarantee strength and resilience, that is, an almost total impediment to bending and a return to zero if this should occur. The barrels are made from chromium molybdenum steel bars, already tempered with heat treatment by the manufacturer, and then scored by cold rotomammalization: the ballistic and durability performance is better than normal carbon steel barrels.
The junction takes place with the breech monobloc system from which the two lower tenons are also obtained in which the locking plug operated by the key engages. The fastening is completed by the two ribs welded with special high-strength alloys to obviate the vibratory frequencies. The soul of the express is in the convergence of the barrels that must shoot at the same point at a predetermined distance, here set at 70 meters: modern electronic means provide valuable help, but it is the hand of the specialist that determines the right angle, with brass ligatures and small spacer wedges, finally proceeding with the welding. Truly a work of masters.
The open sights, those traditionally used on such rifles, see the front sight mounted on a sturdy raised support and the open V notch composed of a lying L recessed in the rib: the short arm subtends the shortest distance (usually 50 m) while two leaves foldable allow the engagement of the target at greater distances. The references in colored optical fiber can be mounted or, by means of a notch in the upper rib, the bases of an optic can be mounted.
Stock, trigger, safety and extractors
The two-piece stock is obtained from walnut selected for structure and course of the vein; there is also the aesthetic part, which does not hurt, but the pre-eminence must be given to the two aforementioned characteristics. A wood subjected to these stresses must never crack and absorb the heavy recoil returning it adequately to the hunter's shoulder. The cheek rest, the lean and edge angles, the soft reddish rubber buttplate (a must for this type of shotgun) and the beavertail shaft allow you to master the weapon with the certainty of sending the shot where you are. want.
The pistol grip offers a correct grip to the hand: to stay on the subject of Express the guard should extend into the guard following the curve of the handle and ending at the edge of the metal guard. The oil painting with a half-gloss effect is valuable, suitable to enhance the class of the shotgun while the metal surfaces show laser engravings composed of Ramages in Renaissance style and scenes with African subjects such as the lion and the buffalo.
The internal batteries have perfectly calibrated clicks and the two triggers can be requested as the single non-selective trigger. The safety is located behind the key while the manual extractors can be replaced by the automatic ones. To conclude, the new creation of the Sabatti turns out to be an important piece of arquebusery and it will be really interesting to experience it shooting with those calibers that have punctuated the history of hunting in Africa.