Mike George’s buying advice

To my mind there are three German-made shotguns worth buying: Merkel, Krieghoff and Blaser. All three are good examples of German precision engineering, so it really is just a matter of your personal preferences in design and handling.

Interestingly, Merkel and Krieghoff were originally based in the German city of Suhl, which, following World War II, had the ill fortune to find itself located in East Germany. Krieghoff got out during a brief spell when the area was under American administration, and relocated in the southGerman city of Ulm, the birthplace of Albert Einstein, but Merkel remained in its home city, which is one of Europe’s traditional firearms manufacturing areas.

It always surprises me that, during the Cold War years, the politicians of Western Europe and the Soviet Bloc just couldn’t get on with each other, but the traders somehow found ways around things, and in Britain you could buy Merkel guns as well as Soviet-made Baikal guns and ammunition.

The new kid on the block is Blaser, whose guns are made by Blaser Jagdwaffen

GmbH, on the outskirts of Isny im Allgäu in the south of Germany. But “new” is a comparative term, and the company was founded in 1957 by Horst Blaser. The company now employs 350 people, making shotguns, rifles (both doubles and boltaction), and drillings – that rifle/shotgun combination which has never been popular in Britain.