2-Piper. You still have not convinced me that the 21 is not among the finest in the world.
IMO, the M21 took great attributes of other fine doubles of the time and improved upon them, making the toughest double ever. This, combined with the American spirit and rugged beauty put into every 21 is why the 21 is at the top of my list.
Cartod;
One reason I have not convinced you of that is that I have not tried to & have no intention of doing so. When Win was designing the 21 they wanted to fill a gap in their lineup. They wanted to produce a double which could be sold at a reasonable price & be as compatible with modern (for that time) machine production techniques as possible. In this they were extremely successful. They no doubt would have sold a lot more of them had not the single bbl repeaters (many of their own make) already been in the process of ending the heyday of the Douublegun in the US. Perhaps when I used the term Mediocre for the design I didn't really express that well. I wasn't really trying to say anything was necessarily a Bad design. Just that most every feature had already been in use for virtually a half century. Perhaps Average design would have been more appropriate than mediocre.
The 21 was certainly not the first double to use a coil spring action nor a round underbolt. Personally I think the Purdey double bolt is a superior design. Once previously I even had one poster try to convince me the 21 was the first double ever to have a bbl check/stop (this wasn't 8-Bore, he's a lot smarter than that).
Bottom line is I have no problem at all with the statement the 21 is "Among the finest in the World". It does have a lot of company though, its a big crowd its Among.
"M21 took great attributes of other fine doubles of the time and improved upon them"
Be happy to discuss all those attributes you feel were "Improved" in the M21.