I'd note that on the issue of Belgian OU's, I've owned a couple Francotte OU's. One had a 3-piece forend, like a Merkel; the other a one-piece forend. Both bore strong resemblance to Merkels in that they had the deep receiver, bolsters where the barrels meet the receiver, etc. One of them was marked Francotte. The other was not (although imported by Abercrombie & Fitch), but it did have the Francotte AF/crown proprietary trademark. Both had the same type bolting system as Chief's Daly rather than the standard Kersten found on Merkels.