This month we completed a project that had been just over a year in the making. Given that most British gunmakers are quoting four or five years between order and delivery of a best side-lock, that is no mean feat.
The customer is an overseas businessman who bought the last William & Son high pheasant gun just after the company went into administration following the COVID shutdown.
That gun was widely described in reviews in the sporting press as a ‘pigeon gun’ because of its heavy frame, third grip, side-clipped fences and matted rib. However, it was not stocked for trap shooting and really was intended for taking on high driven birds.
With 2 3/4” (70mm) chambers, 30” barrels and hefty 7lbs 6oz weight, it is very capable of soaking up heavy loads and swinging smoothly on distant targets. Teague multi-chokes deliver the flexibility to alter patterns and provide the option to use standard steel cartridges if required.
William & Son was the company William Asprey formed in 1999 after his family firm was sold (in 1995) by his father John Asprey to Prince Jefri of Brunei. Asprey is a name which has appeared on guns in the past but the sale of the business prevented William from trading under his own name. Hence, William & Son.
William & Son sold not only guns but all manner of luxury goods, clothing, luggage and watches. Its London store was a beacon of luxury and taste which sadly fell in the dire economic circumstances following months of lockdown, as did many.
Veteran gunmaker Paul West headed the department, with assistance from another long-serving gun trade salesman, Ian Andrews. The guns were built by a team of former Holland & Holland gunmakers, recruited by William Asprey to build a version of the Holland & Holland Royal De-luxe self-opener.
William Asprey had a wide network of wealthy clients and William & Son built a best gun, priced a little below Holland & Holland, Purdey or Boss. Sales were healthy for twenty years and the brand became ever more widely appreciated.
The William & Son gun pictured here was available for £101,000 in 2019 and was very favourably reviewed in the sporting press, by Make Yardley, among others. Following the liquidation of the firm we sold the remaining stock ( eight guns) and our client bought this one at a pleasing discount.
Having used it for four years and found it perfectly suited to the high New Zealand pheasants he regularly encounters, he began to seek a similar gun with which to pair the William & Son. Being a Holland & Holland type, it was, he thought, possible to find a vintage Holland & Holland pigeon gun of similar weight and use them together.
A couple of years of fruitless searching went by and we were discussing the likely time frame for finding something suitable. Having built several similar guns for clients in the past, I suggested the only option that would be sure to deliver what he wanted would be to build a gun to match the William & Son.
I had a vague recollection from talking to he actioner Mark Sullivan that a barrelled action existed because William & Son had originally planned to build a pair of these guns. I was right and Mark told me he had it and could build it up ready for stocking in a few months.
A deal was agreed and work began. I planned to have all the same craftsmen replicate the work they had done on the original gun in order to ensure the second would be as close as possible to make a pair.
The William & Son gun was stocked by Stephan Dupille, actioned by Mark Sullivan, finished by Colin Orchard and engraved by Peter Cusack. I contacted them all, had the necessary conversations and got a plan together, with the intention of delivering the gun by the end of January 2026. This was in March 2025. Scheduling was tight but we had a plan.
A decision had to be made regarding the name we should put on the new gun. The options were ‘Vintage Guns’, Diggory Hadoke or ‘Peter Hutson’. I have, in the past, always put the name of the customer on the guns I have had built. It was eventually decided to follow this plan again. In every other respect, we would try to make an exact pair but the name ‘Peter Hutson’ would be engraved on the locks and the rib instead of ‘William & Son’.
Early in the build, it became apparent that Stephan Dupille was too fully booked to manage to fit this stocking job into his diary. So, I asked Romain Lapinois to step in, which he very kindly agreed to do, despite being fully booked for months himself.
Once Mark Sullivan had the actioning done and the gun ready for stocking, I had to choose a walnut blank that would match the one on the existing gun. No small task!
Selecting wood is a bit of an art. A rough blank does not look exactly like a finished stock will, as most of the visible sides will be removed when stock shaping, the dry wood does not have the same colour or tone that it will have once red-oiled, oil finished and fitted to the gun.
Get the figure or tone wrong and these guns will look like they have nothing to do with one another. They had to look like a pair of this project would be a failure.
Sometimes, fortune smiles on us and this was the case when Romain and I sorted through the available blanks. One looked likely, we wiped a bit of water on it to see how the figure ‘popped’ and compared the two. The tones appeared right, the dark figure ran the same way from wrist to toe and the character of the wood looked very like the William & Son gun. A decision was made and stocking began. The results speak for themselves, the stocks are a near perfect match for tone, figure type and likeness. The match could hardly be better.
Actioning and finishing was settled, Mark Sullivan and Colin Orchard have a longstanding relationship and work seamlessly together. However, engraving was going to be a challenge. The William & Son was distinctively engraved with a deep-cut foliate scroll with black contrast layout by Peter Cusack.
I contacted Peter and he kindly agreed to work the job around others and estimated six months to get it turned around, which was perfect.
Actioning, proof, Teague multi-choking, polishing etc all went according to plan and the gun was mid-way through engraving when disaster struck. Poor Peter Cusack, one of Englands finest engravers of his era was truck by serious illness and had to retire from work abruptly.
The gun was half done. I had a conundrum. We had to make the new gun match the old one and now we had a half-finished job.
Fortunately, William Wild, a protege of Peter’s and Sam Farraway stepped-in to complete the scrolls and carve the fences and the breech-ends of the barrels and gold-inlay the name and other details.
An engraver’s work, like a painter’s or even individual handwriting, is always distinctive and personal. For these artisans to mimic Peter’s style and seamlessly complete the engraving so wonderfully in-keeping with the original is fantastic to behold.
Once Colin had finished the gun, we had him re-finish the William & Son, with barrels re-blacked by John Gibbs, who blacked the new gun at the same time, making them both appear new and thoroughly appropriate sitting next to one another.
Some careful test shooting followed to make sure everything was mechanically and functionally perfect. Last week, the client met me at a shooting ground in the Cotswolds to test it for himself. This wee, they are heading off to New Zealand, ready for the pheasant season over there.
The capacity to build guns like this independently is coming to an end. Many of the gunmakers involved are retiring in the next two or three years and outside of the big firms, there is no replacement. It has been a useful and rewarding option over the years to be able to offer best London quality to customers at around a half of the cost of an equivalent gun by a famous name.
The only constant is change and the gun trade is, indeed, changing.
Published by Vintage Guns Ltd on
