A close bond

Side-by-sides have been used by generations of Charles Smith-jones´ family and he sees no reason to alter the tradition despite changing trends

In the 1960s I would accompany my father on a variety of shoots ranging from his local syndicate to the occasional big day at the hall. The guns used ranged from Purdeys and Churchills to plainer models of less distinguished make, mostly Spanish. They had one thing in common: all, without exception, were side-by-sides. Back then, I was only allowed to go along in the capacity of unpaid beater, rewarded with bottles of coke and bags of crisps. If I was particularly lucky, I might be trusted to carry the game bag. Actually taking an armed part in the day was out of the question.

Tin cans

I must have been about nine when, joy of joys, I was allowed to use the little family .410 to shoot at tin cans fired from a hand- held launcher powered by .22 blanks. From this I progressed to the child’s short-stocked .20 bore, with which I shot my first pheasant. The days were strictly organised and other children would be there with similar family guns – all side-by-sides, of course. It would be some time before I was allowed to use them in earnest for flighted pigeon and, eventually, take my father’s place on a peg, under his very close supervision.

Both the .410 and 20 bores, each made by George Bate of Birmingham a century ago, have been in the family ever since. They now live in my own cabinet, along with the light and beautiful pair of WP Jones 16 bores that also came down to me from my grandfather via my father. I do most of my shooting these days with them, apart from muddy expeditions to the foreshore or pigeon hide when I use a more modern gun better suited to rougher work. Both of my boys shot their first rabbits with the .410 (the pads are mounted on wooden shields with little brass plaques recording initials, date and place). When grandson Teddy reaches a suitable age he too will serve his apprenticeship with it. During my boyhood I don’t think I saw any other type of shotgun other than the rusty single-barrelled specimens tucked away in gamekeepers’ Land Rovers, kept for vermin control or wedged beside the seats of open tractors in case an opportunity rabbit for the pot appeared. The side-by-side reigned supreme in the shooting field in this country.

Challenge

It was another 20 years or so before the overand-under would start to seriously challenge the side-by-side as a serious game gun. I remember the sidelong glances given to a Gun who turned up with one on an otherwise relaxed driven day in the mid-1980s. Visit

“A good game gun is built for instinctive handling”