Holland & Holland’s side-by-side-by-sides
Nearly two decades after it was challenged to do so, the gunmaker has produced a magnificent pair of 20-bore triple-barrelled guns
The gunmaker has produced a magnificent pair of triple-barrelled 20-bores. Michael Yardley charts how it rose to the challenge
WRITTEN BY MICHAEL YARDLEY
Workmanship is impeccable; every part explored beautifully presented
Eighteen years ago, David Perrett, a well-known collector, visited the Holland & Holland stand at a gun show with an intriguing idea. He liked the firm’s guns and had bought some in the past but now he wanted something different. Could they make him a pair of three-barrelled shotguns, in essence two side-by-side-bysides? The Holland & Holland team went away and considered the challenge.
Triple-barrelled guns had been made in the past, with Boss and Dickson both building side-by-sides-by-sides. Three-barrel guns in pyramid configuration have also been made by Edwinson Green (versions of which were finished and marketed by Westley Richards) and, more recently, Akkar, a Turkish firm, which has offered them in a variety of bores (one of which has been tested in these pages). Continental makers have long made both drillings and vierlings, most commonly with two 16-bore shotgun barrels paired above a single rifle barrel. Merkel still makes an extensive range of drillings, and Austrian gunmaker Peter Hoffer has presented some extraordinary multi-barrel creations.
Holland & Holland eventually decided that it could make the special guns for David Perrett but it would take nearly two decades of design and gunmaking effort with input from several different parties and perspectives to bring the idea to shooting reality. It would develop into a far more complex and challenging project than first imagined. All sorts of technical hurdles would have to be overcome before Holland & Holland would let the new side-by-side-by-side ‘Royals’ leave its Harrow Road factory.
The remarkable pair – 28in-barrelled sidelock 20-bores – weigh in at 8lb each. Balancing on their hinge pins, they boast single triggers and are choked full, full and full. The chopperlump barrels (made in-house by Raphael Rathier) are chambered for 2¾in cartridges. They are stocked in strikingly
figured (but hard to work) Turkish burr walnut with classical straight-hand grips (the lead Holland craftsman here was Jason Schofield) and have deeply carved engraving on coinfinished actions by the great Italian specialist house, Creative Arts, in Gardone Val Trompia (the individual engraver is Valerio Peli). Originally, the intention was to have the guns engraved by the Belgian master Philippe Grifnee but, sadly, he died prematurely in 2012 at the age of 59 (having completed much beautiful work for Holland & Holland).
As one would expect from a London best gunmaker, the workmanship on the guns is impeccable. Every part explored is beautifully presented; I noted the finish on the inner surfaces of the semi-beaver tail foreends, for example, was wonderful. Wood to metal fit is faultless. A great part of a London best gun is in its finish but that applies throughout the gun, not just to the externals. Nothing is lacking here. Superb finish is not just an aesthetic quality but enhances the function of the gun and its longevity, too.
Returning to the mechanics, how did Holland & Holland go about the practical design and manufacture of these extraordinary sporting weapons? Paul Faraway, quality control manager at the firm and the man who has seen the project through, notes: “We started by looking at images of the old guns. Our in-house R&D team then drew up a virtual model on a CAD (Computer Aided Design) screen. The most complicated part, it soon became clear, was the proposed single trigger. What was initially designed on screen didn’t work when actually made in metal so we had to redesign it several times.”
The Holland triples are loosely based on the well-proven back-action mechanics of its Royal rifles and more recently developed Round action models. There are conventional ‘dogs’ at the knuckle that work on kickers that compress the mainsprings on opening, cocking the locks. Hollands, unlike Purdeys, always cock on opening. Ejector work is of Southgate pattern although there are three cocking limbs and three kickers instead of the usual two of each. The lockwork is similar to a side-by-side Royal rifle with wire-cut V springs powering the works. The action, like a Royal, is machined and filed from EN32B,
a mild steel alloy that lends itself particularly well to case hardening with little distortion.
A great deal of trial and error by hugely experienced gunmakers was, however, required to achieve a perfectly reliable three-barrel gun. When they were finally completed at the end of last year only the action body and fore-end iron and a few other major parts were retained from the original Cad-created concept. Much of the mechanical and functional detail had to be worked out by traditional hands-on methods on the bench. Most of the internal mechanism was changed during this process. What began as a computer-aided engineering project ended as an exercise in traditional gunmaking of the highest order.
As mentioned, the trigger was the primary challenge. Eventually perfected by Paul Faraway in-house, there was also input from the late West Country maker Brian Gibb. “We spent a lot of time trying to get the trigger to work from the evolving CAD design but it just didn’t happen… Brian went at it in a different more traditional way, adding bits, brazed them onto the original design, filing. It didn’t come easily, but he managed to create a new prototype mechanism that still didn’t quite work as required. I then made two of them and improved the function.”
The guns are built around a trigger-plate upon which sit the central lock and single trigger mechanisms. This lock has its own cocking limb running down the middle of the action. There are conventional sidelocks/plates to either side that fire the right and left barrels. The new single trigger is based on a gate-type mechanical system (Holland and Holland side-by-sides usually have a Baker-inspired sliding-type single trigger and the firm’s over-and-unders an inertia, recoil-activated mechanism). It has an added inertia element to guard against involuntary discharging. As the gun moves back in recoil the inertia weight moves forward and momentarily locks the trigger.
The firing order is left, centre, right. Once all the barrels are fired, as the top lever is pushed open the bolt connects to a lever in the mechanism that swings the spring-loaded gate from left to right, recocking it on the right-hand lock. “At the end of its travel to the right,” Paul Faraway notes, “the gate, moving sideways, pivots, engaging onto a ratchet cut into the spring loaded intercepting safety sear, holding the gate itself in place. By then, the gun would have fully opened and all three locks will be cocked.’’
With the gate held in position under the sears of the right lock, the single trigger mechanism is now reset and ready to be fired again. The instant the right lock is fired on the first pull, the sears will release the spring-loaded gate, which will swing back to the left and engage under the central sear, ready to fire the middle barrel.
On firing any barrel, the recoil will send a recoil block forward, momentarily locking the trigger movement as discussed, preventing an involuntary double or treble discharge. And, reconsidering the complex mechanism, once the trigger blade is released the mobile gate travels left engaging under the middle sear. On pulling the trigger again, the process is repeated, the middle barrel fires, the recoil block traps the trigger for an instant, the trigger is released and the gate swings left again to engage under the left-hand lock sears ready to fire once more.
The barrels were also a gunmaking challenge but not quite of the order of the complex trigger mechanism. The execution of the engineering from screen to bench was less problematic. They are chopperlump and machined in-house from EN24 drop forgings, with modifications for both their juxtaposed and super-posed shotgun barrels. EN24 is a tough, nickel steel alloy with a significant chromium content. The barrels have two loops brazed in situ. Ribs are conventional and tinned into place. There is no top rib, just a single front bead. The convergence of the tubes was determined on screen and this aspect of the virtual design worked well. When range tested at 40 yards, little change needed to be made by the regulator.
The guns balance on the hinge pin and, as delivered, have left-hand cast, 14⅞in stocks and a drop at heel of 2in (though they might, of course, been made with any measurements stipulated by the customer). Overall, they stand as an example of what can happen when computer-aided gunmaking is brought together with the best of bench craftsmanship. Many may be attracted to the idea that so many talents have been brought together to create them (metropolitan, provincial, international) and all masterly. Once they’ve been shot – and who could resist a grouse or partridge drive with a pair of triples if opportunity arose? – such guns should be in a V&A or Smithsonian gallery. Meantime, Mr Perrett is a very happy man.