BEHIND THE SCENES AT JAMES PURDEY & SONS
Image: Andrew Orr / Holts Auctioneers
A red rope used to block the entrance to the Long Room at James Purdey & Sons. It is no longer there. That is not to say that when you cross the brass threshold and step into that room you are not acutely aware of the venerable history. The eyes of the men who forged it examine you from all sides. The guns they produced and the ledgers recording their every detail reinforce the feeling that you are standing where kings have stood before. This is not my first time in the Long Room, the inner sanctum of game shooting but the atmosphere is somehow different. The openness is a welcome feeling. It is less forbidding and is a deliberate act in a company that is adapting to the changes in society that will shape gun making for the next generation.
THE ARCHIVES
This they are doing without sacrificing that which made their name arguably the most famous in gun making. We are given our initial briefing by Nicholas Harlow. Nicholas is everything an archivist should be and more. Detailed, accurate and utterly absorbed in his subject with the ability to bring you along with him through the timeline of the company. He outlines the origins of the company, the early years working for Joseph Manton, and with Alexander Forsyth, both pioneers of gun making who made radical leaps to advance the manufacture of guns. The former who began making guns to fit his clients, the latter the originator of the percussion cap that steered the design of firearms towards what would eventually become the breech-loading, centre-fire cartridge we still use today.
Nick explains the accidents of history, the tragedies, the success and failures, and the shifting financial sands of a remarkable family business. His work and knowledge are encyclopedic and there is a sense of setting the record straight; of puncturing the myths that have built up in the written history and the received wisdom about the best-known name in the trade. One myth in particular is addressed head-on, and that is that the agreement with Frederick Beesley over the use of his patent was somehow underhand or one-sided. It was one of the cornerstones of the design of the Purdey sidelock, alongside the Scott lever and the Purdey bolt. The original patents and letters of agreement are within reach to dispel any misconceptions. Primary sources are everything to serious historians and the original documents are a tangible link to what was a profitable arrangement for both parties.
In the company of Purdey’s [then] Head of Sales, Jonathan Irby, our guide for the tour of the new factory, we walked back through the scaffolding that surrounds the intricate facade of the South Audley Street premises. It masks the beauty of the building but is indicative of the changing face of the business. It is a reminder that gun making and game shooting has always evolved, always adapted to meet new demands. Atholl Purdey's decision to go to America in 1922 to seek out new markets for the business resulted in the construction of single barrel trap guns and over and unders. Change for James Purdey and Sons is nothing new. It could be argued that gunmakers of this quality would be a victim of their own success if they never dared to improve on perfection - when properly cared for, it is very hard to wear out a Purdey sidelock. New markets and improvements to existing models are vital to the health of the business.
CHANGES IN GAME SHOOTING
As we drive from Mayfair to Hammersmith, the site of the new factory, we have a chance to discuss modern game shooting and its implications for gun making. We agree the centre of gravity of game shooting has shifted in the last 25 years. An ounce load of No. 7s, once the most popular game load because of its dense pattern at moderate ranges, simply does not sell these days. The modern trend is for larger shot sizes and increased shot weight. This is a self-perpetuating cycle - the larger the shot size the greater the shot weight needed to give the required pattern density. The changing demands of sportsmen have driven the changes in gun design and use just as it did 150 years ago. Then walked-up game over pointers and setters, using muzzleloaders, began to fade to be replaced by driven game shooting, with retrievers and breech-loaders. Purdey's guns changed then, just as they have done now, to satisfy the demands of an evolving sport.
THE FACTORY
The new factory is an understated brick building surrounded by residential mews. The heavy security gate and the coat of arms on the drain-pipe hoppers are the only visible clues as to its contents. Deliberately Victorian in aspect, everyone goes through the same heavy outer door, craftsman and clients alike. As we move through it, we begin to get an insight into the customer experience of commissioning a ‘Best’ London gun. The staircase is bespoke and was made in-house. The handrail is covered with stitched leather tooled to resemble the chequering on woodwork, again from their own craftsmen and women. The walls are decorated with photographs and memorabilia of the artisan gunmakers who have gone before. This you rise through as you make your way up to the ‘Short Room’, the younger sibling of the famous ‘Long Room’. Where D-day plans were drawn up in the long room, the finer details of your gun are planned in the ‘Short Room’. Here is where the language of Purdey is spoken in conversation with the bench gunmakers who will craft it. They have, in parts, their own dialect separate and distinct from the rest of the gun trade. Ejectors are ‘luggers’, kickers are ‘cams’ and ‘slacum’ is applied to your gunstock to finish it.
INTO THE MACHINE ROOM
We head down towards the machine room meeting the Head of Production, Stephen Hill, on the way. He is friendly and open, mixed with an air of complete efficiency and he kindly gives us free run of the factory. The machine room is where modern techniques aid the efficient production of reliable guns. There is no apology for their use, nor the use of computer-aided design (CAD), as it is all in the pursuit of ultimate reliability in the face of the demands of modern ammunition.
As well as progress, this is also a period of consolidation in the history of James Purdey & Sons. All designs are being documented in a constant quest for refinement. The question that underpins all this effort, as Jonothan puts it: “Is that the best design for now?”. He explains that any changes made are done so to enhance performance, they are not cosmetic. “Can we enhance the spring shape? Can we change the profile of the striker; how a bridle is held? Can we do something in the drawing phase that is actually going to make the gun better?” He is a softly spoken man, but his intonation has flattened, and his voice is notably firmer. His conviction that this is all for the improvement and advancement of gun making in the modern era is unequivocal.
All of this refinement and testing is only possible with CAD. The CAD manager Andy Moore takes us through what CAD can offer to meet the client’s needs. He is working on a Purdey ‘Trigger Plate’ Sporter for a client who shoots competitively. Having test fired his gun the client felt that it was a fraction barrel heavy, so Andy is going through computer simulations to find out the best route to reducing weight forward of the hand without compromising the performance or longevity of the gun. Computer modelling shows the best route to the desired balance point of the gun (only millimetres out) is to vary the cutting design of the fins in the ventilated ribs along the barrel. This is Formula One style production and it is not by accident. Jonothan confirms that several of the team are ex-Formula 1.
PREFECTING DESIGN
Andy is also working on perfecting leaf spring design. The computer simulation to find the wear points on the spring is backed up by tens of thousands of repetitions of spring compression and release in a machine built in-house specifically for the purpose. When a spring is stress tested to the point of failure, you know when to change one when a gun comes in for service to avoid it happening in the field. Even a gun being submitted for servicing is not left to chance. Purdey is now able to include a shot counter, an accelerometer inside the trigger plate, that records recoil. This is not visible and is only readable by the client or the factory. It is this level of attention to detail that you buy into. All the information from the simulation and testing is fed back into the design process to spread the load and wear evenly and lengthen the lifetime of springs in future guns.
All this experimentation would in the past have been done by generations of gunmakers and their apprentices. It has effectively been accelerated with the assistance of CAD and the product testing machines. The speed of the evolution of gun making has been increased by an order of magnitude.
EYE CHECKING
The level of attention applied in the finishing workshop is, for the layperson interested in gun making, something to behold. Filing up a barrel sounds relatively straightforward. A flat file is applied to a tube to remove metal, but consider how it actually happens. If you or I took a file to a barrel, we would come in at an angle, increase the pressure as we went through the stroke, and leave at an angle. This would result in a curve. It must be a smooth, flat stroke. Not only that but there is a specific profile to Purdey barrels, again separate and distinct to others. Tony Clayton's concentration on his task is total, and like any technique, apprenticed and then practised over decades, it seems effortless. It is also where the human eye takes over from machine - any imperfections in the barrel are shown up as distortions in the rings of daylight that flow down the tube when it is held up to the skylight. Natural light is key to eye-checking and the workshop architecture means it is flooded with it.
Phil Butcher, one of the senior bench men, takes us through the intricacies of timing and regulating the ejectors in which three operations are taking place at once - cocking the lock, compressing the ejector mainspring and rotating the ejector cam to the firing point. The complexity of the ‘best’ over and under ejector design is all the more astonishing as it was designed and built over a century ago, long before computer modelling. With over and unders such as the action we are looking at I mutter that a self-opener, along the lines of Purdeys side-by-side, must surely be impossible, only to be corrected - Purdey have made one.
SMOKE BLACKING
The classic techniques that have yet to be bettered are, of course still employed. Ian Brunt, an actioner, is smoke blacking an over and under gradually to approach the perfect fit that is synonymous with ‘Best’ Guns. The sound of the gun closing with the certainty of a bank vault is the clearest indication of build quality. When compared to the hollow ring of a lesser quality gun, the difference is stark. It is only achieved through the skilled hands of actioners like Ian. He cleans his files with a lump of chalk so that any metal sitting in the teeth of the file does not score the flat breech of the barrels as he gradually files away the high spots. These show up as silver where the soot has been removed as the gun closes. With chalk balls, and sporting two pairs of glasses simultaneously, wafting a naked flame at metalwork, there is an element of wizardry about it.
TURKISH OR FRENCH WALNUT?
Richard Bailey, the stocker, is the man who makes the organic meet the industrial. As we are meeting Jonathan's conversation once again shift gear. “I'm convinced there are two things going on [in the gun trade]. We've dumbed down gun fit. But equally talk nonsense about some of it. We are not looking at the basics… just how important things like pitch [the angle of the butt relative to the comb and the shoulder] are and the impact it has. A .410 over and under stock and action are produced. As you would expect, the quality of the figuring is outstanding. Richard takes us through how the measurements of the client are applied to both metalwork and woodwork. Gun fit at Purdey starts with the top-strap, it is not simply a case of removing wood. Richard’s long experience is an opportunity for answers. It is a chance to ask a man who has worked on both: is there a difference between Turkish walnut and French walnut? He confirms there is. French walnut was less highly figured but could easily be worked with a drawknife. Turkish walnut is prettier but it's far harder to work with a drawknife. So difficult in fact that the excess is sawn away as a draw knife would simply be too inefficient. It is the same species of tree, but the climate affects the wood like the terroir of a grape affects a wine.
FINISHING
Not every Purdey gunstock is finished in the same way. This is part of their bespoke nature. The man responsible is James MacDonald, the finisher. He is currently working on a 10-bore Paradox, one of a set of nine guns for the same client who favours a satin finish to the stock rather than a gloss finish. Ironically, James confirms that the satin finish is harder to achieve although it does bring out the figuring of the wood better. Purdey does not have different grades of wood. Whereas some gunmakers will offer a choice of walnut stock, from grade 1 to 12, Purdey has only one grade: “as good as we can find”. The blanks are also air-dried, not kiln-dried. The wood is never forced to conform to arbitrary, convenient timescales and it is far less prone to cracking because of this care and attention. The finisher’s job, as James explains, is “to bring everyone else's work together and fine-tune it.” The process of applying oils and cutting back with ‘rotten stone’ that fills the grain and makes the wood as watertight as possible is explained. But not all stocks are the same, some will absorb four or five coats, some more. One just has to let it drink its fill. What is not expanded upon is the recipe for the ‘slacum’ a finishers own concoction passed down through generations and guarded jealously. The bottles themselves look like props from a science fiction film set, the layers having built up organically over time. Finishing a stock is all a question of judgement, even the grime on a finisher's hands can improve the colour of a stock. Stain is never used “it kills the figure of the wood,” says James, “it's like putting a blanket over a television”.
NATURAL BEAUTY
Bringing out the natural beauty of metal and wood and coaxing it to conform to the specific measurements of the client is the very essence of the gunmakers art. Although the stresses placed on guns these days from modern ammunition and changing tastes have altered much, the level of care and attention in manufacturing in this workshop from these craftsmen, is still at the highest level.
(Since this was first published Jonothan Irby has been promoted to the post of Managing Director of the Royal Berkshire Shooting School for James Purdey & Sons.)
© Simon Reinhold, 2020