470 Rigby,

If you want to look at some good old doubles, you should visit Bombay and meet Rusi Jijina of the Bombay Gun House - he always has some most interesting double rifles and shotguns in stock. I doubt he does much business as the Bombay gun laws are very strict but the old man has a passion for his business that is wonderful if you're a gun nut. I have also seen some interesting double rifles in Bombay at H S Bandukwala and Sons - Hanzala Bandukwala had some rare rifles like a Westley Richards 250-3000 double in his shop some 3 or 4 years ago.

There are also dealers in Delhi like Paramjit Singh Sodhi and G S Lakshman Yadav whose addresses I could give you if you want them. Since you know your way around India, you know how to haggle, I guess

Yes, the Chettiars were the people to blame for the demise of P Orr and Sons. As far as I know, other than Hindustan Armoury, all others came out of P Orr and Sons staff. I also learned that Scott of Scott and sons died two months ago and his son, like 90% of India's Anglo-Indian community, is planning to close the business down and move to Australia. I can't really blame him as they haven't been doing as much business as the other shops have.

And now, thanks for the good news about the Woodward name being revived by Purdey. You would think that there was room for two illustrious names to survive together even if both were owned by a single company... Hope Purdey will bring back the original Woodward design now that they have revived the name. There is hope!

Thank you for the brilliant pictures and good hunting!