I think that any gun can be a "good 'un" or a "wrong 'un".

The fact is that Hollis isn't now, perhaps never was, a "fashinable" name. All the few Hollis guns that I have seen have been of good quality. I think I can remember even owning a Hollis 450/400 BPE. That was certainly well made and finished and quite pleasing. It had hammerless back action locks.

I have only seen a similar number of W & C Scott. One with the "crystal" indicators, I think, and one that was an "Imperial". I didn't particularly like either as I thought that they were "over done" in terms of engraving etc., etc. I also never considered W & C Scott a "fashionable" name either...the Holland connection in the 1970s notwithstanding.

There is almost a reverse snobbery in some ways. That if one is to have a Birmingham gun it is better by far to be honest about it...and have a Webley, or a Midland Gun...than have the same gun but "put up" as an Evans or whoever else.

The "base level" English makers such as Webley, Midland Gun, Cogswell & Harrison, etc., etc., are all worthy of note in themselves.

But, the end is, if YOU like it...and it shoots well and in a manner that pleases YOU...the so what. If it is a "good 'un" as far as YOU are concerned...then that is an end of the matter.

I've had Powells, Hollands, Churchills and all the rest. Cogswell & Harrison, Westley Richards, the lot! But never a Purdey or a Boss.

But what I enjoy now are just two. My late father's Henry Clarke of Leicester bought for him when he was in his teens so at least seventy-five years old now. A simple boxlock ejector, with fine line engraving to the endges of the action and converted at the time to an ejector with a Westley Richards box.

The other a Midland Gun 32" barrel 3" side-by-side boxlock ejetor with all "the bits"...cross bolt, side clips, semi-pistol hand, flat file-cut rib. From about 1970s. A wildfowl or marsh gun at the very time all that was in decline!

I even now think that I actually wouldn't enjoy shooting a Boss!