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Having now returned from London, I was able to do the following:

I first started with Purdey , as it was right up the street from the apartment we stayed in. They were reasonably friendly, but just barely IMO. Apparently they were busy with a lot of paperwork. I was was allowed to go into their "Longroom" and browse, and was also handed every gun I pointed out in the shop at to handle and study. Although there were not very many guns there at the time, and no doublerifles. I asked quite a few questions, about various things, but was a little dissappointed in the replies as the man showing me things actually didn't know much.

I then moved on towards Boss & Co. , and was warmly welcomed inside. The two gentlmen there were quite busy, but said I could do as I pleased, take down any gun I wanted from the wall myself if I wished, and would answer any questions I had. They were both very friendly. I spent some time there looking at their shotguns, including an interesting one with a sidelever, a Ritterbursch M98 takedown rifle, and various other makes they had on hand. They unfortunatly had no double rifles in the shop, and told me they seldom had, as they were only made to order, and that wasn't often.

As I exited Boss, it noticed that William & Son were right next door, and went in there too. Downstairs below the regular shop they had quite a few guns, but again only shotguns and a few nicer bolt rifles. Quite a lot of nice shotguns though, and they were very friendly and helpfull.

Finally, I continued on to Holland & Holland where I finally found some double rifles. Quite a few in fact, varying from a .300 Belted Rimless up to a 577NE. They also had a couple of their new roundaction double rifles, one in 470NE and one in 500NE. These cost "only" about £35.ooo compaired to twice or more for their traditional sidelock models. According to the one young man I talked to there, these round actions are stronger than their sidelocks. Although he probably won't admit he said so! They also had semi-beavertail fore ends, which suprised me, as none of the other H&H guns I've seen have had anything else then splinters. One thing that I did notice and like about some of the doubles I saw, was that if they had folding leaves on the rear sight, the leaf/leaves folded backwards behind the standing post. And were thus more protected from being flipped up inadvertently while sneaking thru the bush. It looked a bit untraditional, but seems like a good idea.

The staff I talked to at H&H were all friendly and helpfull, and in addition, H&H had the most guns to handle and look at of the 4 places I had time to visit. So if short on time, that's the first place I'd go to again if I wanted to see some double rifles in that area of London.

As morning turned to noon, I was eventually out of time, and had to return to the others for lunch before driving off to Woodstock were we were to go Pheasand and Partridge shooting for a couple of days. But that's another story.

Erik