Spanish shotguns for under £17,000

Guns from the Spanish makers became very popular during the 1970s, with AYA, Arrieta, Lanber and Laurona (to name but a few) being imported into this country to meet the ever-increasing demand for sporting shotguns.

They filled the gap for an affordable sporting shotgun left behind by the steadily shrinking presence of British gunmakers.

During this period my father would order side-by-side ejectors and non-ejectors in sets of 50 at a time.

I remember the first time I went to Eiber in 1978 to visit different factories and to order guns to our own specifications.

Back in this period there were numerous small makers, which I ended up visiting (the owners being very hospitable, especially with the local tipple), and that culminated with my ordering of 50 folding .410s named Elchimbo, which I later found out meant ?the monkey?.

My father found this very amusing.

EXPLOITING THE MARKET
At the time, the AYA factory employed over 400 people – unfortunately this is no longer the case as they have been victims of their own success.

In general, Spanish guns last at least as well as the best-built English guns, so they make an excellent investment. The likes of their sidelock guns copy the very best London nine-pin sidelock designs and incorporate the Southgate ejector system, which made owning a ?best? gun a much more realistic and affordable prospect.

By concentrating mainly on production of these good quality copies of London sidelocks, and thanks to their durability, turnover was low.

Also, unlike Italian manufacturers such as Beretta, the Spanish gunmakers failed to follow the popular rise of over-unders, and subsequently did not make them in any great quantities.

By failing to take account of the sporting zeitgeist, many manufacturers fell by the wayside.

Those gunmakers which are left now tend, with one or two exceptions, to produce fewer guns, many of which are built to very high specifications.

They are effectively bespoke guns which are a match for any modern gun.

As a result, new Spanish guns have been steadily increasing in cost over the last few years, which has been exacerbated by the change to the Euro and local labour costs coming in line with ours.

As such, a lot of guns built during the 1970s and 1980s, like the AYA Number Two, have become excellent investment pieces. The second-hand value of a gun from this period is now probably three times more than its original cost when new.

If you can get hold of one of these excellent older examples then I can heartily recommend you snap it up – but do not ignore the current output from this historic gunmaking region.

Any new gun from one of these makers will be extremely well built and a pleasure to shoot with, and importantly will survive many long seasons in the field.

They may not have the draw of an English maker?s name on the lockplates, but you would be a fool to ignore one of these guns for the sake of a name.

Lanber Field Deluxe

£825
Though perhaps not as well-known as other makers, Lanber have been producing over-unders for over 40 years, and have made many a sportsman?s first gun.