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William & Son Sidelock shotgun review

William & Son Sidelock shotgun: The firm has gathered a team of superb craftsmen to work on this 12-bore side-by-side. Such expertise doesn’t come cheap but the result is a truly great gun.

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Time Well Spent
Time Well Spent July 28, 2011

William & Son Sidelock shotgun.
The gun we are looking at this month is a 12-bore by William & Son that hits my scales at 6lb 10oz.

It has Celtic-style engraving (which seems to have become fashionable in recent years).

First impressions are encouraging. This is a beautifully finished, classic London side-by-side, sidelock game gun.

The decoration is unusual but there is nothing radical about the mechanical specification (and nothing wrong with that, as everything conforms to classic, time-proven pattern).

The gun is of carriage trade quality in all departments.

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<p>Barrels are chopper lump and impeccably presented, with a concave rib.</p>
<p>There is a smaller than average metal sighting bead shaped rather like a chess pawn.</p>
<p>The action is machined from billet; a bar-action sidelock powered by leaf springs.</p>
<p>There is an auto safety. It has double triggers but a mechanical single trigger is an option.</p>
<p>The ejectors are the reliable, Southgate type. The stock is of classic form, too, with an elegantly tapered comb and straight hand-grip, oval in cross-section rather than diamond pattern.</p>
<p>The fore-end is the standard splinter. All the wood is impeccably finished with well-cut chequering and hand-rubbed oil.</p>
<p>The thing that is most striking about the gun is the extraordinary attention to detail.</p>
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