Doublespeak

A gentleman was taking his wife to England and Scotland to shoot driven birds, and for the occasion he bought her an elegant pair of 20-bore Purdeys. To properly introduce her to the new guns, a visit to the Holland & Holland shooting school for a session with Chief Instructor Ken Davies (now retired) was arranged. The lady was petite, and during the lesson it was determined that the stocks needed to be shortened from 14" to 12-3/4". Because the driven shoot was scheduled on the heels of the lesson, Davies arranged to have the stocks shortened nearly overnight by one of his contacts.
    When originally built at Purdey’s, the stocks had been hollowed nearly to the hand to achieve proper balance and compensate for the relatively short 26-1/2" barrels, so the stock-shortening work included not only cutting but also fitting a new plug in the hollow stock and checkering the butt to make the modification invisible. The stockmaker did a fine craftsmanlike job, but he left out a critical step in the process.
    Unfortunately, the lady’s performance in the field with the shortened stocks did not match either the expectations for a pair of fine guns or the lady’s previously proven skills. Put another way: The guns shot fine, but the birds failed to fall from the sky. Because the gentleman had a relationship with Purdey, the company was approached to restock the guns. Unfortunately, the estimated turn-around did not match the schedule of the couple’s future shoots, so they were referred to David for the task.
     According to the serial-number table, this pair of Purdeys left the factory in 1981 with a 14" length of pull, 3/8" of cast off, and a weight of 5 pounds 12-1/4 ounces. The dimensions and weight came to David via fax after a phone call to Alastair Bowles at the Purdey Gunroom.
    When the guns arrived at David’s shop, the first handling immediately told him that the balance points were too far forward. David keeps a string with a loop tied to an overhead water pipe in his shop to hang guns in order to determine their balance points. Measurements from this loop determined the center of balance to be 3" in front of the breech face instead of the typical 1-7/8", close to the center of the hinge pin. (Standard practice at Purdey’s is to reference all measurements off of the breech face. Because the breech face is both substantial and perpendicular to nearly everything on the gun, it is easier to maintain accuracy by measuring from this point. David has fabricated jigs that reference the trigger[s] and trigger guard to the breech face. Remember that this pair and similar guns by other makers are handmade. Unless special care is taken, small differences in measurements can compound and result in a pair ending up slightly different. This can cause an observant owner to choke on his Scotch as he gazes fondly at the matched pair in his gun rack and notices that the trigger guards, or triggers or even the ends of the barrels are on slightly different planes. These differences likely wouldn’t be noticeable in shooting, but such craftsmanship isn’t up to David’s standards.)
    When the lady visited the shop a few days later, David was able to demonstrate to her the importance of the balance point in gun handling by adding weight to the butt. As expected, David has myriad objects that can be used for extra weight when needed. In this case the handiest were four 16-bore Blagdon cartridges with No. 5 shot, which he taped to the stock.
     The exercise led David to believe that an expeditious solution would be to correct the balance problem rather than perform an expensive and time-consuming restock. Weighing the cartridges that had been taped to the stock indicated that 6 oz needed to be added to each butt, so two 6-oz weights were achieved by cutting a lead cylinder. David then carefully drilled holes sized to fit the lead plugs through each butt and placed the lead in the stocks for a trial. This step ensured that the balance point was at the right location and confirmed the suspicion that the stocks were hollow.
    With careful surgery, David removed the walnut plugs that previously had been installed, and then rough-shaped two new slightly oversized walnut plugs. He wanted to keep the weight as far back as possible, so the lead would have to be dispersed in thin layers over the insides of the plugs. This ensured that not only were the balance points close to the hinge pins, but also the guns’ dynamics were close to what they had been originally. In other words, David replaced weight near where it had been removed when the butt had been shortened by 11/4". An end mill made quick work of cutting identical shallow slots in the ends of the walnut plugs that would disappear into the hollow stocks. Slots also were milled in two sacrificial scraps of walnut.
    The two lead slugs were then melted and poured into the sacrificial scraps. When the lead had cooled, the scraps were split to free the weights, which then were transferred to the walnut stock plugs, lightly peened in place and permanently affixed with Brownells Acraglas. Finally, the plugs were smoked, tested, shaved for a perfect fit in the hollow butts, glued, trimmed to rough length on the band saw, shaped to the butt contour, refinished with the rest of the butt, and checkered. The finished weight of each gun came in at 5 pounds 13 ounces—within 3/4 ounce of the original build-sheet weight, strongly suggesting that the guns left Purdey’s in proper balance. Gee, who’da thought?
    It is puzzling that the stockmaker who shortened the stocks did not balance the guns after removing 1-1/4" of walnut, as that person had the skills to cut the stocks, install plugs and make the changes invisible under the finish and checkering.
     A final fitting with the lady handling the properly balanced guns determined that the cast-off should be reduced a bit, so David bent the stocks to reduce the cast-off from the original 3/8" to 1/8" at the top of the butt and a subtle 3/16" at the toe.
     David’s time spent correcting the balance and bending the stocks totaled 30 hours—compared to the 160 hours (80 hours each) that would have been required to restock this pair of Purdeys. So the guns were returned more quickly at 25 percent the cost of restocking. Since the work was done, the lady has shot the guns frequently and well.    
    Perfect job, happy ending and, if not all of life is in balance, at least this Purdey pair is.