Round at the Bar

All of the London gunmakers have, at one time or another, produced firearms aimed at those with shallower pockets than their most well-heeled clientele. In the past these guns were plainer, and they often traveled to far-flung outposts of the Empire to keep the cooking pots filled or provide entertainment for army officers or civil servants.
One of the best and most famous was the Holland & Holland No. 3, better known as the Dominion. It was a generally plain but robust back-action sidelock that appeared in shotgun and rifle form. The Dominion was never what you would call conventionally pretty, especially when compared with a good H&H Royal, but it was strong and reliable. Back-action locks, where mainsprings are carried on the sideplates behind the action, leave a solid and incredibly strong bar capable of taking huge pressures and stresses. This is why many of the heaviest rifles were built with back-action locks.
The last trickle of Dominions was built after World War II, the final one for the late Geoffrey Brooks, legendary H&H factory manager, to mark his retirement in 1993.

Coming Round Again
But what does this history lesson have to do with how things are now?
In 1997 H&H Director of Gunmaking Russell Wilkin along with design engineer Andrew Lawley began thinking about the future and what new products the Bruton Street gunmaker should be bringing to market. The Sporting over/under gun, introduced in 1994, had proved a success, offering a lower-priced entry point into the H&H brand than previously possible with a new gun. The Sporter is a detachable-triggerplate design with sideplates, and it caused a real stir on its launch. It has sold well to shooters who have wanted a Holland O/U but who haven't wanted to spring for full sidelock Royal over/unders, which currently cost in excess of $120,000.
But what choices were there for the fan of the side-by-side? If you wanted a traditional gun, you had to either search the second-hand market or pay for a new Royal sidelock. As demand for English guns grew in the US and Vintage Cup-type events became more popular, Wilkin and Lawley turned their attention to the side-by-side. They wanted to build something that would live up to the quality inherent in the H&H name but also that would be more affordable. A glance back at the old Dominion seemed to be a good place to start.
According to Wilkin: "Once the de-cision to build a new side-by-side gun had been made, it seemed a good opportunity to introduce a rounded-action style of gun, which people are increasingly demanding these days. We used to have something similar in the old Dominion, or No.3, but we were in a position to go to the drawing board with a clean sheet of paper. We decided to go for the back-action configuration, similar to the Dominion, as that would give us a marvelously strong action, which we then would be able to use with minimum modification for shotguns or double rifles."
But is the back action inferior to the bar action? "The back action offers no disadvantage over the bar action," Wilkin said. "The back action is not cheaper to build, but it is versatile and flexible, and the beauty of it is that it is strong enough to take a double-rifle cartridge, and it is strong enough to take anything you can feed through it in a shotgun configuration.
"We save money by using identical locks for the rifle and shotgun, and the tens of thousands of rounds we've fired in the development of the shotgun go to show how reliable the locks are. Perfect for a dangerous-game rifle."
The Round Action Sidelock made its debut as a 12-bore in 1999, and it was followed by .300 H&H and .500 3" Nitro Express rifles in 2000 and 2001. A 20-bore was introduced in 2003.
The two years it took from design to introduction give you an idea of the rigorous testing the gun was subjected to before launch. "The amount of testing we did in the development of the shotgun, as the parts are common across the two-lockwork, ejection and so on-is a certificate of strength for the gun in all its formats," Wilkin said. "For example the 12-bore action is also used for the classic .375 H&H double rifle, the great all-around African caliber."
In a remarkable demonstration of reliability, the company's .500 3" N.E. Round Action test rifle has fired in excess of 700 rounds without a hitch. This is far in excess of what the majority of sportsmen would fire and, as Wilkin says, in this day and age the only people firing that volume of heavy-rifle ammunition are elephant-control officers working on conservation projects in Africa.

Return of a Classic
The reintroduction of a Holland based on a tough-as-old-boots back-action design allowed Wilkin's team to bring back a gun that many had thought gone forever from Holland's catalog: the Paradox.
This virtual gunmaking chimera-part shotgun, part rifle-designed to give the traveling shooter the ultimate in flexibility, hadn't been in vogue since before World War I. The Paradox was built as a heavier and overbored shotgun with rifling in the last few inches of the otherwise smoothbore barrels. This allowed the use of shot for small game and the use of the gun as a "bore rifle" with special ball ammunition for larger beasts. Besides, as mentioned, the back-action sidelock is about as reliable as you can get when facing down the kind of heavy game that bites back.
Anyone interested in the Paradox would be well served to pick up a copy of Holland & Holland-The Royal Gunmaker, by Donald Dallas. In the book Dallas gives a summary of the development of the gun and its inventor: Lt. Col. George Vincent Fosbery, V.C.
Fosbery was the eldest son of the Rev. T.V. Fosbery and was born in the English county of Wiltshire. He entered the Bengal Army in 1852 and, according to Dallas, "typified the embodiment of the Hero in the British Empire." From the early 1860s Fosbery was a prolific inventor, and he developed a series of explosive bullets, military rifles and the Webley-Fosbery self-cocking revolver.
Fosbery's patent, No. 7568 of June 20, 1885, taken out in the name of patent agent Henry Harris Lake, concerned a rifled choke, whereby the last two inches of a heavy shotgun barrel were bored at the muzzle with a tapered choke. At about the midpoint of the taper, seven-groove ratchet-shaped rifling started and continued to the muzzle, getting progressively deeper. On firing, when the bullet reached the choke, it was aligned and slightly compressed. In the passage through the rifled section, it continued to be compressed and the rifling cut into the sides of the bullet, causing it to spin and function as a conventional rifle bullet. The rifled choke gave the gun a Cylinder-choke pattern with standard shotshells.
Fosbery showed his results to Holland & Holland, which recognized the advantages of the versatile system and agreed to pay Fosbery a royalty of two pounds, two shillings per gun. H&H named the gun the Paradox, and the first one to appear in the factory books was No. 8893, completed April 27, 1886. Although the 12-gauge was the most common, the Paradox also was made in 8, 10, 16, 20 and 28 gauge. The majority of the original guns were built as back-action hammer sidelocks for strength.
With the advent of smokeless powders in the 1890s, H&H adapted the Paradox and created the Nitro Paradox. Dallas says that in addition to giving increased velocity, the nitro loads lessened the recoil of the lightweight/large-bore Paradox guns. A magnum Paradox also was built for sportsmen requiring an even more powerful gun. The magnum 12-gauge weighed about eight pounds and fired a charge of smokeless powder equal to between 41/2 and five drams of black powder. A further development was the long-range Nitro Paradox, which used a new design of bullet-Pat. No. 26362 of December 3, 1904. This was a combined patent between Henry Holland and his factory manager, Thomas Woodward. In a "ball & shot" gun like the Paradox, it is impossible to increase the charge or bullet size to give greater range, because of high pressure and increased recoil. In this patent the Paradox bullet was redesigned to a more conventional shape with an aluminum front section fixed to a lead base, which gave better aerodynamic qualities, and was made lighter, resulting in a flatter trajectory. It was recommended for use out to 200 yards.
When Fosbery's patent expired, in 1899, versions of the Paradox were produced by other makers, most notably Westley Richards in its Fauneta and Explora guns.
After World War I the demand for the Paradox markedly decreased as the kind of sport it was made for became less available. Following World War II when the British Empire was disbanded, jungle arms like the Paradox were thought to be obsolete and many had their rifling removed to convert them into shotguns.
I n total 1,479 Paradox guns were made, the last, No. 15972, a Royal hammerless ejector, completed November 24, 1933. Some were sold after this date, but they were guns that had been completed before 1933.

A Phoenix Rises
The booming global economy during the past decade has aided the resurrection of the Paradox, as some wealthy sportsmen have begun looking for something different from the conventional gun-and-rifle combo for traveling. The Paradox offered a very capable and flexible field arm in a modern, reliable package. The hunter interested in sampling a design from another era could do so without risking his all on the reliability of a 100-year-old firearm. The new Paradoxes are being bought by hunters for African safaris; they also are finding favor with Continental sportsmen who can use them to shoot wild boars one day and small game the next.
The Paradox isn't simply a slug gun, though, as Wilkin explains: "The Paradox can be used with ordinary shotgun slugs, but for real accuracy we load our ammunition with the later Paradox-pattern bullet. Normal slugs aren't as effective as the original ammunition, because they don't fully engage the rifling. Our bullets are not suitable for use in ordinary shotguns, as we have recreated the Paradox exactly to duplicate the old guns with their oversize bores and rifling. We've used the original Paradox bore of .736", while the bullets measure .735", so they are simply not going to fit down a standard 12-bore shotgun barrel."

Limited Choices
What does a new H&H Round Action Sidelock cost, and what do you get for your money?
The guns are hardly bargain basement, but they do compare favorably in quality with the bar-action sidelock Royals. Round Action Sidelock shotguns cost from £29,000, compared with the Royal at £49,000, whereas Round Action Sidelock rifles cost from £47,000, versus £83,500 for Royal grades.
The reason that the price differences are so great is because there are more limited choices when buying. There are three action sizes-12, 20 and .500-to cover all available options. You can order 12-bore and 20-bore shotguns, and rifles are available in 7mm, 8mm, .300 H&H, .375 H&H, .500/.465 H&H, 9.3x74R, .470 Nitro Express and .500 3" Nitro Express. The 20-bore action is the platform for the 9.3x74R, the 12-bore covers everything else up to .375, and the .500 action is used for the heaviest calibers.
"The Round Action does not offer the same bespoke options as the Royal," Wilkin said, "because to keep costs down we have standardized a number of options. Engraving is available in two patterns-standard scroll and fine scroll, the latter at an additional cost of around £5,000."
However, classic H&H quality is still central in the building of the gun, and Wilkin is keen to point out that the Round Action is made by the same craftsmen in the same factory using the same materials as the more-expensive Royal guns. "There isn't a separate production line for the new gun," Wilkin said. "It is the design that's different. We have saved costs not by scrimping on materials but by not including some of those fiddly little design details that can only be done well by hand, such as the beading on the trigger guard. In addition, the rounder action bar allows polishing and engraving to be completed in a quarter of the time compared with a traditional gun."

The Clients
And who is buying these guns? "Increasingly, as with most 'best' gunmakers, we are selling to new clients who typically make a quicker decision to buy and aren't prepared to wait as long as traditional buyers," Wilkin said. "All the traditional family customer bases are more or less stocked up with good guns built for their fathers, grandfathers or great grandfathers and still going strong.
"We always try to keep Round Actions available for immediate delivery, but demand often outstrips our ability to do that. If you have to wait, it is worth noting that the guns have a far more accelerated delivery schedule than the Royals-currently under one year from order."
If you decide to buy a Round Action, you, of course, get the stock made to your measurements, and there is a limited choice of barrel lengths in the shotgun format: up to 30 inches at present. For a rifle, H&H will steer you toward a 24-inch barrel, although longer tubes are available by request at extra cost. The weight of the 12-gauge shotgun runs from around 6 pounds 8 ounces to 6 pounds 10 ounces. The 20-gauge weighs around six pounds.
The new H&H Round Action Sidelock is a handsome gun, especially in 20 gauge, and it is much more of a head-turner than the old Dominion. It also offers great value. A true London best for less than £30,000 is a real gunmaking feat, and we should tip our hats to the grand old gunmaker of Bruton Street for this remarkable achievement.

Author's Note: For more information on Round Action Sidelock guns and rifles and Paradox guns, contact Holland & Holland in New York, 212-752-7755, or London, 01144-20-7499-4411; www.hollandand holland.com.

John Gregson is an Editor at Large for Shooting Sportsman.