Game & Gun Gazette
The New A-10 American
Antony Galazan and his Connecticut Shotgun Manufacturing Co. (CSMC) are poised to shift the balance of the double-gun world—again.
On September 1 CSMC went public with the new A-10 American, an American-made sidelock over/under available in 12, 20 and 28 gauge on a 12-gauge frame or in 20 and 28 gauge on a smaller 20-gauge action. The Standard Grade starts at a base price of $7,995, with limited-offer discounts bringing the price to $3,995. (The scaled-frame 20-gauge gun is $500 more.) Even with minimal bouquet & scroll engraving, that is an impressive price for a detachable-sidelock gun. The Deluxe Grade, available for an additional $1,000, includes more extensive bulino-style game-scene engraving, light engraving inside the locks, and a gold escutcheon inlaid in the forend.
Discounts offered at the time of the announcement included $2,000 for a “very small group” of initial orders, $1,000 for existing CSMC customers, and $1,000 for full payment in advance. Production was to begin immediately, and CSMC Product Manager Mike Burnett said delivery of finished A-10 Americans was expected to begin in April 2010.
The A-10 American was designed and will be built entirely at CSMC’s shop in New Britain, Connecticut. “The overall design premise is that of a traditional strong Italian sidelock,” Burnett said. Additionally, according to Burnett, the A-10 has barrel-locking features similar to those on Beretta 687 series guns and to the “Rizzini locking system” favored by most other production-line makers in Italy’s Val Trompia.
In another design improvement, Burnett said the A-10 will balance well because the barrels are fitted with “a monoblock that is more shaped to the barrels than to the receiver, which takes out some of the weight and gives a better feel to the gun.”
This is a full sidelock over/under, not a boxlock with sideplates. The locks are detachable by pressing open a pair of hidden tabs on the right lock. According to CSMC’s Website (www.A10American.com), a full sidelock “allows for faster trigger pulls, easier cleaning and maintenance, as well as more safety due to intercepting sears.”
The larger frames can be fitted with 12-, 20- and 28-gauge barrels, which can be ordered separately. All three gauges will have 2-3/4" chambers. Barrel lengths are 26", 28", 30" and 32", and each set comes with five Trulock chokes (Skeet, Improved Cylinder, Modified, Improved Modified and Full). All have ventilated top ribs and solid center ribs and are overbored, chrome-lined and hard-shot compatible.
Other standard features include selective automatic ejectors, a single selective trigger that is adjustable to three set-point positions, a coin-finished receiver, and a Bradley-type bead front sight. The gun will come in an impact-resistant plastic case.
All guns will include a system for altering balance and overall weight for shooter preference. The system has a weight hanger between the barrels under the forend and another weight adjustment in the stock.
Standard stocks will be American black walnut with a hand-rubbed oil finish and a black Galazan recoil pad. They will be available with either a pistol grip or a straight grip and a choice of either a slender, tapered Hunting forend or a larger, fluted Target forend. CSMC rates the standard wood as 2X, with upgrades including 3X ($350), 4X ($600) and Exhibition ($900). Checkering is in a 24-lpi multi-point pattern.
Burnett described a production process of guns built to order from a menu of standard options including Standard or Deluxe grade, gauge, barrel length, grip style, and flush or extended chokes. Extra barrel sets are $2,200, and matched pairs will cost $200 more than the two guns would cost individually.
“Anything else you can possibly think of can be done through the custom shop,” Burnett said. This includes, of course, any choice of engraving as well as wood at any quality and price. Fixed-cost custom options include double triggers, color-case hardening, custom stock dimensions, a high-gloss oil finish, and Winchester- or English-style leather-covered recoil pads.
For more information on the A-10 American, contact CSMC, 860-225-6581; www.A10American.com. —Ed Carroll
The ‘Guild Show’ 2010
One of my favorite events of the winter “show season” is the Firearms Engravers and Gunmakers Exposition, in Reno. Combining the talents of the American Custom Gunmakers Guild (ACGG) and Firearms Engravers Guild of America (FEGA), it’s a great place to line up a walnut blank or find a stockmaker and engraver for that special shotgun project or just take in some of the best custom gunwork produced anywhere.
Though I’ve tried very hard, the six hours I allot myself each year have never been enough to adequately cover all that this fine show has to offer. I’m usually diverted from my grid-search pattern by someone pointing out a spectacular bit of engraving I hadn’t noticed or an especially nice custom gun, or I get sidelined, for example, playing fly on the wall listening to Jerry Fisher explaining to Ralph Martini how best to shape a rifle grip. Last year I met Jack O’Connor’s son, Bradford, who was showing one of his father’s custom .270 rifles. Priceless stuff.
This year the show will be held as it usually is—at the tail end of the Safari Club International Convention (also in Reno), from January 22 to 24—but there is a change in venue. The “Guild Show” has moved from its location in the Silver Legacy basement to take advantage of more space on the second floor of John Ascuaga’s Nugget hotel and casino. A few more tables will accommodate some custom knife makers and contemporary long-rifle makers, bringing the total number of exhibitors to around 100. The SCI Convention ends Saturday, January 23, but the Guild Show lasts through Sunday.
Those attending SCI can simply hop on the free shuttle buses running every half-hour to the Nugget from the convention center. The Nugget is about four miles from downtown Reno hotels. Show hours are noon to 9 pm Friday, and 10 am to 5 pm Saturday and Sunday. Admission is $20 daily, and there is an awards banquet/auction Saturday night that non-members can attend for $45 (reservations should be made online by January 10). There also will be gun-related seminars on Monday that non-Guild members are welcome to attend.
For more information on the show, contact the ACGG, 307-587-4297; www.acgg.org. For information on the venue, contact John Ascuaga’s Nugget, 800-648-1177; www.janugget.com. —Clair Kofoed
A Row Over Rigby’s
The right to use one of the most famous names in gunmaking history is in dispute following claims made on the marque on both sides of the Atlantic.
Founded in Dublin, Ireland, in 1735, John Rigby & Co. sporting firearms have been carried far and wide by such hunting legends as Kermit Roosevelt, W.D.M. “Karamojo” Bell and Harry Selby, but now the question of who can make firearms under the Rigby banner is unclear.
The company has been based in Paso Robles, California, for the past 12 years, since the previous owner, British gun-trade legend Paul Roberts of J. Roberts & Son (Gunmakers) Ltd. and also W.J. Jeffery & Co., sold the name, intellectual property and records to Texan Neil Gibson.
Roberts bought the rights to Rigby’s in 1984 and traded under the name John Rigby & Co (Gunmakers) Ltd., with workshops and offices in Great Suffolk Street, London, just south of the River Thames. In 1997 Roberts sold the Rigby rights to Gibson, and the company name John Rigby & Co (Gunmakers) Ltd. lapsed in the UK; in 2002 it ceased to be a corporate entity there.
Gunmaker Geoff Miller of Rogue River Rifle Works, in Paso Robles, originally arranged to purchase the Rigby rights from Gibson, but that never happened, and through a convoluted process he is now producing Rigby guns by arrangement with a third-party investor.
All seemed to be going well until this past summer, when British engineer Marc Neal registered the lapsed John Rigby & Co. (Gunmakers) Ltd. name in London and announced a project to reestablish manufacture of sidelock shotguns and rifles using the famous and incredibly strong Rigby/Bissel rising-bite action. The Bissel action is widely regarded as the best for heavy double rifles because of its ability to take a pounding. (Miller’s Rigby double rifles have been built using the tried-and-tested but more easily manufactured Greener crossbolt third bite.) According to Neal’s Website, he also will offer a range of conventional bolt-action rifles.
At press time Miller had filed a trademark application on the Rigby name in London, but a storm is brewing.
On August 7 Miller issued a statement saying: “John Rigby & Co. (Gunmakers) Inc. is the only company that has the legal right to use the John Rigby trademarks and logo worldwide. We are advised by our legal counsel in both the UK and in the US that the London-based company’s unauthorized use of our John Rigby name is a clear infringement of our registered trademark rights and is clear grounds for a passing-off claim as well. We intend to initiate legal action forthwith seeking an injunction, damages and attorney’s fees for this willful and egregious violation of our intellectual property rights.”
On the same date previous Rigby owner Paul Roberts said, “It has come to my attention that a new entity has formed under the John Rigby & Co. name and are now attempting to offer John Rigby guns and rifles under the trade name John Rigby & Co. (Gunmakers), Ltd.
“Under the circumstances, I wish it to be known that the new entity John Rigby & Co. (Gunmakers) Ltd. is in no way associated with the old firm, its staff or its products.
“Equally they have no connection with any guns and rifles manufactured and sold by J. Rigby & Co in the USA.”
In response London-based Neal said, “We state for the record, as we have done many times over the past few days, John Rigby & Co. (Gunmakers) Ltd. has no connection with a company of a similar name registered in the United States nor, heaven help us, would we wish to claim any.”
Disputes such as this are not new to the gun trade in the UK. In the mid-1880s James Purdey disputed William Evans’ right to associate himself with the Purdey marque, and more recently, beginning in the mid-1980s, the rights to use the Churchill name were contested until the late Don Masters, Mark Osborne and Sir Edward Dashwood resolved the situation.
For more information on the two Rigby companies, visit Geoff Miller’s Website at www.johnrigbyandco.com and Marc Neal’s Website at www.johnrigbylondon.com. —John Gregson
Alfred Gallifent (1946-2009)
Alfred Wyss Gallifent, a gunmaker who represented both fine “British” gunmaking and the truly international nature of the modern gun trade, died July 7, 2009, in Warrington, Pennsylvania. He was 63.
Gallifent died after a long struggle with pancreatic cancer, said his longtime friend and colleague Paul Hodgins.
Alfred Wyss was born in Basel, Switzerland, July 6, 1946. He later would marry Ann Gallifent and adopt her maiden name. In the 1960s Alfred apprenticed with the Swiss firm Georges Bürgin, where he repaired guns and rifles and also restored museum-quality historic arms and armor. It was during this time that the teenager was asked to file out the pattern on the blade of a Damascus sword. Eventually, after many hours of laborious but fruitless filing and polishing, the joke was explained to him. Gallifent would describe the experience as “an exercise in futility” for the rest of his life.
Like all healthy Swiss males, Gallifent spent two years in the national service—first in Army basic training and then in officer training school. In the mid-’60s he emigrated to England, where he worked at Churchill’s Acton factory and learned much about building fine shotguns. It was in England that he met and married Ann. The couple moved back to Basel, where Alfred returned to work with Georges Bürgin for another 2-1/2 years. After the birth of their sons, Stuart and Justin, the family returned to England, where Gallifent worked for John Powell of Reigate, Surrey. During this period two more children, Gregory and Samantha, were born to the couple.
In 1980 the family emigrated to the United States, where Gallifent began working with Paul Jaeger of Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. He later turned independent and worked almost exclusively on repairs. However, he did build one gun under his own name (see “Gallifent Guns,” Sept/Oct 1998). It was a 20-bore Atkin-style self-opener designed for quail shooting. Gallifent gave it serial No. 1947 for the year after he was born. The action was from Phillipson & Nephew, near Birmingham; the locks were made from machinings supplied by Les Arnold of Joseph Brazier; the chopper-lump tubes also came from England; and the gun was stocked by Paul Hodgins and engraved by Ron Collins, both British ex-pats living in the US.
Gallifent, who looked every part the Victorian gunmaker with his half-glasses attached by a lanyard and graying mustache and beard, attended several Vintage Cups. Hodgins recalls him fondly: “Alfred was a meticulous and superb craftsman, executing his trade one way only—correctly and unconditionally—sometimes to the exasperation of his fellow craftsmen, but as a result he was immensely respected and trusted throughout the industry and remained constantly busy working on guns manufactured by the world’s best makers: Purdey, Holland & Holland, Boss & Co. and so on. High testament indeed to his abilities. He shall be sorely missed by all who knew him.”
Gallifent was also a keen waterfowler and fly-fisherman. He became a US citizen in 2008. —Douglas Tate
The H&H Set of Five
In our current troubled economy, it can be instructive to glance back to see how our predecessors dealt with tough times. In the uncertain era following World War II, Malcolm Lyell initially “caught the eye of the London gun trade” as the manager of Westley Richards’ London gunroom, then for a successful sporting-goods agency with private investors. According to Jan Roosenburg and Michael McIntosh in their book The Best of Holland & Holland, Lyell then went on to become Managing Director of Holland & Holland. Lyell’s innovations were so successful and the times so difficult that he is thought by some to have saved the London gun trade during its most difficult period.
According to Donald Dallas in his book Holland & Holland, “The Royal” Gunmaker: “During the 1960s, Malcolm Lyell was responsible for creating the idea behind a whole series of very special guns that would later become known as ‘The Products of Excellence.’ The Products of Excellence differed from other Holland & Holland guns in that they were built as speculative ventures and only sold afterwards.”
Typical of The Products of Excellence guns was a matched set of five conceived in 1965 and finally finished in 1968. With identical dimensions and different bore sizes—12, 16, 20, 28 and .410—they were incised in the traditional Royal scroll pattern and inlaid in gold with a gamebird appropriate to each gauge by Australian-born engraver Lynton McKenzie.
Building five matching guns in various gauges was an unprecedented challenge, and the set represented an extraordinary feat at the time. Through that experience, multiple-gun series became easier to build, but at least one aspect of their creation would be difficult to duplicate today: Where would one find five matching walnut blanks?
Asprey’s was commissioned to build a display cabinet of Brazilian rosewood, in part chosen to complement the reddish walnut stocks, none of which feature escutcheons. Russell Wilkin, currently Holland’s technical director of gunmaking, recalls making the ebony, ivory and silver tools and accoutrements as an indispensable element of his apprenticeship.
When complete, the entire presentation was sent to New York. Earle K. Angstadt Jr., president of the sporting retailer Abercrombie & Fitch, then threw a party for “the 50 wealthiest shooting men in the United States” in the firm’s seventh-floor gunroom on Madison Avenue. From there, the party moved to dinner at the 21 Club, a few blocks away, where the guns and cabinet were prominently displayed. Angstadt then threw three slips of paper—each inscribed with the name of a client who had expressed interest in acquiring the set at the indicated price—and proceeded to draw the name of a woman who was buying the guns as a Christmas present for her husband.
Today, all of these Christmases later, the guns are being offered by direct descendants of the original owner. On learning of their whereabouts, I phoned Holland & Holland in New York to determine the price and condition. Sales Director Guy Davies told me the set is priced at $550,000, and when I asked if the guns had ever been shot, he said, “Only the .410, which was fired as a salute at the owner’s funeral.”
This historic set, still in original and unused condition, is once again for sale. For more information, contact Holland & Holland, 212-752-7755; www.hollandandholland.com. —Douglas Tate
Zoli Introduces the Columbus Gold
Where else are you going to get a Boss locking action with fitted recoil shoulders for under $4,000?”
That’s a good question—and one recently posed rhetorically by Steve Lamboy, President of Antonio Zoli North America. Lamboy was briefing me on the latest series of Antonio Zoli over/unders to reach US shores: the Columbus Gold, which arrived on dealers’ shelves at the end of summer. Zoli’s locking system is the company’s own design; Gun Review Editor Bruce Buck compared it to Perazzi’s. Still, Boss or Perazzi, Zoli is the only maker near that price. The maker was able to accomplish this by dropping the wood grade and engraving costs of its existing guns. The Columbus Gold is being offered at a base price of $3,850 in 12, 20 or 28 gauge, with a two-barrel set in 20/28 costing $5,800.
The Columbus shares the robust and well-regarded barrels, action and detachable trigger group of Zoli’s Z Guns, including the Expedition (see Gun Review, Nov/Dec ’06). “We’ve used maybe one-half-step lesser wood than on the Expedition,” Lamboy said. The Columbus comes with laser-engraved game scenes, with or without gold-inlaid birds, in either color-case hardened or French gray finishes.
Zoli stands out among its peers for making its own barrels. Lamboy credits this to the company’s drive to compete in the European double-rifle market. In its 60-plus years Zoli has developed such precise barrel-joining and -regulation processes that the company guarantees its shotgun barrels to shoot within three inches of each other at 30 meters. “We guarantee that because we can,” Lamboy said. “[The barrels] don’t come back to us.”
The trigger adjusts to three different positions to accommodate such things as gloves or bulkier shooting jackets. Oil-finished stocks are high-grade Turkish walnut (though not as stunning as the wood used on Zoli’s more expensive guns) and have Prince of Wales grips. The base cost includes five choke tubes and a molded, hard-plastic case.
For more information on Zoli guns, contact Steve Lamboy (585-394-1271) or Chuck Webb (832-444-2118) at Antonio Zoli North America; www.zoli.it. —Ed Carroll
