Gun Review

The provenance of the Robertson side-by-side begins with the 1839 birth of John Robertson to a Scottish family of gunmakers. Robertson subsequently worked for Joseph Whitworth and Westley Richards. In 1891 he purchased “best” gunmakers Boss & Co. Wishing to offer a more modestly priced gun in addition to the Boss bests, for a while Robertson had boxlock side-by-sides made under his own name in Birmingham.

Fast-forward one century. At the 2005 SHOT show, Graham Halsey, the boss of Boss, showed me early examples of a reborn Robertson boxlock side-by-side being made in the new CNC-fitted Robertson shop in Birmingham. He introduced me to Gary Clark, designer of the gun and manager of the shop, who took me through the gun. The plan was to start with the sideplated boxlock 20- gauge, then do an over/under 12, and then add a side-by-side 12 and an over/under 20.

Progress has been slower than expected, as it usually is in the British gun trade. To date, only the 20-gauge side-by-side has been produced. Cabela’s Gun Library has received a half-dozen of the guns made in 2007, and the folks there were kind enough to send me a highly engraved 30" version. It retails for $17,000.

The Robertson action is a blend of classic design and a bit that is modern. The purely decorative sideplates may fool you for a moment, but it is a basic and proven Anson & Deeley boxlock, the most copied side-by-side action in the world. Company literature says the action is “semi-rounded,” but the underside looks pretty square to me. It has been brought up to date with a replaceable hinge pin, disk-set firing pins that can be replaced from the breech without removing the stock, and a tightening “draw.” Clark noted that this latter bit is an insert behind the rear lump inside the action, similar to one in the 1909 Boss O/U. It is a replaceable block that can be simply changed to tighten the gun if eventually required.

Like my own faithful 1920s Webley & Scott A&D boxlock, the bottom action plate is removable to grant access to the leaf trigger springs, but on the Robertson the plate includes the lower triggerplate too. And quite a trigger it is.

Though double triggers are available on order if you prefer, the guns that Cabela’s received all have single triggers. Single triggers and British guns go together like Cleopatra and asps. True, Boss did and still does make a functional single trigger for its sidelock. In fact, it was John Robertson who invented the Boss single trigger in 1894. The A&D action lends itself more to a single trigger than a sidelock due to the A&D’s more centralized lockwork, and our test gun’s single was very nice. Pulls were 41/4 pounds right and 43/4 pounds left, both crisp with no creep. Well done. To keep things simple and reliable, the trigger is inertia operated and is not selective. Like it or not, the right barrel always fires first.

Opening and closing is by the usual Scott lever. Lockup is courtesy of the proven double underlug. The action was well fit, and it operated with the greased slickness expected of a better gun. Floorplate and sideplate seams were flawless.

The usual top tang safety is automatic, engaging each time the gun is opened to protect us from ourselves. The selective ejectors are pure Southgate, with their flat “V” springs  and hammers in the forend. The forend itself is held on with the classic self-adjusting Anson push button. All the bits and pieces are precision CNC’d, as you would expect today.

The action’s cosmetics were stunning. Our gun was the top-end 90-percent-engraved version with hand engraving by Geoff Moore or Chris McEvoy. It featured an exceptionally attractive tight scroll that was flawlessly executed. It was absolutely first class, even under an unforgiving 10X loupe. Well done, indeed. It was further enhanced by some of the better case coloring I’ve seen. The engraving and coloring certainly reflected the price of the gun.  (A less-costly $10,000 Robertson is available with 50-percent engraving and a lesser grade of French walnut.) The fact that the screws on the bottom and right side of the action weren’t properly indexed probably reflected someone’s haste to leave early for a cuppa.

It’s the action that gets the attention, but the barrels are the most important part of any gun. Not only do the barrels govern the pattern but, more importantly, they define the gun’s balance and thus handling. Handling is everything.

Our test gun had 30" barrels, as did all of the Robertsons imported by Cabela’s. These 20-gauge barrels have 3" chambers and are choked Modified/Full at .019" and .025" on .629" bores. With .615" being the nominal bore for the 20, these barrels have a trendy overbore. The choke dimensions are normal for the stated designation, but the choke profile is not standard. Today most European fixed chokes, particularly tighter ones, have a taper leading to a parallel section at the muzzle. The theory is that the taper tightens the shot load and then the parallel section stabilizes it before exit. The Robertson barrels have no parallel section. They have purely conical tapers measuring 1.5" long for the Modified and 2" for the Full, tapering right to the muzzle. The forcing cones in front of the 3" chambers are also the traditional short length.

I asked Clark why they used this choke design. His answer was as interesting as it was inclusive. “The barrel stock is purchased from the German HK-JS group and is quite unique here, being hammer forged. The same process is used for military machine guns and such. Our idea was to produce a 3"-chambered gun that offered the best weight and balance, as many magnum guns, in my opinion, are just too sluggish.

“The interesting thing is that the choke and chambers are forged as well, and in just eight minutes the tube is created and has a very high tensile strength. The choke profile lends itself well to forging and creates good even patterns without the need to increase wall thickness.

“Another big issue here is the legal proof requirement, which states now that all 3" guns must be magnum proof tested. This is a multi-shot, very tough test, particularly for lightweight guns, so a gradual cone profile, in my view, reduces the possibility for pre-choke bulging resulting from heavy loads.

“However, choke can be adjusted to customer requirements and work goes on into supplying a discreet interchangeable choke-tube option. Interestingly, the UK proof houses only recommend the use of up to Half-choke with steel shot as an industry standard here.”

The barrels are joined at the rear by saddle, or shoe, construction. This differs from the traditional British chopper lump and typical European monoblock. It is basically a plate, with the hooks incorporated, upon which the barrels are set. Clark felt that it made sense for the gun. “Using the hammer-forged tubes therefore lends itself to a shoe lump,” he said, “which offers a stronger joint than dovetail and a more attractive joint than monoblock.”

The rib is described as a “Boss style concave rib.” It’s a compromise between the raised flat European rib and the classic swamped English game rib. The profile is a good bit above the barrels for the rear half and then runs roughly parallel to the barrels to the muzzle. It’s a nice choice for those who like a little bit of rib but not so much that it thickens the svelte profile of the gun. The surface is plain bright blued and concave, with a proper brass bead up front. The top rear of the rib sports a little engraving and is inscribed “J. Robertson 16, Mount Street, London.” This was the Boss shop address. As I write this Boss is based outside London at its factory in Kew but expects to return to London in spring 2009. Nothing on the Robertson mentions Birmingham unless you count the crowned “BNP” Birmingham nitro proofs on the barrel flats. In all, the barrelwork on our gun was flawless, with blemish-free bluing, perfect solder lines and well-fit ejectors.

Our particular gunstock was a traditional English configuration and measured 14-11/16" x 1-13/32" x 1-31/32" with 1" of pitch and a bit of right-hand cast. A fitted stock takes an extra four weeks for delivery, and I’m told you can pick your wood on the Internet. Or you can just buy a gun off of the shelf and have the stock bent to suit. If you are ordering a complete custom gun, you can get whatever you wish, but that can take a year, depending on engraving.

The stock also has a checkered butt, drop points aft of the sideplates, a silver oval for your initials or crest, and a fashionably long trigger tang. It’s all very British and all the better for it. The tip of the forend, with its tiny Anson push-button bushing, is a touch bulky and not as graceful as it could be, but it’s not too bad. Unfortunately, the forend on our gun was a little loose and could be moved slightly side-to-side by hand. The virtually identical setup on my 85-year-old Webley & Scott is rock solid, so it’s an execution issue, not the design.

Boss lists the wood as Juglans regia, or European walnut. Today that can come from the US, Europe or Asia. Traditionally, it is known for its longer grain and highly contrasting colors. On our West Coast it is grafted to the native American black walnut, Juglans nigra, or California walnut, Juglans hindsii. On such a grafted tree the burl figure often depends on where on the tree the wood is taken from. Wood nearest the graft is the most highly figured.

And that can be a bit of a problem. The wood on our test gun’s stock was very nicely figured, but it had a single 1/2" knot in it. For $17,000 I do not wish a knot. The hand checkering had a very good feel to it. With so much mechanical checkering being used today, I almost had forgotten what the real stuff feels like. It is definitely better. But the top borders of the forend checkering weren’t quite perfect, and the checkering on the butt was mediocre. I wouldn’t be so critical on a $5,000 gun, but the Robertson should be held to a higher standard considering the price and provenance.

The stock was beautifully oil finished, and the drop points remained sharply cut, not sanded over. This shows extra care by a skilled finisher. Wood-to-metal fit was very nice indeed.

As to the actual shooting, I have a confession. My gun reviews are a little bit rigged. I make a real effort to select review guns that will be shooters. Not all are, but I try. Why waste your time and mine on something with sewer-pipe barrels that handles with the grace of a wallowing sow? I really like guns that handle, and the classic English side-by-side field gun is the paradigm.

And it doesn’t have to be a best gun either. I’m not particularly overawed by glitz. As a certified Luddite whose main criterion is performance, I am perfectly happy with a boxlock as opposed to a sidelock. Boxlocks are mechanically simpler and more reliable when built to the same standards. I only get picky about the looks when I’m being charged extra for them.

So how does the Robertson fare where it really counts? There is no question that the Robertson side-by-side is a good-looking gun, but the best part is that it handles well. At just a touch less than 6 pounds 8 ounces, the weight is at the upper end of OK for a responsive 30" 20-bore with 3" magnum capability. It is light enough to carry easily but has just enough gravitas to deal with the occasional heavy load and still produce a smooth swing. The balance point was 1/2" in front of the hinge. The moment of inertia felt a little more front-biased than the classic center-weighted English standard. If you shoot your birds feet away instead of yards away, you’ll want shorter, lighter barrels. For shots in the 25- to 35-yard range, the handling speed is perfect. I might not pick this particular configuration for grouse or quail, but for pheasants it would be the berries.

The Modified/Full chokes, in spite of (or perhaps because of) their conical design, handled a variety of factory shells well. It not being hunting season, breaks on clays showed surprisingly well-distributed patterns with good fringes. It is harder to get good patterns out of a 20 than a 12, 16 or 28, so Robertson must be doing something right.

The single trigger worked perfectly. The safety was easy to put on and take off, which is just as important as trigger pull in a field gun. The selective ejectors ejected reliably, but their timing was slightly off. Someone somewhere should have spent the extra time tuning them properly.

And that’s the problem with this particular Robertson sample. For $17,000 we got a good-handling, solidly designed, exquisitely engraved gun that left the shop one day too soon. The flaws in the ejectors, checkering, screw indexing and forend are simple to fix but, like the knotted stock, are inappropriate on a gun of this price. Fix these little things and you would have a first-class gun.

Author’s Note: For more information on the Robertson side-by-side, contact Cabela’s Gun Library, 308-255-8274; www.cabelas.com, or Boss & Co. Ltd., 01144-20-7493-1127; www.bossguns.co.uk.