Some hunters might be satisfied ordering firearms from a catalog or their local gun shop. But for those who take their rifles as seriously as their handmade suits, there’s no place quite like London’s James Purdey & Sons.
The family-owned firm, founded in 1814, has grown to offer everything from tweed jackets to pen holders. But all these product lines spring from its rifles, which have been crafted and assembled manually via a labor-intensive process for over 200 years. In the Long Room, the heart of Purdey’s showroom in Mayfair, examples of the finished product are displayed alongside ledgers containing orders from a long list of English royals, as well as sheikhs, sultans, czars and rajas—and plenty of dedicated regular sportsfolk.
Purdey does stock guns that can be fitted to clients at short notice, but most customers come here to commission heirlooms: Its one-of-a-kind guns are made from fine walnut and intricately finished steel components, the metal portions often detailed with hand- engraving. As a result, they can cost over $175,000 and take up to two years, and more than 750 man-hours, to complete.
It’s worth the wait. “Bespoke guns are an accumulation of thousands upon thousands of fractional benefits,” says Andrew Ambrose, Purdey’s director of gun sales. And the team of artisans who create the rifles make them as beautiful to look at as they are thrilling to fire.
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1. Wood Song
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson The timber for the shoulder stock—sourced from the root balls of 200-year-old Turkish walnut trees—is strong enough to give the gun structural integrity but malleable enough that woodworkers can carve intricate slots for metal components. A single plank, which is aged for up to two years until its moisture content reaches the optimal level, can cost over $1,000.
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2. Measure for Measure
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson Each gun is engineered digitally, based on the customer’s measurements, including height and the distance from their shoulders to their eyes. Then a plastic prototype is 3-D printed, which gives the craftsmen a sense of what the end result should feel like. This iteration doesn’t fire, but “if you wanted to get it through customs, it would have to be licensed as a firearm,” Ambrose says.
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3. Ore Inspiring
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson In the Machine Shop, eight-inch-long cylinders of solid steel are subjected to several hours of aggressive multi-axis machining, which carves them into a rough version of the action, the gun’s engine room. This crucial component is tasked with loading, firing and ejecting a cartridge.
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4. Straight Shooters
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson Turning a long metal tube into a working gun barrel requires delicate sanding of the exterior to achieve the exact shape and weight for proper functioning. (The interiors are honed using a lapping machine and an oily, finely gritted emery paste.) In the case of double-barreled guns, the perfected cylinders are brazed together with flux silver solder.
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5. Action Station
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson Workers use paraffin blacking lamps to apply soot to the points where the gun’s metal surfaces meet. This helps when joining the barrels and the action body, which is machined precisely and allows little room for error for any additional sanding required. The soot enables trained eyes to spot surfaces that are not correctly joined and underlines the attention to detail that creates a smooth sensory experience when an owner cocks and uncocks the gun.
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6. Stock in Trade
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson At the stocking station, woodworkers chisel the timber to make room for the action body and other metalwork. The stock is also fitted with a custom cast—a slight deviation of the butt, where the gun nestles into the shooter’s shoulder—so that the owner’s dominant eye is aligned with the rib of the barrels. The finished lock mechanism, which initiates firing, and the trigger are added at this stage.
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7. Lines of Beauty
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson Engraving the metal parts has benefits beyond the cosmetic: Historically, these surfaces were softened to reduce the intensity of the sun’s reflection. Many commissions involve rose and scroll work, a Purdey hallmark since the 1870s, although customers often submit drawings or photos to be reproduced.
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8. Glaze of Glory
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson At the regulation stage, burrs and marks are polished away, and the metal is heat-treated for hardness. (Internally, the metal parts must be soft enough to interact properly without snapping.) After sanding, the wood is rubbed with powdered oxalic acid to remove any remaining dirt, then burnished with chamois and made more watertight with grain-filling rottenstone. The final touch—before 300 test rounds are fired at the Royal Berkshire Shooting School—is the toffee-apple sheen applied to the stock; only a handful of Purdey craftsmen know the polish’s secret recipe.
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9. Family Affair
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson Just as Purdey rifles are made to be handed down to your heirs and your heirs’ heirs, the firm is a generations-old family business. The artisans, too, often learned at the feet of their fathers. Master craftsman Tom Nicholls, pictured here with the finished product, is a second-generation gunmaker. His father, Bob, retired in 2012 after working there for 45 years.
