Purdey's Baby Bentley

A sexy new over-under from James Purdey & Sons? The famous London gunmakers take the wraps off their Purdey Sporter and Mike Barnes gets an exclusive first taste.

One of the great names in gunmaking has added an important new model to its range with the launch of the Purdey Sporter. Moreover the gun is less than half the price of a bespoke model and is being produced in a joint venture with specialist Italian gunmakers Perugini & Visini.

This is a very significant departure for a world-famous company whose last new design was the adoption of the Southgate ejector system in 1888! “In fact that’s not entirely true” explained retiring chairman Richard Purdey, “as my great grandfather Athol Purdey reluctantly introduced the production of over-unders in 1923. There were subsequently 29 made up until 1943 when the James Woodard design was adopted, and the current Purdey over-under was born”. An almost identical number of the new Sporter will be produced in the next 12 months with a retail price of £23-25,000, including VAT. “This is without doubt a very exciting project” he added.

There will no doubt be some raised eyebrows - Purdey over-under, Italian gunmakers, can this be true? But approximately 45% of their bespoke guns are currently over-unders and the new model is no makeover concept - what we have is a genuinely new gun which after trying out two prototypes, I can confirm performs as impressively as the pedigree demands. Richard Purdey fills in the background. “Our company is almost 200 years old, and we would very much like it to be around in another 200 years, so we are always conscious of the importance of taking it forward and bringing more people into the purdey fold. However with a production limited to 75 guns per year this is quite difficult, and purely as a result of each being a bespoke gun they are expensive to make. thus a limited audience. so in the late 90’s after our first steps of investing in CNC machinery we started to look at the possibilities of matching the benefits of modern technology with our traditional gunmaking skills involved in the making of bespoke guns. We could see that here was an opportunity to introduce a lower priced model.

“I would add that at the outset the idea was very much the baby of our new chairman, and former managing director Nigel Beaumont, who is a trained gunmaker and has spent his entire career with James Purdey & Sons. Nigel was then joined in a triumviate to develop the project by Stephen Murray the project manager and Ian Clarke, the machine shop manager. together they have done a terrific job.”

The involvement of the italian gunmakers was easily explained. “We had to consider that we did not have all of the kit do the whole job and looked at the merits of a joint venture. in perugini & Visini we found a company who were sympathetic to what we were looking to achieve. they are enthusiastic and we like the way they do things. they are also very skilled, which is obviously important.” the company operates in italy’s famous gunmaking centre, Brescia.

Nigel Beaumont adds: “in perugini & Visini we were fortunate in that both of the principals started their careers with perazzi in the early days of the company, and we had already decided to adopt a perazzi type action for our new gun. it is probably the most efficient and strong design with a great deal of eloquence about it.” it is perhaps an interesting twist, as there is no doubt that perazzi in creating their action almost certainly looked at Woodward guns. indeed there was a great borrowing of english gunmaking ideas in the early days of many of the contemporary italian gunmakers.

Perugini & Visini have their own slant on the perazzi trigger plate action and monobloc design, and purdey in turn have drawn and re-engineered it to suit their needs on the new gun.

Having come up with the design, the Italian involvement extends solely to barrel fitting and stocking. the gun itself is completely engineered by purdey’s in-house design team so all parts, other than barrels and stocks are made in Purdey’s own CNC machine shop. Assembly, barrel fitting and stocking will be undertaken in italy by P &V, the guns returning to the purdey Hammersmith factory for regulating, finishing and London proofing.

Purdey employ 35 people at their Hammersmith premises, including four apprentices. richard purdey added: “We are always conscious of the heritage of the company and the craftsmen. We cannot remain still - the world is changing. However while we wanted to create the new gun we are ever conscious of keeping the blue water between our bespoke guns, for which we are so well known, and the new model. in many ways our position can be likened to Bentley whereby the company so justly famous for being the makers of bespoke luxury cars, are now enjoying great success on the back of the Continental Gt, which has brought the company a whole new market.

“Our owners, richemont, have been wonderfully supportive which has meant that purdey has continued to develop as a gun and rifle maker and we have been able to develop this new gun in a way that would not have otherwise been possible.

As a consequence we have something we are all very proud of.”

Nigel Beaumont is very realistic about the gun market. “We have to face facts. At the high end gun orders are difficult, even with a name like purdey it does not guarantee that guns will march out of the door. there are some very good people in this business, not just in the UK but names such as fabbri and rizzini. While perazzi and Beretta also have their eye on this end of the market.

“So to expand our business we needed to deliver something different. With the new gun we are perhaps not looking so much at the traditional purdey customer who does 30 days a year, but probably the high earning younger shots who have six to ten days a year and enjoy some social clay shooting in the summer. the sporter is perfect for him (or her). it’s not cheap, but at the same time it’s not a massive spend for a high quality product.

“When we embarked on this venture we had three options - and we toyed with them for five years before putting our toe in the water. We could have taken what we have and scaled it down, or totally in re-invent the wheel or go for something proven. We opted for the latter and looked to italy, who after all in the first instance learned much from Boss and Woodward!

“A real plus of this gun is that people will be buying something which will hold its value rather better than some of the other options. there are of course no guarantees, but all things being equal and nothing dramatic happens to our economy, we have a genuine new purdey which with a production of 30 a year will still be a rare gun.

“Most importantly it will be reliable. We have had three prototypes for a year which we have tested extensively. I also took one dove shooting in Argentina where it performed faultlessly. it has to be reliable, not a rubber gun that keeps bouncing back in need of rejointing, new bolts or whatever. We are very happy with it, and look forward to taking receipt of the first guns.”

The first batch of 10 sporters will be ready between April and June. there are already 25 interested names pencilled in but no orders are being taken until the guns arrive at the company’s south Audley street shop.

I joined richard purdey for a test drive at West london shooting school, where we piloted both the new 12 bore sporter and a 20 bore version, under the friendly guiding hand of resident instructor Mark Marshall.

Starting on modest driven birds, building to the famous Northolt tower, then a sporting layout and finally the grouse butt. Very spoiling, but i normally avoid any kind of press shoot like the plague. Unfortunately, I am very sensitive to recoil. Every time I use a gun other than my own, I suffer. And no, I’m not shot out, as has been suggested by the less sympathetic - it’s simply the way I ’m made!

So invariably new guns don’t fit, they have little in the way of a recoil reducing pad and as far as I am concerned, are to be avoided at all costs.

Therefore my take on a new gun is slightly different from that of others. Whatever, despite a long stock (they have three prototypes, each longer than the other - standard will be 15”) the fi rst couple of shots seemed OK.

Then once I found no punishment I started getting used to the stock and hitting the clays. It handled nicely, very nicely in fact. Richard shot beautifully with it - and it was new to him as well as me (he assured me!).

Though the action may have been based on Perazzi, the styling is quite different. It has a push rod fore-end, Prince of Wales stock (English pistol grip), and very much an English look about it. The action was plain black on our model, but will be available in a choice of fi ne rose and scroll, or large scroll, with colour hardened actions and blacked furniture.

Like all of the fi rst batch, our sample had 30” barrels fi tted with Teague multi-chokes - 28” and 32” will be offered as a later option.

We reached the grouse butts with our pride more or less intact (feeling quite pleased with ourselves in fact) after the high tower and wicked Sporting battues, and enjoyed a grandstand fi nale with both 12 and 20. Still recoil free and no nasty symptoms in the base of my neck - I could have happily bought both guns on the spot (barring a spot of negotiation on the domestic front).

I checked the weight. It was 7lb 11oz, obviously heavier than a conventional side-by-side but much lighter than many competition Sporters. So the lack of recoil was even more surprising, even if the fabulous handling wasn’t. Presumably credit for this is due to a combination of things including quality of build, size of bore, length of forcing cones - in other words attention to detail. It also has a shorter toe than is the norm’ on English guns, plus a slimmish sorbothane pad.

All in all we were impressed - it is highly likely that Purdey are onto a real winner. The baby Bentley of gunmaking?

Mark's Verdict

As an experienced coach and accomplished Shot (one of Britain’s top ranking Sporting competitors) Mark Marshall’s comments were worth seeking. “I thought it handled very well, the trigger pulls were excellent, and certainly far better than most mass production guns - but then you would expect them to be. Though this is not always the case - far from it. It also shot very sweetly with light recoil. A really nice gun. And I loved the 20 bore - I would really fancy one of those with 32” barrels for my game shooting.”

 
 
 

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