Indians For Guns

Actor Tom Selleck once said: "To me, the excitement is in ordering a fine shotgun, going through the process that everybody who has bought one has gone through for a hundred years. You order it, you make a significant down payment, and then you wait three or four years for the gun to be custom-made for you." Selleck clearly guns only for the best. For, as any hunter can tell you, the wait for the perfect shotgun is as interminable as the wait for a quarry. That's because a perfect gun is one that feels like an extension of your arm. The neater the fit, the better you hit. And perfection takes time to craft.

Technically speaking, a shotgun is simply a firearm that's designed to be fired from the shoulder and uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets. The shot pellets from the gun spread upon leaving the barrel, and the power of the burning charge is divided among the pellets. This means that the energy of any one ball of shot is limited, making the shotgun particularly useful for hunting birds and other small game. But what of the fitted gun that is handcrafted over years, with parts constructed, in turn, by specialist barrel-makers and actioners, and imbued with romance and mystique by engravers?

Some 1,000 hours of craftsmanship, and several lifetimes of training, go into bringing the beautiful grain in the carved walnut stock to life, through to the detailing of the metalwork and the smoothness of the action. That, my friend, is much more than just a weapon; that is pure, personalised art, created from scratch solely for you. There's plenty of such art available at the London-based gunsmith William & Sons, where every little detail of every gun is custom-built, assembled, engraved, polished and finished by someone skilled in that particular task. Only a few pieces are made each year.

This year sees William & Son celebrating its first decade on London's Mount Street in Mayfair, where all the guns are assembled under the eagle eye of Paul West, a gun-maker of some 40 years, who boasts a client list that includes a former US President. Among the plethora of different guns made in-house are sporting doublebarrelled rifles, side-by-side and over-andunder shotguns.

William Asprey, chairman of William & Son, founded his eponymous luxury goods store in the heart of Mayfair at the start of the millennium when the Asprey family business was sold. He is a seventhgeneration member of the Asprey family and, given his strong sense of the traditions of gun and rifle making and his personal passion for shooting, it was inevitable he would open his own gun-room.

Asprey says each William & Son gun is individual and can be distinguished by the intricately detailed engravings. People commission engraving like they commission a painting. Decoration does not detract from function; the guns are built to shoot perfectly. Says gun-maker West: "The range of engravings is vast. I've had requests for everything from modern art to erotica. Conventional designs use bold foliate scrollwork which gives a traditional feel to all our guns but no two designs are the same unless we get a specific request." The expense is really up to the customer.


A basic gun costs 40,000 Euro (`29.2 lakh) but it's unlimited really as everything is customised. The most expensive guns West says he's made were a set of three that cost 140,000 Euro (`1.02 crore). Clients looking for a more economic option can satisfy themselves with a second-hand gun. The marque carries a wide selection of refurbished rifles and shotguns of various makes and styles, acquired in part exchange or through auction.

Looking past the tenth anniversary in October, West says: "We are always looking at new fields we can move into. Shooting is becoming more and more accessible. The number of corporate shooting days is increasing as is the number of women that are getting into shooting. In my time, I've seen many changes in how guns are made. The actions are narrower now which makes them lighter and more manageable. Engravings are another area that has evolved."

The future, then, looks promising. Guns that get more ornamental even as they rise up the specs ladder. More ornamental users too. Happiness, truly, is a warm gun