Lovely Vintage Westley Richards 10g Shotgun

As a once keen wildfowler it is always nice to see one of the vintage big bore guns built by Westley Richards. In this instance we have a lovely 10g, 3" chambered, 32" barrelled Anson & Deeley fixed lock shotgun that was completed in 1886 for J.Palmer O'Neil & Co. of Pittsburgh, USA. This company clearly acted as an agent for Westley Richards and retailed guns, rifles, revolvers, ammunition, fishing tackle and other sportsmens goods. A gun almost identical to this illustrates the front cover of one of their early catalogues.

The lines of the gun considering its size are very elegant and it points superbly. The round pistol grip has a gentle sweep that makes the gun comfortable to handle. Weighing 10lb 10 3/4ozs it is great to swing and with 'extreme choke' as defined in the ledger entry, it would certainly have worked well on high Mallard, Pintail and Geese. Interestingly the rib states 'Highest Quality' and we have to admit that it is probably one of the finest fixed lock guns that we have seen here at the factory. The damascus is of the typical high quality found on all of the Westley Richards guns built up until around 1910 and the wood is as good as anything we would use today.

The gun has the single model 'c' dolls head extension and classic lever work, no underbolt, which is a testament to the strength of the design and quality of the workmanship when jointing the gun. It remains as tight on the face as the day it was made and if it was mine there is no question that it would see a goose blind this autumn!

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Comments

6 comments

N

Neillon November 04, 2025

Neill on June 1, 2017 at 3:06 pm

This looks like a gun that has seen the foreshore, and had salt spray wiped from it after a morning flight after grey geese. It oozes not only quality, but also history, I love it!

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