Heritage Guns' Comment

As the top rib of this gun proclaims, the Henry Atkin who built this gun did his apprenticeship at Purdey's under his father, also named Henry who is said to have been James Purdey's first employee. There is no doubt that he learnt his trade well as all guns produced under his name are truly gorgeous, this one being no exception. In later years Atkin produced a large number of guns built on the Beesley self-opening patent, better known as the Purdey action, and this gun's design also hails from two stalwarts of the London gun trade: Thomas Southgate (of ejector fame) and James Woodward (whose O/U design was adopted by Purdey).
It is Woodward's name that is most commonly associated with this action type, christened the 'Automatic' by its inventors. The action cocks on the movement of the underlever and then there is a delightfully different interceptor sears that are actuated by the safety slide mechanism rather than the trigger blade as in most others.
The configuration of this gun is most unusual. The bar-in-wood style is almost entirely associated with hammerguns yet this is hammerless but I suspect that this is a product of its time, right at the beginning of the hammerless gun era. Secondly the barrels are in the style of a pigeon gun: flat, broad rib and built on a wide action. We have no idea what the original chamber length was, as it came to us with 2 ¾" chambers, but we are fortunate to be able to say that it has original 'recessed' chokes, confirmed by its '13M/13B' proof marks.
The beautifully etched damascus barrels have been nitro re-proofed for 2 3/4" nitro cartridges and this all adds up to a beautiful gun that is a joy to shoot and should give many years of service on game or clays with normal maintenance.
Presented in its Oak & Leather case, relined with all-wool baize and a reproduction trade label.

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