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JAMES PURDER & SONS #30056 O/U
Guns International #: 100666053 Seller's Inventory #:
Category: Purdey Shotguns - Shotguns - English Double
Seller's Information
When emailing or calling sellers direct, please mention that you saw their listing on GunsInternational.com
Seller: SDH
Member Since: 3/19/07
First Name: STEVEN DODD
Last Name: HUGHES
State: Montana
Country: United States
Phone: (406) 222-9377
Seller: FFL Dealer
Return Policy: 3 day inspection and return policy on used guns.
3 days
Payment Types Accepted: Bank draft or MO
About Us: Career Custom Gunmaker, 40 years dealing with fine firearms. Steven Dodd Hughes, Gunmaker, Writer, Photographer
Description:
JAMES PURDEY & SONS 12 Gauge O/U $85,000
Built in 2003 and remaining in near new condition this gun is offered at a considerable reduction for current prices, please compare.
The gun was subject to a two-part article in the Fine Gunmaking column in Shooting Sportsman Magazine (July/Aug and Sept/Oct 2015). Copies of the stories will be provided with the gun.
Purdey #30056 comes in a fitted aluminum Americase travel case with outer green cover and all accessories.
Visually, the stock presents a showy piece of English walnut with a fairly glossy finish. The stock is well laid out, with good, strong grain through the narrow Prince of Wales grip. The stock’s length of pull measures 14-13/16”, and the drop is 1-1/2” at the comb and 1-7/8” at the heel, with cast-off by actual measurement ¼” at the heel and 3/8” at the toe. The butt is 5-3/16” tall and about 1-5/8” wide, with the end checkered at 18 lines per inch.
The grip and forend checkering is 26 lpi in a long diamond ratio, with grip panels extending over the top and forend in three panels divided by thin borderlines.
The case colors are vibrant, with a full range of blues and yellows deepening to chocolate-brown tones, and a minimum of gray at the edges. All of the case-colored parts are coated with lacquer, to further enhance the colors. The sapphire-blue engraved screw heads, richly polished barrel bluing and even the thin gold cocking-indicator lines on the tumbler shafts and gold inlaid “SAFE” present my notion of exactly how a fine gun ought to look when new. The colors are contrasting yet harmonious.
The 28” barrels have 2-3/4” chambers, and Purdey-supplied specs had them: “bottom modified choke, top full choke.” Actual measurements are: under barrel .020” choke, over barrel .035”. By measurement, both chokes show steep cones and parallel bore sections at the muzzles. The Full choke parallel is quite short, but the Modified barrel has a 1.250” parallel section between the front of the choke and the muzzle.
The full-length, slightly swamped top rib is matted with a stippled pattern showing a multitude of random punch marks in a very handsome presentation. The barrels show a very high polish, and I presume they are rust blued. The only other rust-blued barrels I’ve seen with this degree of polish were on a F.lli Rizzini gun.
Two major patents cover the Woodward O/U design that James Purdey purchased and began manufacturing after World War II. The first, No. 4986 of February 1913 (granted to Charles Woodward, William Evershed and Charles Hill), shows the action and barrel breeches. The most often mentioned aspect of the Woodward O/U patent was that the barrels pivot on trunnions on the sides of the lower barrel rather than on a lump on the bottom of the lower barrel. This design allows a slimmer profile at the breech. On the outside of the action, these trunnions appear as slotted ends of a hinge pin, but on the inside they are stubby round posts on either side of the action. A close look shows that they are marked “R” and “L” on the ends.
The barrels pivot on hooks milled into the forward barrel lumps. This made a much shallower action possible but required a different bolting system than the tried-and-true Purdey double underbolt. The bolts are rectangular in shape and protruded from the action breech face to engage the barrel breech in notches, or bites, high on either side of the lower barrel.
All of the fitting of action to barrels on No. 30056 is to extremely close tolerances. The design, machining and fitting mates the barrels to the action as if they were a solid block of steel, making this a very strong and stout O/U system.
Boothroyd points out in his book The British Over-and-Under Shotgun, that the flanged barrel bars over the action prevent water and debris from entering the closed action. This is carried a step further on some Woodward guns and on Purdeys with a wide-lipped side rib of the barrels capping the full length of the forearm barrel inlet.
Photos of a 1920s-vintage Woodward in British O/U Shotgun show the bottom of the lower barrel as retaining the round shape nearly to the breech. The Purdey lower barrel breech had a complicated, almost-tapered octagon shape at the breech. Both guns’ breeches show the side lugs with undercut, tongue and groove recesses that fit snugly into corresponding machine cuts in the action well. Square notches on either side of the lower barrel are the locking notches for the locking bolts, seen protruding from either side of the breech face of the action.
Small half-round hooks can be seen in the lower part of the front barrel lumps, which engage round pins on either side of the action, forming the breech pivot. These are similar in form to the cylindrical protrusions that were used as mounting/pivot points on cannons and called trunnions—thus the name for them on this system.
As tested with snap caps, the triggers are crisp and well matched for pull weight. As one might imagine, the ejectors are perfectly timed, tossing the snap caps over my shoulder to land next to each other on the carpet.
Purdey O/U No. 30056 was simply as good as it gets. There is nothing to criticize or even any nits to pick.
SOLD
Manufacturer: JAMES PURDEY
Model: WOODWARD O/U
Bore: 12 GA
Ejectors: yes
Condition: as new
Barrels: 28
Barrel Type: O/U
Action: WOODWARD
Gauge Info: 12
Stock Comb: 1 1/2
Stock Heel: 1 7/8
Stock Cast: 1/4" to 3/8
LOP: 14 13/16
Rib: swamped
Weight: 7lb 8oz
Choke Left: .020
Choke Right: .035