Search Results: watson bros

It may come as a surprise to most Londoners that just a short walk from where tourists buy Chinese-made souvenirs of Tower Bridge is a place that epitomises old-fashioned British craftsmanship. Situated at the south end of Tower Bridge Road lies Watson Bros, an old gunmaking company given new life in 1989 and now renowned…

Although I am a fan of best guns, fine guns and one-off builds, my own cabinet isn’t filled with them. Instead, it is full of old guns, bargain guns and completely knackered guns. Like many of you, I am a bargain hunter looking for affordable guns under £1000. The market is currently stuffed with bargains,…

Should my guns eventually be catalogued by an auctioneer, I expect my ownership to make not a jot of difference to the valuation. Frankly, nobody is going to pay 
more for the bragging rights of owning a gun once waved at pheasants in my distinctly average hands. If, however, a gun once graced the crooked…

I write this edging into the first week after the end of the season with reports from around the country that the final week proved as busy as the rest of the season with plenty of sport on offer. I was thinking that with the season over this was going to be a quieter spell,…

A recent advertisement by ASI – the importer of AYA guns from Spain and, more recently, Rizzinis from Italy – bravely announced that “16 bore is the new black!”. This seemed a bit cryptic on first reading but on further investigation disclosed that there was a bit of a fashion reference going on. Black, it would seem, is the height of fashion. From haute couture…

If you’ve never seen a modern shotgun from one of the great English makers in the flesh, you might be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about. Whether side-by-side or over-and-under, it is easy to imagine a gun from Beretta or Browning is only different from a gun from Watson Bros or Boss & Co in purely aesthetic terms – or, more likely,…

Tradition and Best-quality gunmaking is still thriving,
as Ian Valentine discovers when he embarks on a
tour of London’s smartest addresses