(l.) Whether on Kenya guinea fowl or Kentucky doves, the author’s Westley Richards .410-bore “Federal” model is an enjoyable gun to shoot. Dove-gun aficionados in the American South were impressed by the lively little lightweight shotgun and even more so when they heard its history. Photo by Author. (r.) Even today, Westley Richards gunsmiths take anywhere from 400 to 650 hours to complete an individual shotgun or rifle. That ensures that none leave the factory workshop until it exceeds the company’s expectations and thus guarantees it is among the best. Photo courtesy of Westley Richards
“A really good .410 with the proper chokes and loads used under reasonable conditions can be as enjoyable a gun as one could hope for.”—Simon Clode, former chairman and managing director of Westley Richards
Africa had always been a dream for my father, and, in 1967, he enthusiastically traveled to Kenya several months ahead of the family to organize a place for us to live. He was one of three pilots who would be flying a Grumman seaplane called the “Albatross.” The aircraft was administered and maintained by Pan Am, which was contracted with NASA to provide support for the last downrange satellite-tracking station on the Eastern Test Range, located in the Seychelles. The seaplane, based in Mombasa, made weekly flights to Mahé (the Seychelles’ main island), located 1,000 miles due east of Kenya.
We looked forward to the hunting opportunities that would be available to us as Kenya residents. Opportunities that came only after passing rigid written tests, negotiating miles of “red tape” for the issuance of permits and licenses, and convincing stern game wardens during intense interviews that we were conversant enough with Kenya’s strict game laws and regulations to hunt the country’s big game safely and responsibly.
There were also strict regulations regarding the possession of firearms. The first was having a police-inspected gun safe permanently attached to a wall in a lockable room within the house. This was a requirement initiated in the early 1950s when Kenya’s colonial government realized how easily the Mau Mau terrorists had obtained guns stolen from lax households. Strict laws were instituted in 1953, making the loss of a firearm to theft a punishable offense with a hefty fine and even jail time.
A Remarkable Find
My father eventually located a gun safe for sale in Mombasa that still housed a most interesting item. The gun safe’s owner, a Mrs. Pereira, was a Goan lady in her late 80s. She had no further need for the safe, as long as my father agreed to purchase the single firearm that it still held. Elegant is the only word to describe the slender silhouette of the vintage .410-bore shotgun she lifted from the gun safe. But two issues marred its appearance, and both were the result of Mombasa’s coastal environment. The tropical heat and humidity had extracted a toll on the little gun’s metalwork, causing surface rust-pitting and, after years of combating the humid conditions with copious amounts of gun oil, the walnut buttstock and splinter fore-end were badly oil-saturated, making the wood slick and almost pitch-black in color. In spite of the gun’s condition, my father’s only question to Pereira was, “How much?” He happily paid her whatever price she asked.
The diminutive .410 was a Westley Richards side-by-side shotgun with a hammerless, fixed-lock, non-ejector, Anson & Deeley (A&D) action. It featured double triggers, 2½" chambers, a standard 14½" length of pull and 27" pencil-thin barrels. The gun’s metalwork was adorned with understated borderline engraving, and the stock exhibited a plain un-engraved stock oval and a checkered butt. Prewar British guns chambered in .410 bore were not only uncommon, but rare. What we didn’t realize was just how rare an inter-war British .410 with adult dimensions really was. Years later, while researching the gun’s history, I discovered the cause for the .410’s rarity. Simply put, prior to World War II, there was little interest and even less demand for British-built, sub-gauge shotguns, so very few were produced. The .410 bore, in particular, was perceived as toy-like and seen as more of a lady’s gun, thanks to its thin barrels and diminutive frame suitable for small-statured shooters.
A 1920s Westley Richards catalog listing the .410 shotgun acknowledges the same sentiment: “Westley Richards .410 Shot Gun and its Cartridge. For occasional use about the place, and for Ladies. Carefully bored—even and deadly effect. We say that the .410 is an excellent little weapon for the beginner … yet even the old hand need not despise this little gun … it is a most useful addition to the gun room if only for the express purpose of keeping down the vermin in the close season.”
Crafting The Best
Even fewer .410 bores were produced prior to World War I, owing to the difficulty in designing and building a scaled-down version of an action that could reliably fire the .410 shells. Even with today’s technology, a reduced boxlock action is not an easy build—100 years ago, it would have been doubly difficult. The engineering complexities, coupled with the lack of demand for sub-gauge guns, provided little incentive for gunmakers to produce .410 shotguns.
Westley Richards, one of England’s oldest traditional gunmakers, was the exception. Founded in Birmingham in 1812, its name was well-established by the late 1800s. Supplying some of the finest sporting arms in the world, its gunsmiths, even today, take anywhere from 400 to 650 hours to complete an individual shotgun or rifle. This ensures that nothing leaves the factory workshops until it exceeds the company’s own expectations, which guarantees its guns will be among the best.
The gunmaker’s craft is about the pursuit of perfection, which often means matching new technology with the talents and skills of the best craftsmen. Gunsmiths William Anson and John Deeley, who worked for Westley Richards during the 1800s, produced the first boxlock action—a hammerless action used for double-barrel shotguns as far back as 1875. Initially resisted by sportsmen and manufacturers alike, the strong, reliable action type was eventually accepted to become the dominant form in hammerless shotguns.
Not only was the A&D action a great design to work with, but Westley Richards was willing to take on complex projects for loyal customers. In October 1924, His Highness the Maharaja of Patiala, a longtime Westley Richards patron, placed a 30-gun order with the firm that included six .410-bore shotguns with hand-detachable locks. Hand-detachable locks had never been built on an A&D action, but Westley Richards’ managing director at the time, Leslie Taylor, felt the maharaja more than qualified as the “right” kind of customer to justify fulfilling the complex and expensive .410 request.
Upon completion of the maharaja’s six .410 shotguns, Westley Richards’ next catalog listed double-barrel, hammerless, .410-bore configurations with either fixed or hand-detachable locks. Knowing that the appeal of a best-quality version of the small gun was limited at best, Taylor decided to also include a plain-finish double .410 in a fixed-lock, hammerless configuration at a more attractive price. The new gun was called the “Federal” model, a basic shotgun with few embellishments, built with export to the colonies in mind. The catalog description for the Federal model stated:
“This gun, though priced at a low figure, is well designed and constructed and hand-made throughout.”
But the respected gunmaker still found its .410-bore offerings to be ahead of the curve, as demand for the little guns, whether Federal model or best-quality, fell well short of expectations.
A Special Guinea Fowl Curry
Pereira’s own story was as fascinating as the gun’s. She was born in Goa, a state in western India along the Arabian Sea, which was a Portuguese colony up until 1961. As a young girl in the late 1800s, she was sent out to Kenya Colony in East Africa as a child-bride. In a family-arranged agreement, she would marry the son of a Goan family living in Mombasa. With details finalized, she traveled to Mombasa by steamship, and only upon arrival did she first lay eyes on her husband-to-be, who was a bit older than her.
The Uganda Railway, linking the port city of Mombasa to the interiors of Kenya and Uganda, was completed in 1901. And Pereira remembered traveling by train between Mombasa and Nairobi when passengers commonly carried their sporting firearms onboard with them. Whenever a flock of guinea fowl or other game birds were encountered close to the tracks, the engineer would stop the train upon request. This allowed passengers with firearms to leap off and chase after the birds. She told us how much her husband enjoyed the challenge of “potting” a few guineas with his slender little .410. “But what he dearly loved,” she explained, “was the delicious guinea fowl curry I prepared with the birds he brought home.”
Pereira’s eyes sparkled as she recalled those halcyon days of long ago. She then offered to come over and prepare a proper guinea fowl curry for our family. That is, if we would provide the guineas, to which my father and I gladly agreed. I still remember the wonderful aroma of that genuine guinea fowl curry permeating the house. The meal, complete with homemade chapatis, fresh fried papadums and all the requisite chopped condiments topped with pickled atchara, spicy homemade mango chutney and shredded coconut, was one of the finest curries I’ve ever tasted.
“Bird-Ready” Again
I wish we could have kept the little .410 in Kenya to “pot” a few guineas, but, unfortunately, our firearms certificate only allowed the possession of one shotgun. The license application for our 12-ga. Winchester Model 12 was already in process, so the only option was to ship the little .410 bore back to the States. Several years later, when I was invited on a South Georgia quail hunt, I thought of taking the little Westley Richards .410. I wanted to ensure the gun was reliable, so I contacted Bill Ward of Griffin & Howe (G&H) in New York to arrange for a thorough check-up. I knew the surface metalwork and stock issues would require attention, but I also wanted the fixed-lock action to be checked and verified.
The gunsmiths at G&H removed most of the rust-pitting from the barrels and receiver and then painstakingly, utilizing a heat process, were able to leach much of the oil from the walnut stock. Once the walnut grain was visible, they hand-rubbed the stock to a beautiful oil-finished luster. Having performed their magic, the gunsmiths had returned the little Westley Richards to its original glory and reliability, and, once again, the diminutive double was deemed “bird-ready.” I was both pleased and proud to carry the classic double-barrel .410 on a traditional quail hunt, complete with mule-drawn wagon and wonderfully productive pointers. Today, there is a much greater appreciation for a .410 bore’s capabilities and its wonderful handleability, not to mention the great sense of satisfaction it brings when a bird crumples to the shot. The gun’s slim fit and quick swing made it seem as easy and natural as “pointing your finger” at a winged target.
During the mid-1980s, the late Simon Clode, then Westley Richards’ chairman and managing director, had the firm build a dozen .410 shotguns with hand-detachable locks—the design that made Westley Richards famous. Clode discovered that the enthusiasm for new sporting guns was still strong, and the company included other gauges in the lineup. This was followed by the production of many of the models through which the firm had built its reputation. In 1995, for example, the company re-introduced an A&D double rifle and, in 2004, the famous “Ovundo” over-under shotgun was brought back.
Wishing to confirm my .410 bore’s details, I contacted Westley Richards’ current managing director, Anthony Alborough-Tregear, who not only provided the details but also sent me a photograph of the 1920s factory ledger page. The abbreviated hand-written entry reads: “.410, Double 27" Steel, Left Choke, A & D action, No Projection, Straight-hand, Snap Fore-end.” The entry “shorthand” translates to the gun being of .410 bore with 27" steel barrels and having a choked left barrel, a non-ejector Anson & Deeley boxlock action, a straight-grip stock and a snap-on fore-end. No one is certain how many fixed-lock Federal model .410s still exist, but besides mine, Westley Richards knows of only one other.
As was further noted in the ledger, my .410 was sold on June 4, 1923, to Davis & Soper LTD, London, export merchants for Africa and countries in the Middle and Far East. Sometime after its arrival in Kenya, Pereira’s husband would have purchased the shotgun, very likely from Shaw & Hunter, Nairobi’s primary gun dealer at the time. He then got to enjoy putting the little .410 bore to good use collecting guineas during his train travels between Mombasa and Nairobi.
England To Africa To The States
Several years ago, I took the little .410 side-by-side on another quail hunt in South Texas. Not surprisingly, it felt right at home in the Texas brush country—similar-looking habitat to that of the Kenyan bush. Explosive flushes of wild birds that sent the feathered buzz bombs whipping past cactus and mesquite thickets made any quail-folding shot seem spectacular.
So, recently, when good friend and master dove-tactician Bobby Spalding contacted me to report that his several-acre Kentucky sunflower crop was attracting more doves than he’d seen in recent memory, I immediately booked a flight to the Bluegrass State. Envisioning the “September opener” to produce doves by the dozens swarming the sunflowers, Kentucky seemed the perfect place to again unleash the little .410 on some swift, field-bound feathered fowl.
Kentucky dove shooters favor 28-ga. guns—considered to be the perfect size for a dove gun—not too big and not too small. They view 20-ga. guns as being on the verge of overkill and .410 bores akin to trick shooting. If the birds are “flying,” it doesn’t take them long to collect limits with their beloved 28 gauges, of which the majority are doubles in either side-by-side or stack-barrel configurations.
The display of world-class shooting in a Kentucky dove field is impressive, especially when teamed with well-trained labs that make bird-retrieval quick and efficient. When I wasn’t focused on keeping my cheek on the stock of my sweet .410, observing nearby gunners dropping birds that were rapidly retrieved by black labs was a joy to behold.
By the end of the third afternoon’s shoot, several hunters approached me, wishing to see the crazy guy who was popping at doves with a .410 bore. They also wanted to see and hold the little gun, as few of the shooters had ever encountered a .410 quite like it. The double-barrel shotgun aficionados in the crowd were mightily impressed when they picked up the lightweight side-by-side and shouldered it, but they were truly “wowed” when I described its African history and explained that the Westley Richards had recently celebrated its 101st birthday!
