doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Handling of the Purdey Sporter

Rocketman:

The SO 4 was primarily a target gun made in skeet & trap configurations. The SO 4 was discontinued in the late 1980's in favor of the SO 5 which had a slightly stronger frame and was made in Skeet, Trap & Sporting Versions. About five years ago Beretta began to offer a 32" Optima bore gun on the SO's.

On the SO 4 & SO 5 the engraving was either "tastefully minimal" or "spartan" depending on your point of view. Both the SO 4 & SO 5 had a highly engraved counterpart. For the SO 4 it was the SO 3 EELL, and for the SO 5 it was the SO 6EELL. People are asking upwards of 20K for new SO 5's, and, depending on engraving, I have seen SO 6EELL's offered at 65K or so.

I agree The older SO's can be exceptional values as well as the boxlock ASE 90's.

Hack

Rocketman, I believe the common use of the term Sporting Gun usually refers to the shooting of Sporting Clays, which is a game well suited to the SO4 Trap. I would think that even the Brits use the term "sporting gun" to describe a sporting clays gun and leave the "game gun" terminology for light hunting guns. I remember when the first H&H "Sporter" arrived at a retail establishment where I was employed. The concept of a major best maker marketing a gun in that price range was a new one at the time. It was obvious to me that the gun did not come out of Holland's shop. It was an attempt at a high grade medium weight sporting clays gun with rather heavy wood configuration, single trigger, and screw in chokes. Not only was it not a game gun by anyone's estimation, the trigger did not work well and it became a nightmare for its new owner. Who actually makes the H&H Sporter?

The SO4 was indeed a thickly wooded target gun with minimal engraving, and is normally priced very attractively on the used gun market because of its plain finish. The only drawback to the SO4 is that it is normally made with a selective trigger, just another thing to go wrong with a gun that is difficult to service. However, there are SO guns of the same and other eras that are more suited for use as game guns. My little SO2, made in the SO4 era, is a well decorated 28" gun with my preferred trigger on such a gun, Beretta's non selective single trigger. Rather than referring to it as a "game gun", the often used term for such a gun is "light pigeon gun". It has a competition style stock similar to the SO4 Skeet, and 28" tight bored barrels, a configuration popular in Italy and other parts of Europe for competition box bird guns. SO guns of that configuration in the modern era are rather rare since we in the US don't subscribe to the game gun configuration for clay targets or pigeons and the SO was a bit pricey for a hunting gun. I was lucky to rescue my SO2 from a Beretta USA photo shoot when they were contemplating putting it back in their high grade catalog after an absense of many years. Apparently, the reintroduction of the SO2 in the US catalog was cancelled and the gun became surplus. Lucky me.

8-b, part of my point is that the Purdey Sporter has, indeed, the handling numbers of a bevy of guns well thought of as pigeon and sporting guns. I had suspected it might be a light pigeon gun (average of 21 light pigeon guns: 12 bore, 29" bbls, 14 3/4" LOP, 7# 3 1/2 oz, 4 5/8" balance, 1.67 unmounted swing, 7.46 mounted swing, 10.35 compactness). Clearly, it is not this pattern. It is heavier and has higher swing efforts.

I don't know where the H&H Sporter comes from, but I think we have a pretty clear picture of where the Purdey is "birthed." Considering modern steels and machinery, many places can make quality gun parts. Few, however, have mastered the last stroke of the file, stone, and burnisher.

Rocketman, apparently your findings agree with the point of my post. The new Purdey sporter is a sporting clays gun, was designed to be one and swings like one. My opinion is that the Holland sporter was designed with the same purpose in mind, ten years earlier.