I've owned 2 very nice BLE W.Richards guns, still have one, they're Birmingham made guns, both what I'd say were mid quality, not best but very well made and finished. The first was marked fishgate Preston on the top rib , the one I still own has been sleeved and doesn't have the original rib but it was also bought, in 1904, from the Preston shop. I contacted the 'new' W.Richards and they were very helpful and as is stated in the above post, they have a lot of records and information about the old guns.
Personaly, I've seen an English hammer gun of theirs, but not one of the Belgian guns so can't comment on them, I'd guess the name was never intended to fool people in to believing they'd bought a Westley Richards though. After all William Richards had their own name and their own business.
I think the name gets a bit of 'bad press' from what can be read on the internet sometimes. They made/sold a lot of very nice guns too, I'm no expert, but wouldn't be suprised if you could find a W. and a Westley based on the same action out there, both of mine had Westley type box ejectors, they weren't marked as such but imagine the extra confusion that it could cause nowadays if you were doing some research on the gun and they were and had been. (Hope that makes sense)
The link to the W. Richards history page on an earlier post is well worth a look, a friend of mine remembers the Old Hall St. Shop in Liverpool from when he was a kid and when I'm out shooting I'm on high ground looking out over into England, across two rivermouths and on to Liverpool, 14 miles away as the crow flys, further inland on the nearest river is Chester, just visible. The home of my other favourite old gunmaker, Henry Monk but that's another story. Must be a local interest thing with me I suppose.
Ha. Sorry if I've ranbled on.
Nick.
