Through this work and his connections in the shooting world, Roper also became the first gunsmith to refurbish a wildfowlers punt gun an immensely powerful shotgun used for bringing down a large number of waterfowl in a single blast and through this found himself working with countrymen such as Jack Hargreaves to refine the sport. Among other projects, Roper helped to develop a new gun known as The Wolverhampton Monster, which failed its safety tests in spectacular fashion by blowing the louvres out of the roof of the Worshipful Company of Gunmakers London Proof House in Commercial Road.
If Colin Willocks' book "The `Gun Punt Adventure" is to be believed, and I think it is, most of that paragraph is misleading and inaccurate. He was Hargreaves friend and wildfowling partner and as a professional author recorded the events mentioned.
If you can find a copy it's an interesting and amusing read; Bill Roper comes out of it very well but not as depicted in this snippet.
The entire obituary originally appeared in "The Telegraph" which is where Martin saw it I guess. The pic is from Willock and shows Roper working on the "Wash Cannon" a resurrected muzzle loader converted to breech loading which is the one that failed Proof not "The Wolverhampton Pipe" (not Monster}. That one was never built the drawn blank being returned to the manufacturer
Eug
