During one one of his classes on gunmaking (I attended 3 or 4 of them), I recall the late English gunsmith/gunmaker John R. "Jack" Rowe stating how impressed he was over the Holland & Holland self-opener system as it and the Purdey self opener (and the very few Boss self-openers that were made) were in his experience the only self opening systems that actually worked equally well when the gun was fired as it did when the gun was unfired. He further said that he like the Holland better due to it's easier closing.

As a matter of fact during 7-10 July 1999 I videoed many hours of Jack Rowe's classe at Tishomingo, Oklahoma and I may have the video and audio of his comments on the Holland self opener recorded. I need to take those old VHS recordings and have them converted to DVD. My recordings were before he was afflicted with Parkinson's and his voice was clear.

Those of you who have attended one of Jack's classes will vividly remember him wrapping a English gun butt stock in and old cotton tee shirt, then soaking it with unboiled linseed oil and setting the tee shirt ablaze in order to heat the butt stock for bending. I believe I have a video of that as well.

Where can one have old VHS videos converted to modern DVD?

Kindest Regards;
Stephen Howell

Last edited by bushveld; 07/28/21 01:07 PM.