I have just watched a new YouTube video where Simon Reinhold of Holts shows off to Johnny of TGS Outdoors his favourite SxS for clay shooting.

He just won the British Side by Side championship with it!

It is a sleeved W. J. Jeffrey hammer 12 bore 3” pigeon gun circa 1910. It is an early sleeving job with SLEEVED stamped on the sides of the barrels as the Proof house then insisted.

It makes me think more kindly of my sleeved guns. I bought an Edwinson Green 2 3/4” BLE 12 bore SLEEVED by Westley Richards with a view to having it as a spare on days when our local clay ground can only offer 70mm shells.

My favourite Edwinson Green BLE has 2 1/2” chambers. I have been meaning to get the SLEEVED gun altered for length and cast to match it (they are both 28” barrels) and must get round to it.

Sleeved English guns are the best deal in the game. At least as far as I'm concerned.

Many claim sleeved guns do not feel like they did before being sleeved. Duh. Barrels become lighter as they get honed to death. By the time they get sleeved they have become so thin that they are borderline safe to even shoot and are much lighter in the barrels than they started out in life. Yes sleeving does change things but not as much as many think. I only have a few sleeved guns but find them all to be acceptable. I never knew what they felt like before, so can only go by their current feel.

I am more sad for the loss of the lovely Damascus beauty than a change in barrel weight of 2-4-6 ounces. If it really bothers you have the gun rebalanced to suit. A six pound, seven pound and eight pound gun can all be balanced on the hinge pin or most other points if you like, but will still work with the feel between the hands as they say. The heavier guns might take a bit more effort to swing but also will be less prone to being stopped like many ultra lights guns. They can be smoother but slightly slower. I have several thin barreled guns I wish I could get sleeved or were already sleeved. Just born on the wrong side of the Atlantic.

Sleeved guns give me the opportunity to afford guns I wouldn't normally come close to being able to buy.

And I saw that video too.

I could not agree more.

There are good sleeving jobs out there and some ugly bad one’s too. I have owned three sleeved guns over the years, I still have two of them.

Amen.

Saw the video. I have the exact same gun, bearing Jefferey's name, but not sleeved and with original Damascus barrels nitro proofed to 2 3/4". Jefferey never made the gun and it is in fact an example made by the Midland Gun Co. in Birmingham and based on a model they called the 'Sudden Death' catalogue number 8350. Lagopus.....

sleeving is a good way to save a fine old gun from the scrap yard and being turned into lawnmower blades.
Mike

My 80 year old neighbour uses a pair of Wm. Evans boxlocks in 12 bore. He had them sleeved about 20 years ago, and also chose 28" barrels rather than the original unfashionable 30" barrels. He also specified 2.75" chambers. They work a treat and he shows up all the lads with their funny over-under thingies.

So he is now set up perfectly for the next 20 years, even if the mooted ban on lead shot does get imposed here in the UK...

HB

I had the chance to buy (at an attractive price) a Parker DHE 12 sleeved by Westley Richards, sadly not there best work.

WR did a lot of early sleeve jobs. As you say not to the highest standard. I think a lot of the negative feelings about sleeve jobs are from those roughly done jobs. Later WR sleeve jobs could be done as well as anybody. I assume the early ones were in house because nobody would let them be associated with a name makers reputation by an outsider. Most likely they did them cheap just to keep the doors open. If it has a stamped Sleeve on the side it is an early job. Early jobs had rough seams while later ones could be done so finely you have to look hard to see any seam at all. Some are really seamless. Sleeving saves a lot of guns from the scrap pile.

W.J. Jeffrey was an excellent salesman, invented or developed excellent rifle cartridges had several patents to his name.

BUT he bought in all his guns from the Trade.

It was not until Paul Roberts had the licence to build W. J. Jeffery guns that Jeffery double rifles were being built “in house”.

Jon,

As the Proof House were then insisting on stamping SLEEVED on the outside of the breech end of the barrels Westley Richards made a virtue out of a necessity by emblazoning Westley Richards above the Proof House stamp.

I am sure I saw a Westley Richards advert in Shooting Times in the 1960’s stating they were doing this to show they stood by the Quality of their work. They are one of the few who sleeved who clearly identified their work.

Fortunately my Green is one of their better efforts with a neat enough join.

I have seen guns sleeved by others where the solder band (or even worse the gap) is so wide that it looks as if the sleever meant to inlay a gold band but plain forgot 🤩

I agree the loss of a beautiful pair of Damascus barrel is sad, but a necessary evil in some cases.

As for where you were born, I love Brit guns, Brit stuff, Brit history, and am an Anglophile for sure, but I am glad I was born in the USA, and glad for you as well. I would not have anything different in terms of being American, just the laws on import / export of vintage side by sides.

My late 1880’s Perkes was sleeved in 1962 and it is an amazing gun to shoot and hunt pheasants with.

The steel type chosen for the sleeve tubes can offset barrel weight issues. As the CIP barrel thickness guides show, high quality steel can yield much lighter barrels than low quality. I would even say that modern high quality steels can yield barrels that are lighter than marginal overhoned damascus.

When you have a 100 year old gun with barrels that have been bored way past their best , the outsides struck off to remove pitting ect. How can you tell what it was like when it left the factory . Thats unless you have makers records that will give a barrel weight ,in its self a rarity ? Having been involved in sleeving for many years , I have sleeved 30" t0 26" , and vice versa . 16 to 20 bore . 10 to 12 bore . I have changed ribs and replaced ribs and only once have I had complaints about the change in handling .
By the same token I have through handling thousands of guns picked up original guns that seemed to want to leap on to your shoulder with others being as " lively as a plank of wood ( no offence to planks of wood intended ) .

My Frank Lefever and Sons sleeved 3 1/2" ten gauge Parker handles like a plank of wood. It probably handled about the same when it was a 10 pound, #3 frame 12 gauge.

To me it is the contrast of young verse old in our females and guns. We want our females to always look and feel like they did at 20, but our guns to look and feel like they do after a hundred years of wear, tear, repairs and just being so worn out that they are junk. Little real thought about how they felt when new, as gunman says. And several ounces removed from the barrels can make a big difference. The gun gets lighter in the barrels and more butt stock heavy. Then sleeve the gun to original weight and we think it is now barrel heavy when all it is is restored to original conditions. But we only know what the end was like because we never knew the gun as it was in its youth.

Over the years, I had several guns sleeved at gunman's shop. All turned out beautifully, especially after the time when they welded the seams. One could never tell that the barrels had been sleeved without looking at the proofmarkings. The "bluing" was top notch. Often I ordered shorter sleeve barrels than the original gun had. Say 29" or 30" to 28". This was because, just a guess, that the sleeves might have been thicker walled than the original. I was never disappointed. In one case a Lajot 12 ga had such a tiny receiver that we had to go to a 16 ga. sleeve to expect the gun to pass proof. Beautiful job.

gunman,
Good to see you posting again.

Best,
Ted

I purchased a 16 ga Parker Bros DHE that someone ran over the barrels with a truck, and cut them off at 20”. Kirk Merrington sleeved them for me back to 28- superb craftsmanship

Thanks Ted .

Thanks Daryl .Always nice to know someone appreciates your labours .

Mr.gunman where do find sleeving tubes? I have had to use unfinished barrels or orphan barrels to sleeve barrels.thanks mark

We bought our tubes from several manufacturers in Italy over the years . We bought in quantity and had tubes profiled to our spec .

Mr. Gunman, are you or someone you are aware of prepared to do sleeve jobs for paying customers?

Mr eightbore check with diggory .the problem I have had is getting tubes

Sorry but as I retired 7 years ago I am out of touch with people in the UK who still sleeve as several have also retired . I dont know if Kirk Merrington is still in business in the US but might be worth looking .
If you want to go the sending to the UK route which can be difficult with paper work I could suggest a couple of names to try .

I was at the Game Fair on Friday and saw this Westley Richards BLE with an early Westley Richards SLEEVED set of barrels (usefully with 2 3/4 inch chambers) on sale at Francis Lovel’s stand.

The join was neat but clearly visible. I am sure that if Westley Richards were doing it now that the seam would be TIG welded and invisible.

I wonder if in the early 1960’s when the Proof House wanted SLEEVED barrels to be so obviously marked externally that it was felt that there was little point in trying to make the seam disappear.

The price on his website is £1,495 but it was on offer at the Game Fair for about £200 less. Either way it costs less than the current price of a good sleeving job.

Economically it would make no sense to send a boxlock (unless a treasured heirloom) to be sleeved instead of buying a replacement gun, sleeved or otherwise, and that applies here in England, let alone from your side of the pond.

It could be worthwhile for a good quality sidelock if the cost of replacement barrels is prohibitive.

Preach it, brother. Truer words were never spoken.

Best,
Ted

Sleeving was of course a worthwhile exercise for Lady Meux’s 28 bore Purdey bar-in-wood hammer gun.

I didn’t remember it rightly but find Holt’s sold it for a hammer price of £15,000 against a top estimate of £5,000 ( so £20,000 paid by the purchaser).

I still suspect that it is a world record for a sleeved gun.

What would that purdey be worth with new barrels?

It was worth a hammer price of £15,000 on the day because there were at least 2 bidders willing to go to £14.5 K but only one who went to £15K.

At 3 times top estimate the bidders were probably attracted by the provenance and the whiff of scandal attached to a delightful if not very practical gun to shoot doves or driven partridge, and a rare if not totally original gun for the specialist Purdey collector.

It does not seem the sleeved barrels harmed the price, but if you paid Purdey to fit a set of new barrels (£30K ?) intrinsically it would be worth more but put back into auction you would be unlikely to recover any part of the cost of those new barrels.

Speaking of new barrels, what is the "standard" or "average" cost to have new barrels fitted? This would be across all makers, not limited to one. I'm sure Purdey would be at the top of the cost scale.

This article provides some cost information Barrels

Ken

10000 to 30000 lb