Handling the gun, here is what I saw: It weighed 7 lbs., 10 oz. – a good pound heavier than a London game gun should be. The barrels were 30 inches, choked Mod. & Mod. Hmmm. The barrel walls themselves were quite thick – about .030 inches – which added some of the extra weight, yet the balance was dynamic. The buttstock had a pistol grip, but was obviously not original and not restocked particularly well. Whether Hussey built the gun originally with a pistol grip was another question.

The forend looked good, but too new for this gun. A question mark. The trigger guard looked wrong to me. Another question mark. The safety catch looked wrong. Really wrong. The question marks were piling up but, as Philip Marlowe might say, “She was blonde. She was beautiful. She was trouble. I should have turned around right then. I pushed on the door and walked in...”

Many things were wrong, but the price looked right. George was asking about half what you would expect to pay for a London sidelock of this vintage and quality, even allowing for the barbarities that had obviously been wrought upon it. As a matter of fact, I had no inkling yet of the full list of indignities the poor Hussey had endured. Those revelations would come a little later. Meanwhile, I was pretty sure, this was a prime candidate for restoration.

Personally, I would never go to that trouble and expense to restore a waterfowl gun, regardless of the name on the locks. The point is, I was convinced this was no waterfowl gun.

Click for bigger picture

Old & broken extractor

Knowing the character of H.J. Hussey, the crowd he ran with, and the London of 1908, I believed it had begun life as a pigeon gun, intended for a flamboyant career of downing box pigeons for big stakes in the company of princes, remittance men, and dissolute younger sons. She was beautiful. She was trouble. I should have turned around...

Henry Joseph Hussey had possibly the most checkered career of any ‘name’ London gunmaker. Nigel Brown, in British Gunmakers, describes him as an out-and-out rogue. He was an assistant manager with Holland & Holland before leaving to join the firm of James Lang & Co. in 1895. Hussey was also a craftsman, though – a gunmaker, not a front-office type.

He managed the Lang shop for about five years until the firm was purchased by investor Henry Webley. Under Webley, it became Lang & Hussey, and Hussey was appointed managing director. Five months later, he resigned. Why? That was a mystery until Nigel Brown discovered a dusty old company minutes book, which revealed that Hussey had been caught covertly selling company and client guns, and pocketing the proceeds. He left under a cloud. A few months later his son, also a gunmaker, was dismissed. Father and son went back into business, independent of one another.

When he left Lang & Hussey, in return for no charges being filed, Hussey agreed to be honest in his dealings and never mention his previous assocation. Almost immediately, he broke his word, claiming affiliation with Lang & Hussey on his letterhead. Brought up short by a letter from the solicitors, Hussey finally went straight.

He set up shop on Bond Street, where he stayed until 1908. In 1914 he went into partnership with his son, and Hussey & Hussey relocated to Jermyn Street. When war broke out, Hussey’s two sons joined the British Army. One was killed on the Western Front, the other captured. When H.J. died in 1917, Claude Harrison came into the picture, saved the firm from collapse, and after the war continued in partnership with the surviving son as Harrison & Hussey.

That ends the story of H.J., and the Hussey name disappeared completely in 1930 when the company was absorbed, ironically, by Stephen Grant & Joseph Lang, Ltd.

During his time as a London gunmaker, however, H.J. Hussey moved in elevated circles. He was, according to some reports, a devotee of the pigeon ring, and specialized in guns for pigeon shooting. Like the modern trap gun, pigeon guns fired special heavy loads and were heavier than normal in order to absorb recoil. Some had safeties, some did not. The barrels were long and tightly choked.

All the name London gunmakers built pigeon guns, and those by Purdey, Woodward, et al, are legendary. They are thoroughbred racehorses in a world of hunter-jumpers – bred for one thing and doing it superbly, with thousands of pounds riding on a single shot.

The Hussey gun came from the factory with 2¾-inch chambers and was proofed in London for 1¼-oz. loads. Somehow, I couldn’t see one of H.J. Hussey’s clients in a duck blind. This had to be a pigeon gun.

James Flynn is a gunmaker in Alexandria, Louisiana, one of a (very) few men in this country capable of restoring a London sidelock from the ground up. A protégé of the aforementioned Jack Rowe, Flynn is just as exacting in his standards, and as unforgiving when it comes to the shameful treatment of fine guns at the hands of barbarians.

Flynn and I dismantled the Hussey, piece of piece, trying to figure out what was original, what was not, what had been done, and what it would take to restore it to glorious, high-flying, pigeon-shooting life.

It was gratifying, for me, to find that I had been right on almost every point I noticed about the gun – the trigger guard, the safety, the forend. It was not so gratifying to find that what I saw was only the tip of a horrifying iceberg. The poor Hussey had suffered greatly.

Overall, however, one point stood out. The frame was sound and unmarked. The barrels were good. The gun was tight. The locks were generally sound. She was a girl who could be saved...

What follows are James Flynn’s observations:

• The barrels had been reblacked, but it was well done and they did not need reblacking. The engraving was slightly buffed out, but very slightly. The frame did not require re-hardening if I was content to leave its century-old, well-earned patina, which I was.

• The gun certainly needed restocking. The pistol-grip style trigger-guard had come off some lesser gun. I had been right about that. Underneath were obvious signs that when this gun left H.J. Hussey’s shop, it had an English grip.

• The forend was a puzzle. It had also been redone, but by a professional who knew what he was doing, probably before the gun left England. Altogether, we identified three and possibly four different men who had worked on it at some point, distinguished by their skill or lack thereof.

• I questioned the safety, which had a button unlike any I had ever seen on an English gun. James had no doubts: “That came off something else – a cheap trade gun of some kind.”

• The automatic safety linkage functioned, but it was crudely done and raised all kinds of questions. The gun probably had a safety when it left the factory. It may have been removed, lost, and then replaced when the gun was sold. Or it might have been damaged. Who knows? At any rate, James would have to make a proper English button, and completely re-do the safety linkage. An alternative was to remove the linkage and make the safety non-automatic, which James finally concluded it originally was.

• Somewhere along the way, the triggers had been damaged because we could see small pieces welded into the blades. Hmmm. No explanation.

• I noticed the cocking indicator on the right tumbler did not match the one on the left. The gold inlay of the cocking indicator on the axle was missing. At first we thought the other tumbler might have been replaced, but after dismantling both locks James concluded they were both completely original.

• “The workmanship on the locks is first-rate,” he said.

At one point when the gun was apart, I played with the extractor and half of one came out in my hand. It had been broken, brazed together, and the brazing had parted. Further inspection showed both top legs (guide rails) on the extractors had been replaced, and not very well. To do a proper restoration, James would need to make a complete new set of extractors. How do you break both top legs? For that matter, how do you snap the main leg? More question marks. She was beautiful. She was trouble...

Flynn looked at me coldly. Trouble is my business.

I left the gun with James Flynn for a detailed evaluation of what was needed and what it would cost. About two weeks later he sent me a list, and followed up with a phone call.

1. Some repairs were obvious, and the costs were straightforward: Buttstock (exclusive of the blank itself): $7,000.

2. Forend (also exclusive of the blank): 4,000.

3. New extractors: 3,000.

4. New trigger guard: 2,000.

Already, we were at $11,500. Still to come were new screws (timed, engraved and hardened) at $150 each, and $200 for the breech pin. Repairing an off-center hole that had been drilled in the rear of the top tang would cost $100 per hour for as many hours as it took, as would the new safety button and safety system – whatever course we decided upon in that regard.

“This is just a base estimate,” James told me. “I’m going to return it, as far as possible, to the London ‘best’ quality it was when it was new. If I get inside and find something else that needs to be corrected, that will be more money.

“But I am only going to work to one level. No shortcuts.”

Bill Dowtin, at Old World Walnut, had already undertaken to find me a blank that would look at home on a London gun of this vintage. It arrived by air from Central Asia, looking, in spite of its Asian origins, as French and luscious as Bridget Bardot. Bill is a master at matching wood to era, whether it is a 1908 London gun or an 1890s Winchester. What the stock will finally look like is, as yet, as much a mystery as the rest of the gun.

“There are aspects of this gun I just cannot figure out,” James said. “I am certain that, at one point, it was terribly damaged. I think the chokes were originally Full and Modified, or maybe Improved Modified, and were reamed out a bit. It’s hard to tell.

“Someone, at some time, pounded the inside of the top strap with a hammer. Why would anyone do that? I have no idea.”

Can she be saved?

“Oh, yes, she can be saved. It will take a year, maybe a year and a half. But it can be done.”

The Hussey lay on the bench, supine. From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.

But that was now. Way back then it had been different. Very different. Mayfair. 1908. The toast of the West End, with thousands of pounds riding on a single shot.

The Hussey gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.

“Go ahead, Flynn,” I said. “Make her young again.” I turned and walked out.

She was trouble. But she was my trouble.

To be continued...

James Flynn, Gunmaker
P.O. Box 7461
Alexandria, LA 71306 USA
Phone: (318) 445-7130
Hours 9am -  12pm & 1pm - 5:30pm weekdays CST