doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com W R Leeson, Ashford, Kent & London

Hi Roy

Many thanks for your kind offer of information. Thankfully I corresponded with GB before his death and he kindly sent me the same two articles. I was able to furnish him with further updates related to W R Leeson before sadly GB died in late 2001, I guess he was unable to write an "update" for the Shooting Times before his death. But I thank you again for the kind offer, much appreciated.

Very best regards Adrian Macer

Screwgrip,

Thank you for the info. Yes, I have looked at your website and it is very impressive.

I was interested in several points.

Leeson was a London gun maker making his own boxlock guns - not having them made in Birmingham.

He seemed to specialize in smaller bores at a time when no other British gun maker was doing so.

And lastly, I have been looking at a couple of Leeson's that I was thinking of making an offer on.

Thanks!

Hi 1cdog

No problem, glad my site gave you some extra help.

If you are looking at Leeson guns at the moment and I can offer any assistance at all please do drop me a line, my email is info@wrleeson.co.uk

Leeson certainly did seem to make a lot small bore guns, I have about 250 plus guns in my register at the moment, I keep meaning to look at the split by bore size to see what proportion of 12,16,20's I have listed verse the "norm". Will let you know.

As I say if I can help in anyway with any form of advice or research please do give me a shout

cheers for now.

Ref. the 8 bore. It was intact when I saw it. Back action hammer gun with under lever and quite a lot of remaining colour hardening. Lagopus.....

Ah, different gun entirely, this was a Boxlock, top lever, many thanks anyway. cheers

Hi 1cdog

As I suggested I have done a quick bit of analysis of my W R LEESON register and I have been quite surprised with the results concerning the percentages of small bore guns he made. Currently I have just under 300 guns listed and just under 30% are 12-bore but what really surprised me was that currently 27% of the guns in my register are 20-bore. I know this calculation is not too scientific since my register is not complete by a long stretch but it does give you an idea that he did make more small bore guns than might be considered the norm.

Please drop me a line if I can help at all with your potential offers you are considering. I am interested to know more about the guns and there whereabouts (not in the market to but!)

Cheers for now.

Is it true that the action forgings were not sourced in Birmingham? I would have expected the entire machined barreled actions came from Birmingham.

So he made his own Webley screwgrip actions from scratch???

Hi Redoak
It is most likely that Leeson would have sourced the action forging direct from Webley when he required an action fitted with the Webley Screw Grip, especially if the action was to make use of the Dolls head type extension rather than the Blade type extension. As you are no doubt aware forging anything, particularly a shotgun action is difficult at the best of times but the cutting and profiling of the slot to take the Dolls head required a very special broaching tool setup which would have been beyond the normal tooling costs of any gunsmith, hence you are quite right that the action forging would have been purchased from the trade, in this case almost certainly Webley. The barrels could have come via a number of sources, potentially from Webley or direct from a specialist barrel maker or indeed via Leeson himself. Webley would have supplied the matching Dolls head which is always attached to a very short rib section which is about 21/2� to 3" long and soldered to the main top rib during assembly.

As you are no doubt aware, once the A&D Boxlock came along as a basic design, many of the larger Birmingham trade suppliers, Webley being just one, tooled up to make this action, Webley of course developing the Screw Grip mechanism and from here on almost certainly supplied any gunsmith with the action should that company wish to incorporate the WSG design into their own gun. Some "makers" would have taken a complete gun, perhaps finished, all the way through to a simple "in white" forging or parts for the gunsmith themselves to finish to their own taste. W R Leeson tended to do a bit of both. If it was an inexpensive Boxlock he might have the gun more or less finished by the Birmingham trade. If it were a more expensive Boxlock or sidelock making use of the WSG mechanism he might purchase parts "in white" and build the gun from scratch.

Thanks for your question, appreciate your interest, all the best for now

Adrian,

Thank you for your well thought out and detailed response regarding the likely source of Leeson's action forgings and other components.

What prompted my question were the conclusions drawn by 1cdog, and not anything that I read in your posts or on your website.

Best,

From David Trevallion's (formerly of Purdey) website (Gun Vault on Fox Hill) describing a Leeson 20 bore:

"High quality London maker making box locks of his own design unlike others using typical Birmingham barreled actions"