12g round action by David McKay Brown – 28″ x 2 1/2″ barrels

Now here’s something most unusual.  David McKay Brown built this gun around 1983 and it is known uniquely as the ‘lace’ gun.   Malcolm Appleby was deemed to be the only engraver capable of handling this project.  The owner’s family worked in the lace business and Malcolm visited the factory to personally choose an appropriate design and the fore-end is inscribed, ‘Engraving adapted from an 1880 Fleming lace pattern’.  To blend something as delicate and fluid as lace with hard steel seems an impossible task, but Appleby makes it flow and feel as gentle, delicate and fine as lace.  That contrasted with the intricate and detailed relief, chiselled on the balls of the action and the quality of the work on the safety button is like nothing you’ve ever seen before.  One of the photographs, taken by Geoffrey Boothroyd, showing the gun before any case hardening or barrel browning was carried out, highlights this.  The more you look,  the more you see, it really is a work of art that fuses the words lace and gun so well.  The bow of the guard has a rolled edge, the gun has a 14 3/8″ one-piece stock and the chopperlump barrels are 28″ x 2 1/2″, choked 1/4 and 1/2.  Weighing 6lbs 3oz the gun has undergone a full sympathetic restoration, which includes jointing, lifting and re-laying of ribs, woodwork renovation and a full mechanical overhaul.  Lockwork is gilded as shown in the one of the photographs as it went through the workshop. Another shows Malcolm’s trademark delicately engraved on the trigger plate and another shows a copy of an advert for David McKay Brown displaying this very gun.  Presented in its maker’s case, you can tell this gun has really captured my imagination.

If you have any questions about this gun, please contact us (click here) and we’ll get right back to you.