Champlin Arms is a really neat place to visit. George Caswell is the proprietor and has been in the double rifle business for a very long time. He has extensively hunted Africa and other continents and probably knows as much or more about double rifles as anyone. Champlin Arms is in the process of moving to a new location but even so, they are quite impressive to see. One large room is for gunsmithing and reloading. One large room has “normal” rifles and a giant elk. The vault is the final large gun room and is awe-inspiring.
The gunsmithing room is meant to handle almost anything that might need doing, but especially on double rifles. Tweak the stock to fit you? Regulate the barrels? No problem. Need ammunition for your 450 #2 Nitro Express? Made to order.
The middle gun room, which is where the offices are, has a truly massive elk shoulder mount. I think it is the largest I have ever seen.
The vault though is what brought us there that day. 52 double rifles, countless bolt action and single-shot rifles, shotguns, howdah pistols, you name it, they have it. Plastic guns need not apply.
Several guns really jumped out at me, and if any readers want to support the site with a nice SUV size donation, I will buy one. I’m not much for movies anymore, but one of the guns there was the Holland and Holland used by Robert Redford in Out of Africa. A great movie, it was pretty cool to be able to handle the exact gun. And what a gun! I’ll let the pics do the talking, but one feature deserves to be highlighted. On the tang, there is a folding rear peep sight. Never seen or heard of one of those on a double before and I’m not sure how it would work out in practice, but it was quite the work of art. Mr. Caswell wasn’t totally sure about that peep either! That gun wasn’t for sale, which is good as it would probably be in the neighborhood of several top-end SUVs combined.
Rigby, Griffin and Howe, Purdey and others were well represented. More modern made doubles included guns from Heym and Chapuis, this last one a collaboration with Champlin Arms. Enjoy the pictures and in the next installment, we will look at why the double rifle is still an important weapon.
500NE, 475 NE and a 505 Gibbs
Very cool. I remember avidly reading J.A. Hunter and Teddy Roosevelt’s books about their hunting adventures in Africa. Seeing Roosevelt’s Winchester 1895 in Cody, WY was a pretty neat experience.
So many good books to read. I haven’t read Hunter yet but that is a good reminder to do so. I just started Hemmingway’s The Green Hills of Africa. A little different from the other books I’ve been reading by Taylor and Capstick, but so far so good. We visited the Cody museum a couple of years ago and it was a great experience. We hope to get back there later this year or next. Thanks for the comment!
I have wanted a Howdah pistol for many years but much like the doubles, they are beyond my wallet.