Lock, Stock, and Barrel

Autumn is the "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" and—as John Keats omitted to mention—the sound of shotguns and the thud of birds falling to the ground. From Aug. 12, the date on which grouse come into season, until the beginning of February, which sees the end of the partridge and pheasant seasons, the rituals of game-bird shooting play themselves out in Britain as they have more or less for centuries.

Ever since the Georgian gunsmith Joseph Manton, who perfected the double-barreled shotgun, opened his shop on Davies Street in London's West End in 1789, the shotgun has been a part of British life. More than 200 years later a "Best London" gun is still the ne plus ultra of sporting firearms and is exactly what it says: a shotgun made in London to the exacting standards born out of craftsmanship perfected over generations. Even the accomplished northern Italian gunsmith Franco Beretta, who opened an eponymous London showroom in 2005, goes so far as to describe the British capital as the "recognized cradle of sophisticated -shooting."

But while shooting carries with it the somewhat upper-class connotations of house parties and black-tie dinners in stately homes, the surroundings in which the weapons are made—around which this culture is built—are altogether less prepossessing. I happen to live very near one of the most hallowed sites of gun making: the Purdey works in Hammersmith, West London. A pair of Purdeys remains one of the quintessential appurtenances of an English gentleman. The firm's showroom, at the junction of Mount and South Audley streets in the heart of Mayfair, is a sepulchral shop that still carries with it the whiff of empire; its Long Room has altered little in a century. A built-to-order double-barreled over-and-under Purdey shotgun, on which the barrels are arranged one atop the other instead of side by side, will cost close to £80,000. And yet Nigel Beaumont, Purdey's managing director, insists that "Purdey's is not charging anything more than its living margin."

It is certainly not squandering money on swanky manufacturing premises; the low buildings in the lee of a viaduct carrying an overground section of the London Underground resemble an urban chop shop. But they house a trove of the generations-old craft skills in the seven gun-making trades: barrel making, action filing, trigger and lock making, ejector making, stocking, engraving, and finishing. Each takes five years' apprenticeship to learn and a lifetime to master.

I am a veteran of many factory visits, from the cigar-rolling rooms of Havana to the tweed mills of Scotland, and the litmus test that marks a good one is if I come away wondering how they manage to make their products so cheaply. And, even at 80 grand—£77,625, to be exact—I have to admit that a Purdey represents good value. Notwithstanding the cumulative number of years of expertise that goes into making each one, the cost has to be amortized over the life of the gun. Given that the oldest Purdey that regularly comes back for servicing is a 12-bore side-by-side hammerless ejector from 1883, the annual cost suddenly begins to seem more reasonable.

It is the same story a couple of miles away at the Holland & Holland (or Double Dutch, as it is known colloquially) factory on Harrow Road. Like Purdey, Double Dutch has a smart showroom within range of Berkeley Square, but its workshops are to be found along an eclectic stretch of Victorian houses and shops to the north of fashionable Notting Hill. They were purpose-built for the firm at the end of the 19th century, and on a rainy summer day the view over a nearby graveyard is not the most cheery.