Longthorne Guns : An Engineered Success
By Tom Jones
English engineering has a rather peculiar stereotype . Whether it ’ s cars or candlesticks , when we think of British engineering it ’ s almost impossible to not think of a small man , perhaps clad in a ragged lab coat or coveralls worn at the elbows and knees , tinkering with something . You probably can ’ t see him using anything more complex than a spanner and a hammer . He ’ s probably in a glorified garden shed and the most important piece of kit , without which he could not work , is the kettle .
This , to be fair , is not far from the truth for most English gunmakers either . Most are more akin to English car manufacturers like Morgan , than Rolls Royce . Totally traditional , using the exact same methods that have made English guns since the invention of the Anson-Deeley lock in 1875 . It ’ s very much the ‘ If it ain ’ t broke , don ’ t fix it ’ approach . After all , the principles of shooting haven ’ t changed either - and if it was good enough for the Prince of Wales , why not you ?
These are , of course , perfectly reasonable responses . Shooting has not changed . Pheasants haven ’ t got faster , nor have grouse suddenly developed an immunity to shot ( which would presumably be developed by exposure to smaller , less deadly shot ). But , by the same token , nor has the principle of driving - yet there is a reason the Morgan is now considered a quaint weekend car , rather than a pure bred racer . Technology has overtaken them . So as those buying guns looked for newer technology , sadly , they also began to look abroad . The huge British shotgun industry was once a bewildering array of names , producing a broad range of guns to suit almost every taste and budget ; these days are long gone . Foreign gun manufacturers , less tied to a sense of heritage , proved more adaptable , more able to provide what customers wanted .
Against this backdrop , of an industry in need of regeneration , Longthorne Guns emerged . Begun by English husband and wife team James and Elaine Stewart , Longthorne aimed to fuse modern , precise engineering methods with the attention to detail that the expert traditional craftsmen methods of British gunmaking require . Both James , an expert engineer , and Elaine , with a wealth of experience in sales and marketing , had run their own engineering companies before .
James had made gun parts beforehand , but saw a gap in the market for an English shotgun manufacturer making innovative , new products - the kind that had killed off many English gun manufacturers in the first place . So in 2006 , the pair began making guns in a tiny workshop at the back of the family ’ s home , in Lancashire .
This shed-cum-workshop is where the similarities between Longthorne and other small English manufacturers end , for Longthorne ’ s workshop was filled not just with traditional tools , but million ’ s of pounds worth of engineering equipment . This , really , is where Longthorne ’ s secret lies - all this equipment is designed to give Longthorne guns a killer advantage ; their barrels are made from a single piece of steel .
Now I know very little of engineering , so I approached this with caution ; was it a modern marketing ploy , or did it give the guns concrete benefits ? Sometimes , a picture can say a thousand words ; after I was shown such an image , of a Range Rover parked on a pair of Longthorne barrels , then put back into the gun and fired , I got the general gist . Essentially sculpting the barrels from a single , monolithic block of steel makes the barrels both stronger and more accurate .
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