Holland & Holland's side-by-side-by-sides

Nearly two decades after it was challenged to do so, the gunmaker has produced a magnificent pair of 20-bore triple-barrelled guns

- MICHAEL YARDLEY

Eighteen years ago, David Perrett, a well-known collector, visited the Holland & Holland stand at a gun show with an intriguing idea. He liked the firm’s guns and had bought some in the past but now he wanted something different. Could they make him a pair of three-barrelled shotguns, in essence two side-by-side-by-sides? The Holland & Holland team went away and considered the challenge.

Triple-barrelled guns had been made in the past, with Boss and Dickson both building side-by-sides-by-sides. Three-barrel guns in pyramid configuration have also been made by Edwinson Green (versions of which were finished and marketed by Westley Richards) and, more recently, Akkar, a Turkish firm, which has offered them in a variety of bores (one of which has been tested in these pages). Continental makers have long made both drillings and vierlings, most commonly with two 16-bore shotgun barrels paired above a single rifle barrel. Merkel still makes an extensive range of drillings, and Austrian gunmaker Peter Hoffer has presented some extraordinary multi-barrel creations.

Holland & Holland eventually decided that it could make the special guns for David Perrett but it would take nearly two decades of design and gun making effort with input from several different parties and perspectives to bring the idea to shooting reality. It would develop into a far more complex and challenging project than first imagined. All sorts of technical hurdles would have to be overcome before Holland & Holland would let the new side-by-side-by-side ‘Royals’ leave its Harrow Road factory.