Ona recent quail hunting trip to North Carolina (A sporting quarry to make you quail, 22 March), I was lucky enough to shoot not one but two different guns with 28-bore titanium barrels. The first was a limited-edition Longthorne Valkyrie trigger-plate action weighing 6lb 4oz, and the other was a sidelock over-and-under weighing in at 5lb 2oz. Both were incredible in their own way, but it's the sidelock we are going to look at today.
The Longthorne sidelock has been around for some years in 12, 16, 20 and 28-bore and has seen some development over that time. As issues arose around any aspect of the design, Longthorne has worked to iron those out with slight changes here or there, including coating the majority of the internals to make the guns more corrosion-resistant and a slight trigger redesign to improve long-term reliability. Although I would usually rather a trigger-plate action gun for myself, given they are a little more bombproof than sidelock over-andunders on the whole, this latest edition of the Longthorne sidelock is a pretty safe bet too.
The Berkley model is beautifully engraved, featuring an art nouveauinspired scroll pattern that is designed by the in-house team at Longthorne.
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