The British gun trade has always had ups and downs, but the 1950s were especially tough for the industry. Coming off of the ruin of WW2 and the hard times that followed for all of Europe, a lot of gunmakers were having a tough time finding people to build their shotguns and rifles.
E.J. Churchill was one of them, and as you can read in this letter, they were having so much trouble that they were turning away work. This letter was sent to an American customer looking to have a Churchill Premier sidelock double rifle made for him .22LR. Yeah – .22 Long Rifle! Talk about cool. To bad it was never built. Driven wabbits, anyone?
