A few weeks ago, I put up this post about James Woodward & Son’s first type over-under shotgun. Now that my life has slowed down a bit (sorry for being aways for so long), lets talk about how these first-type OUs evolved into the later model.
Woodward patented their OU in 1913. In all, they built around 300 of these guns before the company was bought by James Purdey & Sons in 1948.
Around 1922, James Woodward & Sons completed OU #6640, a lightweight 12 bore noted by them as having their “new type action and ejectors.” Woodward OUs with these new features are what I’m calling the “Type 2” guns.
A great example of a Type-2 gun is shown here, Woodward OU #6664 from 1923. From what I can see, Woodward two significant changes on these:
- The design of the ejectorwork was modified and all the components were moved into the forend.
- They altered the flats on the barrels and the corresponding areas in the action.
Why did Woodward made these upgrades? I would say they were done to improve the cocking, ejecting & reliability of these guns.
