James Woodward & Sons over-under shotguns are some of the finest doubles ever built. When patented in 1913 (four years after Boss’s OU), Woodwards’ version of a stack-barreled double was a lot things: lightweight, elegant, easy to load and put together, and built on a shallow action. But it wasn’t was perfected.
That didn’t come later. In 1922 when the company completed #6640, a lightweight 12 bore, Woodward noted in their records this OU had the “new type action and ejectors.” Was it the first? Perhaps.
In the pictures below are the key features of the first type Woodward OU. We’ll cover the improvements in another post.
BTW: Note the rounded bottom of the barrels, the cocking bar crossing the bottom of the barrels, the rounded bottom of the action and the ejector work mounted on the sides of the barrels. All these features changed in Woodward OU #6640.
