An Introduction
The best quality English sidelock sporting gun is surely one of the world’s great artefacts. In such guns, form truly follows function as grace, beauty and superb handling dynamics come together to give the sportsman unequalled pleasure and joy in ownership and use. These qualities are synonymous with the guns of A.A.Brown and Sons. Albert Arthur Brown established the business in 1938 and made his name building guns of fabulous quality which were ultimately signed with the names of many famous makers. He, together with his sons Albert H. and Sidney continued to work this way for many years, his company establishing itself as a “gunmakers’ gunmaker” - a firm that the trade turned to when only the very best would do. However, in the early 1970s, ten years after Sidney's son, Robin, started his apprenticeship, it was decided that if A.A.Brown was going to build the very best, it would do so under its own name.
Today, under Robin's leadership, Browns build the very finest sporting guns in their workshops, a short distance from historic Birmingham, in the Mediaeval village of Alvechurch. They have enjoyed more than seventy years of continual production with an order book that has always bulged. If you were to visit there you would be struck not only by the evidence of fine gunmaking, epitomised by the stunning shape of Browns rounded-action sidelock, which has an aesthetic appeal all of its own and is quite unlike any other gun, but also by the huge amount of servicing, restoring and customising that gives the workshop a constant buzz of activity. Browns’ reputation precedes it and seems to ensure that the company is never short of work.
