Longthorne

We are entering this post rather late, this situation has not been handled at all well by myself or Longthorne. Hands up we messed up here and I’m very sorry. Longthorne has grown rapidly over the years and like any new and expanding business there have been some growing pains during that time, lots of lessons a huge number of things we have got right and unfortunately some that we have not. This example definitely falls into the later. Mr Burgess was desperate to get his guns for an important shooting day and some of our usual checks were bi passed resulting in a less than perfect buying experience for him, a valuable lesson. Poor communications on both our parts compounded those difficulties and positions became entrenched. We used to offer a 1 year warranty on our wood but after a series of suspicious claims in the last month of the warranty we withdrew that warranty and instead used a common sense approach very much like other premium brands in the market. That common sense approach failed here. I personally make huge efforts to go beyond the extra mile to ensure our customers are happy with their Longthorne gun and this example is not typical of the service that Longthorne offer. In fact one of Mr Burgesses frustrations with us was that he knew a large number of people who had had an amazing post sale experience with us and were delighted with their Longthorne guns -he just wanted to be one of those people – we messed this up. I have telephoned Mr Burgess and we spoke for an hour or so about what happened , what should have happened and how we put this right. Mr Burgess is now a happy customer. This has been a valuable lesson for all concerned and one that on our part we have defiantly learned from. Thank you for your support James Stewart MD Longthorne (Gunmakers) Ltd

Thank you Gordon, as a bespoke gun, we are able to change most aspects of the gun to suit your taste, this includes the forend metalwork, Whitebridges, yes we are going to be at The British Shooting Show so please call and say 'hello' and by all means handle one of the guns. Wabbitbosher and Welshwarriior, I'd like a vintage Bentley too !! (besides a Longthorne gun). As a footnote, we have lots happening at Longthorne and are hoping to launch a Boxlock later in the year

Happy New Year to you all and many thanks for your frank discussion about our guns. To answer some of your questions, our guns are all made entirely in house at our factory now in Northampton. We do use machines to produce many of the parts involved in our guns, all gun manufacturers do. At Longthorne we utilise the finest space-age gunmaking materials crafted using state of the art automated high tech machinery enhanced through Computer Aided Design that guarantees a degree of accuracy of machined parts unachievable by any human being. However, There is also a great deal of hand crafting involved in the manufacture of our guns. All the major parts, actions, barrels stocks and forends are hand finished using pains-taking hand finishing techniques to guarantee results that can only be achieved by skilled craftsmen and then hand assembled. Each Longthorne gun is measured and entirely bespoke fitted, our stocks for example are roughly shaped by machine and then hand shaped at our factory often with the client present, to their requirement to ensure that his gun is looking where he/she is looking, our barrels and actions are all polished by hand and our engraving is hand finished. Of course we are able to do this entirely by hand but it takes much longer and is more expensive. Our barrels are very unique and we currently have patents in the UK and USA. They are made entirely from a solid block of high specification steel which makes them very light and very strong, the benefit of which produces a gun with very little recoil and muzzle flip which can be proofed for magnum steel. Our barrels are also parallel which means that the shot exits the barrel on a constant path, we have found that our guns maintain a better pattern for a longer distance for this reason. If anyone is interested in handling a Longthorne it would give us great pleasure to demonstrate its attributes, so please don't hesitate to contact us. Very best wishes 'Longthorne'

Thanks B725, you are most welcome to try one whenever you like

Hello Gentlemen, Elaine from Longthorne here, really interested to read your comments and thank you for considering us discussion worthy, anyone is welcome to try our guns, and if I can assist with any questions please let me know, we have just put a very interesting review on our website (press page) kindly written by Keith Stoker of The Institute of Clay Shooting Instructors recently about a visit by him and his colleagues last september. We are going to be at The British Shooting Show next weekend and if anyone would like to try our guns just drop me a line. In the meantime happy and safe shooting and best wishes.