Holland & Holland’s side-by-side-by-sides

Eighteen years ago, David Perrett, a well-known collector, visited the Holland & Holland stand at a gun show with an intriguing idea. He liked the firm’s guns and had bought some in the past but now he wanted something different. Could they make him a pair of three-barrelled shotguns, in essence two side-by-side-by-sides? The Holland & Holland team went away and considered the challenge.

Triple-barrelled guns had been made in the past, with Boss and Dickson both building side-by-sides-by-sides. Three-barrel guns in pyramid configuration have also been made by Edwinson Green (versions of which were finished and marketed by Westley Richards) and, more recently, Akkar, a Turkish firm, which has offered them in a variety of bores (one of which has been tested in these pages). Continental makers have long made both drillings and vierlings, most commonly with two 16-bore shotgun barrels paired