We are now in a rare realm, a place where the gunmaker’s name is not a household one and where the quality of his work surpasses even the most famous. George Daw of Threadneedle Street, London, established his business in 1780, and by 1889 his illustrious company was gone.

Mr. Daw invented and made many wonderful things. Generally, as were many of Britain’s finest, Daw tended to be known for double-barrel arms, but to my delight, he also made single shots and single-shot rifles at that!

There are two sides to fine arms, the wood and steel themselves and the people. The world of fine British sporting arms is populated by some wonderful people, who, combined with the arms, can add up to memorable adventures and stories. My Daw is the product of one of them.

Imagine walking down the isle of a very large antique arms exhibition and looking up to see a fellow clearly blocking your passage – and he has his arms folded with a very devious smile on his face. That in itself was okay, but when he said, “Do you want to see it first, or just write the check? Of course, if you look first, it costs more – and you will buy it.” Good grief, Charlie Brown! I was trapped like a rat in a rain barrel. Sometimes it is a very bad, or perhaps a very good, thing to have fine-arms dealers know your taste too well. I had no idea what it might be and certainly would have not predicted what it was in a thousand guesses. So I, with the glee and anticipation of many Christmases, wrote the check.

As the rifle began to slither out of the slip case, the good fortune in my blind plunge was instantly apparent. First, I had never seen anything like it (nor have I seen anything like it in the following 20 years)! The wood was well beyond what you normally see on sporting rifles of that period; it was a screaming piece of Circassian walnut. Beyond the wood came the deep-brown, gorgeous, heavy, Damascus, octagonal barrel. The action was totally unfamiliar, but it was sleek and racy with a graceful underlever to open and was covered with elegant, bold scroll engraving. The last straw was the muzzle. This was no overweight smallbore; this one had a hole to match its stature! In essence it was a G.H. Daw best quality, 16-bore single. . . central-fire breech loading rifle.

Those last words are not the frivolous use of bold type that you might think at first. You see, previously there had been some breechloaders, but they were pinfires. Suddenly two makers, Mr. Lancaster and Mr. Daw, had invented a way to light shells in the center, just like we do today. What I had succumbed to, what I was holding in my hands at the moment, was not only a spectacular rifle, but also a very historic one. It was one of the very first centerfire arms on earth.

This, combined with my knowledge of Daw’s thinking, said it would want a bullet of considerable length and weight.

The rest of the rifle follows British traditional lines. The stock is “straight-hand” with an iron pistol grip. This is the kind of grip found on percussion rifles and, in my opinion, the most elegant and beautiful way to make a gunstock. It has the lines and grace of a straight, English stock with the control of a full pistol grip. Its forend is slender with a buffalo horn tip.

While we are on the subject of the stock, there is a wonder about it I previously described in an article about “Little Things” that made exceptional guns. The early Daw guns came with an extra firing pin (or set for doubles) and a spare extractor neatly inletted under the steel buttplate. At first we ask, “Why?” If we were going to the far corners of the earth, it would seem to make more sense to have spare springs, maybe even spare sights and maybe the pins, but spare pins and an extractor! Why, why, why?

To answer the question we have to think in context of this rifle, of the time and technology that it represented. At that moment, centerfire strikers and extractors were almost as unknown as rocket fuel. Yes, you see, no one knew what a striker or extractor was! So, Mr. Daw simply put in an extra, just in case. The extra pin, nut and spring are missing from mine, so, apparently the need was a real one.

Atop the barrel is another Daw invention and wonder. This is the rear sight. It appears to be a “normal” ladder sight, until you look closely and actually use it. First the precision is exceptional with a V that matches the front sight nicely. There are actually four different V notches, each with a gold center line. One can be used with the ladder folded down at 50 to 100 yards. Next is the bottom level of the inside of the ladder that is marked for 100 yards. It is used with the elevation slide up a little way, which effectively forms an aperture sight. The top of the slide then is used normally, for ranges from 200 yards to 800 yards, with the very top of the ladder having its own V for 900 yards.

The Daw action is also interesting. It uses a push-forward lever that hinges in front of and wraps beneath the trigger guard. While several breechloaders came to use a lever that looks like this, the bolting system on the Daw is unique. The “locking mechanism” is wonderfully simple, consisting of a single, round bolt that moves back and forth parallel to the bore. It locks into a round recess that is part of the underlump system, below the chamber. Additionally the barrel seats down into the action itself, which adds strength to the action bar and also offers lateral support. So, there we have it – a relatively heavy, sleek beautiful sporting rifle. It needed ammunition!

The chamber is a standard 16 gauge, 2 3/4 inch and, once again, no, not for brass cases because it is old. (Brass cases would not be invented for many years.) Fortunately, several years ago I had obtained a good supply of new, primed, paper, 16-gauge shells from Germany. So the grand, old Daw would not have to endure the indignity of plastic hulls.

I will not bore you with the loading efforts that failed. Essentially this is a very powerful rifle, and as the twist indicates, it wanted plenty of lead. The answer was to make an unusual bullet mould. I chose a tapered bullet with H&H style grooves because they perform so well in shallow rifling with black powder. You see the end result, a hollowpoint monster weighing 950 grains. This combined with 85 grains of FFg GOEX powder and a wad column consisting of a .135-inch card, 1/4-inch felt, 1/8-inch felt and a .060-inch vegetable fiber wad made the rifle very happy.

Too, it was very close to the original loading because the bullets “regulated” to the sights at least to 300 yards, where I declared myself the winner.

While I had seen some elk, I was far less adept at sneaking up on them, in the thick stuff, than I am today. Perhaps there is some good in the patience and wisdom of maturity. At any rate, the elk won for a day or two. On the third day the old Daw wanted to hunt some open country, so we moved higher into the open pine and meadow world.

This day also seemed as if the elk were going to win, or at least it appeared that way because by 2:00 p.m. when we stopped for lunch, we had yet to see our first elk. It was a fine day, however, and I was actually musing over the fact that catching an elk would amount to work, that having a dead elk to deal with would really spoil my carefree stroll through the mountains. It was a day made even more fun because it was a family affair. My son went along as did the bird dogs. Well, there was one Labrador who enjoyed any kind of outing with a gun in hand, the prospect of a little kidney fat and liver notwithstanding. And then there was the wee black puppy who mostly rode in somebody’s arms, or in a day pack, when his big feet and short strides wore him down. He went just because he was about to be a real hunting dog and being an elk hunter was a fine way to prove it.

We had just finished the apple, shouldered the packs and gotten into full stride across the 200-yard meadow when a big lead cow elk more or less materialized out of the trees on the far side. The world was as bare as a pool table, with the occasional black stump here and there. Of course, none of them were close enough to hide behind, and the elk were coming straight at us, at a pretty fast walk.

What to do? Well, when trapped in Rome – I settled quietly into a sitting position and the old Lab, a veteran of any kind of hunt you can imagine, snuggled right against my side. The elk kept coming as if nothing were wrong. It took a few moments to realize, but a sitting black dog looks quite a bit like a burnt pine stump, and they kept coming. It was fun to feel the old guy begin to quiver beside me, just as he had hundreds of times when the geese were getting real close to the piece of burlap we were lying under.

The old Daw was on my knees with the 100-yard “aperture” sight up, and the elk kept coming. It became a real dilemma when they crossed the 100-yard mark: whether to ruin the moment with gunfire or to just keep watching the marvelous sight that was unfolding. There were about 100 of them, with a few big, fat dry cows in front, some mothers with calves and a few small bulls.

I made up my mind to take a shot, just because it would be impossible to explain to the dogs, or Mr. Daw, why I had not. But I decided the shot would be of my choosing. I wanted to be sure not to shoot through the intended one and hit another, because the almost 1,000-grain bullet was thoroughly capable of traversing an elk or two. Also, because I had all that horsepower, I wanted to use it to full advantage. So, it was a front-on shot, at a dry, at less than 50 yards, or nothing. I marked the spot on the trail and gently pulled the hammer to full cock – and they kept coming.

The thin front sight settled into that hollow place in the front of her chest just as she took the slight turn in the trail that made her perfectly aligned with the bore. Some shots lock into your memory, and this was one of them. I do not recall ever having delivered such a decisive blow. As the trigger moved, the smoke leapt what seemed most of the way to the target. The sound of the powder was met by a tremendous slap as the big lead hit home.

It was difficult to believe what I was seeing in the blur of the smoke. The elk appeared to be lifted bodily into the air, turned a full somersault backwards and landed without a twitch. The old dog left as if to retrieve, and the little fellow would have followed at his best pace, but he was held in wiggling check until we were absolutely sure there were no dangerous “kicks” left. Soon though, he had the elk by the ear, tugging with all his might. Elk hunting is very grown-up business. Of course, it is not possible to hold enough rifle in your hands to tip an elk over, but it surely looked as if the ancient Daw had some magical powers.