BK Webster Gunsmith: One of the last of Yorkshire's gunsmiths looking to the future with new apprentice

There are milling machines and lathes, while in an adjacent workshop, wood is repaired or sometimes shaped by hand when an old gun is in need of a new stock. This can take Brian two solid weeks and doesn’t come cheap.

“Oh, yes you’re into thousands of pounds and if at any point you uncover a fault in the wood that wasn’t detectable from the surface, the whole thing can be scrapped, which is a little bit irritating,” says Brian.

“Or you can just mess it up because you are handmaking it. Neither of those two scenarios you want to be in.”

While shooting is a popular sport in Yorkshire, a diminishing number of people know how to maintain or adapt a gun. Brian’s company, BK Webster Gunsmith, and KG Burrill, of Bedale, are among the few remaining gunsmiths.

Brian has been a gunsmith since he was 15, mostly working on his own. At the age of 60, he now has the company of apprentice Matthew Dixon, 24.

In a grand sounding connection, Matthew’s training is supported by a bursary from the Worshipful Company of Gunmakers, one of the Livery Companies of the City of London, founded in 1637.

Something to clear up for those who have not been much around guns is that a gunmaker makes guns, while a gunsmith services and repairs them.

The two skills do cross over, although Brian is very much a “smith” rather than a “maker”. He is a solver of problems, a fixer of guns that won’t fire or shoot straight, and a matcher of guns to the individual.

“We repair old shotguns and work on competition guns,” he says. “The business is about 50/50 working on classic old English guns and working on modern competition guns.

"The guns you see at the Olympics will have been tailored to fit the individual. They will have been trained and fitted to them, and a good fitting is about 50 per cent of what we do here.”

Much like a suit, a gun can be “cut” to the owner. Brian and Matthew adjust the stock length, the height of the comb above the stock, the degree of bend in the gun.

“It is essential to mount the shotgun so it is ergonomic to the person so they can use it easily and absorb the recoil,” says Brian.

“Adjusting the gun to the person, so that the stock rests properly against their cheek, and they are able to move the barrel freely and fluidly. As the gun comes up and locks into place, it must point where they are looking, That’s the essence of gun fitting.”

A new gizmo invented by Brian measures the pressure of gun against cheek. If there is too little pressure, the gun comes back, and the stock can hit the face; too much pressure and the compressed flesh bruises and experiences more trauma when the gun fires.

The workshop has a room where live ammunition is fired from a Browning 525 competition gun at a moving target on what’s known as a sacrificial plate.

“When it’s been shot it’s full of holes – the holes tell us where the gun was pointing,” says Brian, who videos the fitting and firing.

The targets move after four seconds. “It’s to help simulate say a bird coming over the hill or a clay where you don’t know where it’s coming from,” says Matthew.

To further match gun to user, a section can be cut out of the stock to make room for a lifting mechanism known as an adjustable comb conversion. This allows a section of the stock to move up and down and from side to side in search of a better fit to the cheek.

It’s a new trick of the trade, but Matthew is also learning the old ways, supported by a grant of £5,000 a year for four years. He will look to submit a piece of his craft to a panel of master craftsmen when he completes his apprenticeship. This can lead to becoming a Freeman of the City of London and of the Worshipful Company.

The bursary came about through Hugh Douglas Roberts, one of few Northern members of the company. Most such bursaries are given to apprentices in the South. “Having met Matthew and Brian as a customer, I am thrilled that I could facilitate an introduction to the gunmakers trust,” said Hugh.

“Matthew is part of the future of gun-making and gunsmithing in North Yorkshire, and I look forward to seeing the business continue to flourish and Matthew progress under the tutelage of Brian.”

For Matthew, who had been working in social care before becoming an apprentice with BK Webster Gunsmith, his new career came after his mother spotted an advert for a vacancy in the local shop.

“I like practical things, grew up building models and shooting air rifles,” he says. “My parents helped out with local shoots, so I saw shotguns but never fired one till I worked here.”

In the gunsmithing repair trade, diagnosis is the main skill, says Brian.

“You need to be able to look at something you’ve never seen before, diagnose what’s wrong with it, then make the part that’s required to fix it. What Matthew’s picking up at the moment is that diagnosis ability.”

Matthew chips in: “It’s always reassuring when I hear Brian say, ‘I’ve never seen that before’.”

If it all works out, Matthew represents the future of gunsmithing. “There’s an absolute dearth of people in the North,” says Brian. “Gunsmiths are of my age and health issues are catching up with us.

“The skilled workforce is shrinking, if I pass away before Matthew is trained, that knowledge is gone. That’s nearly 50 years of experience that can be transferred but you need an apprentice to transfer it to.”

Brian hopes that the bursary will help Matthew to establish connections with others in the trade.

“I tend to work in this workshop fairly isolated from everybody in the trade, which isn’t the best way to operate. I’ve buried my head in here. I work it out myself. That suits me but it’s an incredibly slow learning process. It’s not something I would recommend to anyone,” he adds.

That said, Brian has enjoyed his often solitary life as a gunsmith in his busy workshop.

“Oh yes, if I wasn’t doing this I would be the guy down the bottom of the garden making steam engines. This satisfies my urge to make things. I just love looking at a problem, working out what is wrong and whatever it is to make that item work, and then being able to make that part.

“You look at that part of steel and you probably see a bar of steel. I can see the spring inside. It’s sculpture in metal work. I can see where I want the hook, where I want the bend, the pivot.”

There’s poetry in a craft, you see.