I'm not normally all that interested in sporting double guns, but the name Fosbery perked up my ears when I heard about this book. Col. George Fosbery is best known (in some circles, anyway) for the Webley-Fosbery automatic revolver, but he had several other significant patents and inventions to his name. These include a pump-action shotgun with a 6-lug rotating bolt, a black powder breechloader intended for the British military, exploding bullets for hunting dangerous game and helping to determine range on the battlefield, several types of magazines for use with single-shot rifles, and of course the Paradox.

Fosbery was stationed for many years in India, and there was demand there for a double-barrel weapon that could fire both shot and slugs accurately. This was a problem because smoothbore guns were inaccurate with solid projectiles, and rifling would destroy the tight pattern of shot. Fosbery spent quite a lot of time and effort experimenting, and came up with a solution by rifling just the end of the barrel and using a specially sized projectile. The result was a weapon that could fire slugs with good effective accuracy out to 100 yards, and also patterned well with shot. He licensed it to Holland & Holland for production, and it became his most successful invention; made for black powder and smokeless, in sizes from 8 bore down to 28 bore, all manner of actions, and finishes from basic to exquisite.