Spanish Shooting Kit

In March of this year ( 2009 ) we travelled to the famed La Mancha area of Spain. I had heard of this area for years as the home of Spanish Partridge shooting; tales of Tom Gullicks fabulous wild red legs have often dominated our shoot lunch tables and in fact one of my oldest customers used to describe his very early days shooting with Tom.

This was in the early 70s, and in the morning the beaters were loath to leave the Hotel area as they were waiting for the left overs from hotel breakfast and he recalled several of the beaters had no shoes. How times have changed, ten years ago I had two Spanish partridge shooting organisers shooting pigeons with me and of course I had to know everything , which was interesting but the big surprise was that 10 years ago they were paying a beater £50 per day!

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I digress. I like to think that we offer the finest shooting kit in the world but occasionally someone specifies something different and this occasionally is a Spanish double gun slip - the Siamese twin variety - I have to admit that I dont think they are not as nice as our zipped slip but they are very functional - as long as you dont put wet guns in them! As is my way when someone asks for something specific I will try to source it if it is good enough. Hence my trip to Spain!

The village of Las Ventas is right in the middle of the best partridge country and is home to a number of leather workshops , some with shops attached and some up dark alleyways. Naturally it was the ones up the alleyways that interested me and it was quite good fun teasing the information out of the locals as to who was the best.

We settled on two makers the first are two brothers ( Hnos Ruiz RIPIERO ) who have been making best quality shooting kit since 1969 and the second was a younger man ( Javier ALIAGO ) a real artisan, working in a tiny, immaculate workshop tucked away from the world and producing exquisite slips, bags , seats, ladys handbags etc. etc. It was an eye opener seeing these very skilled men at work and I was hugely impressed by the quality of their work.

June 2009 and I have the first stock in from Hnos Riuz Ripiero. The photos shows two slips; one a beautiful double gun slip ( Siamese twin type ) in dark chestnut brown for 30" barrels and one single gunslip in chestnut brown for a 30" over and under. Both are of fine quality with the traditional Spanish touches of punchwork and double rows of fine stitching - quite different from our slips and I think the double slip is particularly worthy of consideration. I think one of our webbing straps would set the double slip of a treat and of course this can be provided at no extra charge.

Spanish Style double gun slip - Riperio - £460 plus Vat
Single Spanish slip - Riperio - - £250 plus Vat