Fadala says that Hatfield's personality has also contributed to the success of the gun. "This is a small world, and people know Ted Hatfield and his reputation. They know he is more interested in making a quality piece than in gouging his customer."
But Hatfield is also a businessman, and it was always his ambition to be more than a small gunmaker. The black-powder market, he knew, was limited. He could make and sell only so many guns. What he needed was another product. So Hatfield again followed the example of Bill Ruger -- he made a gun that pleased him.
"Actually," he says, "I'm not much of a black-powder enthusiast. I like the guns and I like to make them, but I don't get all carried away with shooting them. When I was growing up here in Missouri, what I liked to do was hunt birds with a side-by-side double."
Perhaps because it has no military ancestry, the side-by-side shotgun is widely considered the most refined expression of the pure gunmaking art. It is a gun that English gentlemen used on their estates at the lavish driven shoots. At these shoots, a gentleman went into the field with a brace of fine doubles, and while his loader broke and reloaded one, he fired the other. English craftsmanship made these guns as light and clean and elegant as possible.
The great English guns with names like Purdey, Boss, and Holland & Holland have become collectibles and, often priced at $50,000 and more, are almost too valuable to shoot. One expert estimates that there are probably fewer than 100 side-by-sides made annually in England, and that number will almost certainly not increase. The death of the old system of long, impoverished apprenticeships ensures that.
The classic American side-by-side was never as elegant. Many of the Parkers were mass-produced and sold off the rack. They were made -- and made well -- for ordinary American hunters. But after World War II, the average American hunter became enchanted with repeaters. The old side-by-side faded from the scene.
At the same time, sport in America had taken an upscale turn. The vaguely Anglican sensibility for fly-fishing and of upland bird shooting with classic guns had begun to spread, owing, perhaps, to increased affluence and promotion by retailers like The Orvis Co., whose image was -- and still is -- saturated with the old sporting virtues.
Hatfield sensed there was a market for a good American side-by-side. Orvis was selling Spanish-made guns. The few English guns available sold for astounding prices. (That holds true today. You can order a Purdey now for $40,000 and put down half of that price; but when the gun is delivered, a year and a half later, the balance due will almost certainly be more than $20,000.) The Italians were making good side-by-sides. Browning had a gun that was made in Korea and Japan. Winchester still made a few of its top-of-the-line guns. But there was no readily available American side-by-side.
Hatfield, who had rebuilt a Parker just for the fun of it and was familiar with the workings of the classic American guns, went to work, applying the new technology with which he was now so familiar. In 1985 he came out with his prototype, a 20-gauge with short barrels and the same striped maple stock found on his muzzle-loader.
He made the rounds with the gun, displaying it at shows, lending it to sporting writers, and generally making sure the word got out. The response was cautious interest. Many side-by-side enthusiasts had become convinced that Americans could no longer produce a quality side-by-side. They were troubled by the maple stock -- in their minds, a side-by-side required a walnut stock. The gun was not as slender as a Purdey either.
Hatfield had answers for the critics. Maple, he said, had been used for stocks before walnut and by any measure was better wood. "People started using walnut when curly maple got too expensive. Besides, I like the way it looks." As for the less than imperial lines, Hatfield says: "Well, it is a little tubbier than a Purdey. And a Jeep looks a little burly sitting next to a Jaguar. Hell, it's an American gun. That's the heritage I was looking at when I designed it. I wasn't trying to build a Purdey."
Hatfield sold his first shotgun in 1986 and had orders for all he could make: some 40 guns. This year he will sell 600, in five grades. The lowest-grade gun sells for around $2,500, the highest for $6,900. The differences between them are in small touches and custom engraving. It is, of course, at the top of the line that he sees the potential for growth.
"We're getting people who want to own this gun for the right reasons. Last year there was a vice-president from Westinghouse whose associates flew him down here by executive jet when he retired, so we could measure him and fit him for a gun and he could pick out the blank we'd use to make his stock and he could talk to the engraver."
Last summer, Hatfield finished work on an elaborately customized gun commissioned by a personal friend as a gift for George Bush, complete with the Presidential seal in gold inlay on the floor plate.
Lionel Atwill, a contributing editor at Field and Stream magazine, remembers meeting Hatfield five years ago, when he was showing the prototype of the side-by-side. "Back then, we all thought it was great that Ted was willing to try. But we didn't give him much chance of making it. What's so admirable about the story is that Ted knew there was a market there, even if it was small, and found a way to sell to that market by innovation and hard work. He didn't try to cheat on the product or the market. He used the most modern technology available to produce something that earlier technology had made obsolete or economically impractical."
In the process, Hatfield's company remained a privately held corporation. He experienced early problems with quality control, staggered orders, untrained labor, long hours, and all the other agonies of an infant business. He kept working, kept borrowing, laid people off when he had to, and at one time or another did everything that needed to be done himself.
