Abas Major .177 Pistol
This is one of my favourite air pistols. I saw a picture of one of these in L. Wesley's book "Air pistols and Air Rifles", and started hankering for one immediately. Something about the 'streamlined' look of the pistol, the compactness of the design was very appealing. I looked around a few shops, asked around a bit, hardly anyone had ever heard of them. This wasn't too surprising, really, as they were made for less than two years immediately after the second world war. Less than two thousand were made, the highest known serial number being in the upper eighteen-hundreds. They were made by a very highly respected shotgun making company in Birmingham, Andrew Brown and Sons (hence the name ABAS) as a stop-gap measure. They could not get the type of steel they required to make their shotguns, so rather than lay off their workers, they turned to air pistol production temporarily.
Even though the ABAS was only made for a very short time, in very small numbers, the quality it was made with, and the excellence of the design itself is so high that they are very sought-after by collectors over fifty years later. What a testament to the high standards of Andrew Brown and Sons. Incidentally, the firm is still in existence.
After hunting through all my usual channels, I came up blank. Then, I started hunting the net, and asking around on AIRGUNBBS. A chap called Allan Nickleson got in touch with me as he had one to sell. Allan is a really nice bloke and has since become a good friend of mine. Allan's ABAS was in almost complete but non-working condition, and he wanted sixty quid for it. I reckoned that was a fair price, and bought the gun. When I received it, I stripped it down, many parts such as the cocking lever catch and the cocking pin were badly worn. As I wanted the pistol re-blacked, some of the work was given to a gunsmith. The gunsmith in question took about five times longer to do the work than we agreed, then charged me over half as much again as he had originally estimated, but the quality of the blacking was very good. I reassembled the gun, built a foresight and rearsight myself, then reassembled it all. I am quite please with the way it shoots, though the fact that I am accustomed to shooting the recoilless Nemesis means I will have to put some practise in to be accurate with it. It is still a little rough to shoot as the leather piston washer is not worn in yet, but I look forward to shooting this pistol a lot in the coming years. All my friends, my Dad and brother have all seen this pistol and been very impressed with it. I am hoping to meet Allan face to face soon, hopefully he will be impressed with it too.
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