Send Us Your Gun List
This is the first thing we ask for and the single most useful document in the whole process. Racks drawn from a real list hold real guns. Racks drawn from an assumption hold most of them.
We do not want serial numbers and we do not want your certificate. We want to know what you own, what shape it is, and what you are likely to buy — because that is what determines the inside of the piece, and the inside is the part you live with.
Why it matters more than anything else you tell us
A standard cabinet is drawn around an average gun that does not exist. The barrels are one length, the stocks are one depth, nothing has a scope on it, and every gun is exactly as wide as every other. Real collections are nothing like that.
A side-by-side and an over-and-under do not stand at the same pitch. A rifle with a large objective scope left mounted needs clearance that a shotgun does not, and taking scopes off to put guns away is how zeroes get lost. A long wildfowling gun will not go into a rack cut for a 28in game gun. A pair wants to stand together. And almost everybody who owns four guns owns six within five years.
Twenty minutes spent on this form usually saves a fortnight of emails, and it is the difference between an interior that fits and an expensive one that nearly does.
What happens after you send it
- We read it and telephone you. Usually the same week. Twenty minutes on the telephone settles more than a long email thread.
- We tell you which you actually need — a cabinet, a wall of cabinets, or a room. Sometimes the answer is smaller than people expect, and we would rather sell you the right thing once.
- You get an indication of cost at that stage, before anybody surveys anything.
- Then a survey, drawings and a fixed price. Only then do you commit to anything.
The form
Fill in as much as you know. Nothing here is compulsory except a way of contacting you — if you are unsure of a figure, guess, and we will refine it at survey. If you would rather do all of this on the telephone, ring the workshop on 01449 710500 and we will fill it in at our end.
Prefer to do it on paper?
A good many people would rather print it, sit down with the cabinet open and count. Download the gun list as a printable PDF, fill it in, and either post it or photograph it and email it to sales@reeveandco.com.
A note on discretion
We understand entirely why people are careful about this, and you should be.
We do not ask for serial numbers, certificate numbers or anything that identifies a specific firearm, because we do not need them and holding them would serve no purpose. What you send is used to draw your interior and nothing else. We do not sell, share or trade enquiry information, we do not pass it to third parties for marketing, and we do not publish client names, addresses or photographs of completed work without written permission — which is why this site shows the work rather than the houses.
If you would rather not put a collection in writing at all, that is a perfectly reasonable position. Ring us instead, tell us in round numbers, and we will work from that.
What else is worth sending
- Photographs of the room — wide shots rather than close-ups, including the corners, the door and anything awkward. Four photographs from four corners tell us more than a floor plan.
- Rough dimensions — wall lengths, ceiling height, and where windows, radiators and sockets fall. Approximate is fine.
- Any drawings you already have, particularly if an architect is involved. We are used to working to someone else’s set.
- Anything your licensing department has already said, if you have spoken to them. It saves us asking the same question twice.
You can attach photographs to the form, send them afterwards by email, or send them straight to us on WhatsApp — which is what most people do, because the camera and the chat are already in the same hand.
Questions we are asked about this
Do you need my serial numbers or certificate?
No. We ask what you own in general terms — types, quantities, lengths, whether scopes stay mounted — because that is what determines the racking. We do not ask for serial numbers or certificate numbers, and we would rather not hold them.
What if I do not know how many guns I will end up with?
Almost nobody does, which is why the form asks what you expect to add rather than what you are certain about. As a rule we draw in headroom, because adding capacity later to a fitted piece is difficult and expensive, and empty racks cost very little to build now.
Will you speak to my firearms enquiry officer?
Yes, and we would rather do it before anything is made. We set out the proposed specification in writing and agree it with your licensing department at design stage, so that any disagreement happens on paper rather than on installation day.
How long does the whole process take?
It depends on the piece. Smaller cabinets are quicker; a fitted gun room involves your builder as well as us, so the programme is set by the building work as much as by the joinery. We will give you a realistic date at quotation stage rather than an optimistic one.
I only want a single cabinet. Is that too small a job?
No. A single cabinet is where most of our clients start, and a good many of the rooms we have built began as one cabinet that turned out to be the right decision for the wrong room.
What a useful gun list looks like
There is no form to fill in and no format we insist on — a photograph of a handwritten sheet is perfectly good. What makes a gun list useful is that it describes the objects rather than the categories.
| Tell us | Because |
|---|---|
| Action type — side-by-side, over-and-under, bolt, semi-auto | Sets the rack centres. The difference is 75 mm against 95 mm. |
| Barrel length | Sets internal height. A 32 in wildfowling gun needs 1,250 mm clear. |
| Which rifles are scoped, and the objective size | Scope, not barrel, sets the spacing — a 56 mm objective needs 140 mm centres. |
| Anything cased, and the case dimensions | Cased pairs live flat, not in a rack. They need their own bay. |
| Anything left-handed or unusually stocked | Changes how a gun sits in a cradle. |
| Cartridges held at the peak of the season | Sizes the drawers. Peak, not average. |
| What you expect to own in ten years | We build in growth. It costs almost nothing now. |
Serial numbers are not needed and we would rather not have them. Nor do we need to see your certificate.
The three photographs
One of the wall the piece will go against, taken square on from as far back as you can get. One of the wall opposite, because that is what decides whether the doors can open. And one of the route in — the front door, the hall, the tightest turn. Between them those three answer most of what a survey answers, and they let us give you a real price band before anybody travels.
Discretion, and how the list is handled
Your gun list stays in the workshop. It is not shared, it is not put into any marketing system, and it is deleted when the commission completes or twelve months after an enquiry goes quiet. We do not publish client names or tag locations in photographs. If you would rather not put a list in an email at all, say so — we will take it over the telephone or on paper.
If you have not yet spoken to your firearms enquiry officer, that is fine and it does not delay anything. We agree the specification with them before manufacture as a matter of course — see the FEO process, and the Home Office Firearms Security Handbook for the guidance your force works from.
What happens to your gun list after you send it
- Same or next working day. An acknowledgement from a person, usually with two or three questions — most often about scope objectives, cased pairs, or how much you expect the collection to grow.
- Within a week. An outline scheme in words, not drawings: what we would build, where we would put it, and an honest price band. No visit, no cost, no obligation.
- If it is worth taking further. We arrange a survey. Half a day for a cabinet, a full day for a room.
- Two to three weeks after that. Drawings and a fixed quotation, with a specification sheet you can take to your firearms enquiry officer.
At no point in that sequence are you committed to anything, and at no point do we ask for money. The first payment is a third on order, after drawings are approved and the price is fixed.
If you would rather not send a gun list at all
Entirely reasonable, and more common than you would think. Two alternatives work almost as well. Tell us the counts by type — “four side-by-sides, two over-and-unders, three scoped rifles, one cased pair” — which is enough to set out racks properly without describing anything identifiable. Or send a photograph of the guns racked as they are now, with the serials not legible.
What we cannot do is design around “about a dozen guns”. Racks drawn to an average hold average guns, and the collection that arrives is never average.
A note on growth
Almost every client we have built for has more guns five years later than they had at survey, and almost nobody predicts it. Building in two or three spare positions costs perhaps £200 at the time and is the single cheapest piece of future-proofing available. We will always ask, and we will always suggest more space than you think you need.
Would rather talk first?
Ring the workshop. You will get somebody who has built these rather than somebody reading from a screen, and we are happy to answer technical questions about anybody’s cabinet, not only our own.
Sporting Cabinetmakers is a trading name of Reeve & Co Interiors Ltd, Stonham Road, Mickfield, Stowmarket, Suffolk IP14 5LS. Information you send is used to prepare your enquiry and is not shared with third parties.