"Eh? What? Pardon? I didn't quite hear you. Give me a minute to tune in my hearing aid. I'm deaf in the left ear you know."
That'll be your conversation starter in latter years if you do and don't wear hearing protection. My brother said that when he accompanied my father to Woburn or Kedleston in the late 1960s you could tell the longtime XXV and Brevis and etc. users as they were the ones twiddling the wheels on their hearing aids at lunch. Fast handling is all about the balance of the gun. I once tried a friend's twenty-eight inch barrel Purdey that seemed almost "alive" it handled so well.
So my advice is buy it, try it, enjoy it. But it may, or may not suit you. Also try a better quality "run of the mill" lighter weight longer, twenty eight inch, continental 70 centimetre or twenty seven inch, barrel side by side or even a longer barrel side by side in 16 or 20. It may just also handle as well for you?
My own "grail" that I never did achieve was a Powell or Lancaster 12/20. I handled a few when Peter and David Powell still owned the business and it was at Carr's Lane but did later scratch the Boss "itch" until I sold it after three seasons or so. You are a long time dead and if you can afford it then, as said, try it.
If you want a cheap but well made gun with a high rib in a side by side? An AYA Yeoman or Yeoman Ejector. They came with a high rib (not a Churchill style but a high rib nevertheless) as standard. If the OP is near Leicester I've a Yeoman Ejector he could borrow to try at Normanton SG the west side of Leicester.
Holland's Brevis is pretty much copied by the AYA twenty-six inch barrel No2 and of course there is a twenty six inch barrel AYA No4.
