Peter Hofer rifles are known for their ingenious mechanisms—everything from diminutive .17 HMR double rifles to massive 4 bore behemoths—ornamented with gorgeous engraving.

A snarling white jaguar guards the door of the wood-paneled Austrian atelier of Peter Hofer, one of the world's last super-high-end gunmakers. Now stuffed, the cat was a casualty of the sort of ...