Larry,
RE your comment that American doubles were, generally, built for hard use. Some, really weren't. A gun with the amount of wood between the action and head of the stock (little) and corrosive solder/flux used to knit the barrels together, not to mention the lack of support for the toplever spindle and other Rube Goldbergian screwups that an LC Smith is a showcase of, is not intended for hard use. The "Old Reliable" is a complicated mess inside, and has a perfectly designed splitting maul for an action, riding on the head of the stock. Yes, the village idiot has seen some, but, the really good gunsmiths have often seen the light.
The very expensive English guns, purchased by the well to do, did get the service you spoke of (they were unbelievably expensive, even then) but, for every one of them were half a dozen game keepers guns or lesser boxlocks that didn't, and many, many, of them seem to have survived, and keep right on chugging.
There is much to frustrate Murphy's law on an A&D pattern boxlock, constructed in England. I believe that the reason we have those wonderful best buy guns you refer to is that the companies that produced them, in Italy, Japan, or wherever decided to copy and improve where they could the typical Anson & Deeley, and NOT something like the Elsie.
The Petric is still alive in the form of the Petric, by the way Larry. They have been produced in St. Etienne for about a decade, now. Nice gun. Expensive gun. Nobody here knows about them.
Best,
Ted
Ted, I'd suggest that no one copied the Elsie because sidelocks are more expensive than boxlocks. Others here can comment, but I think the reason American makers didn't use the A&D design for their boxlocks is that it was still patent-protected when the Parkers, Ithacas, Foxes etc were being produced. As for the Parker, it is overly complicated. But it also tends to WORK. The late Mr. McIntosh pointed out that both the Parker and the Browning Superposed were complicated, and had to be fitted well to work--but most of them were, and did. If the Parker had all kinds of problems, wouldn't we hear about those issues with Parker Reproductions? Just about the only problems I've heard of have been with the single trigger--and mostly the only fix required is a good cleaning. And Marlin brought back the Elsie in the late 60's. They didn't sell particularly well, but then they made the mistake (IMO) of making those modern Elsies in 12ga only. Back in those days, just too darned many Elsie 12's floating around on the used market, pretty cheap back then, for a new 12ga to make sense. Had they brought it out in 20ga, I think they might have had a winner. Just as it made sense for Tony Galazan to make his Foxes as smallbores. And Steve Lamboy, at Ithaca Classic Doubles. And the Parker Repros that bring bigger bucks are the 28ga guns--even though about twice as many of them were made as 12's.
No question it's a good idea to copy the A&D if you're making a boxlock. Greener did, even though he also made his own Facile Princeps model boxlocks. It's a time-tested design. Same with the H&H pattern sidelock. Those are the designs the Spanish chose to copy. On the other hand, while there are "lesser" Brit guns out there, those "lesser" guns weren't put to the same kind of use--in terms of the number of shells put through them--as were the guns used for driven shooting over there, nor the guns used for competition shooting over here. And there were plenty of guys putting a whole lot of rounds through Parkers, Elsies, Foxes, Ithacas etc and winning championships at trap and skeet. And if you go into a British gunshop . . . funny thing. You won't see many of those "keepers guns" for sale, in comparison to the higher dollar doubles. More or less the opposite of the way it is here, where there are a bunch of Sterlingworths out there for every graded Fox you'll see. So maybe our cheaper guns (from the better makers) were made better than theirs??
Thanks for the info about the Petrik. Didn't know they were still making them. Interesing guns . . . if you don't mind your barrels stacked vertically. The nice thing about them--the older ones at least--is that for hunters, they tended to be light field guns rather than heavy target guns, like the 32.
Last edited by L. Brown; 12/10/16 11:39 AM.
