doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com What is prewar ?

Over all it is far easier to find a high quality pre war WWI double than a between the wars or after WWII. I know a lot of junk was made as well but there just are very few high quality guns made at all after this. Most double makers were closed or making other guns. The trained labor pool died in the wars or just got old and retired. Fewer follow on apprenticed labor came along. And shooting declined as a major part time as interest changed. The entire industry declined. Throw in a world wide depression that lasted more than a decade and the end of an era just happened

Hi all, just a side note, even after the German defeat at Stalingrad and they declared "Total War" in 1943, the Germans still produced sporting arms. I've seen and owned a couple of war time produced drillings and SxS's and the quality of these guns was top notch. The Krieghoff drilling I owned was made in 1944, but you would swear it was made prior to the war. These were not presentation guns or guns issued to the Wehrmacht.

Even during this period of Total War, when all civilian production was to be stopped. German industry still produced some fine products, the Party just looked the other way in some cases.

Best,

Greg

guw, one flaw in the German war production was the almost manic drive to produce high quality things. Consumer goods were produced right up to the end in Germany. My uncle took surrender of a small plant making AM radios for civically use even at the end of the war. I've seen guns with proof dates as late as 2/45 so guns production lasted almost to the end as well. I've not seen any poor quality German guns.

I looked at an E boat and thought our PT boats were just thrown together half ass in comparison. But we won because of volume that overwhelmed their quality. If they hade 100 of something we made 1,00 or 10,000 of a lesser version. Tanks were build in place there on part at a time while ours were built on assembly lines. Our Sherman was vastly inferior to the Tiger tank but we built almost 50 times as many. So an exchange rate of 4:1 or 8:1 was sustainable but ferry hard on crews. I had a uncle who was a tanker and he never told a single story about what he had seen or been through. Didn't blame him and never asked him. Some things are best left alone.

Hi Jon, I agree 100% with your statements. The Germans wasted so many resources and material on pet projects and weapons systems that were either taxing on production or a pure wast of time. They could have been better spent on tried and true systems that worked and left the experimentation until after the war. You could spend a lot of time discussing some of these projects and flights of fancy, but they did pave the way for others to develop their ideas after the war. Thank God they didn't develop the bomb before us. If they did I fear we wouldn't be discussing this subject now.

One other thing, folks have this idea that the Nazi Party was this unified organization that was all efficiency and getting things done. Nothing can be further from the truth, the in fighting between officials and sub units of the Party was well known in Germany. Hitler even fostered this in fighting. This divide and conquer policy of his, did not help the war effort one bit.

Looks like we're getting a bit off subject, but an interesting discussion none the less.

Best,

Greg

Greg -
I have to admire how you have illuminated current events by pretending they are some historical discussion. Pretty clever.

Wanko, sorry, but I have no idea what your talking about.

Best,

Greg

HAH! Good one! That keen a sense of humor is almost non-existent here.

Okay????

Same thing happened on the Russian front with the exception of the T-34 tank that was a superior medium tank.

Production dropped pretty significantly after WWI. If you stop to think about it, in England with their very serious casualties--and a lot of non-inheriting sons of wealthy families who never came home--there must have been a bunch of nice doubles available on the used market. And of course, the already mentioned problem of skilled workers in the trades also dying in the trenches.

Over here, we saw a slow turn in the direction of pumps and autoloaders. And then along came the Depression, from which the American sxs industry never really recovered. The best they could do, in terms of really significant numbers, was to have decent sxs made for them in Japan. The days of the Ithaca SKB, Browning BSS, and Winchester 23 and Parker Reproduction were pretty much the last gasp of storied American gun companies putting their names on pretty nice sxs.