doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Building a new gun

Chuck, no CNC used here at all.

Still, the machinist skills needed to machine a gun for hand fitting are formidable.

Too right!

Phillipsons are as good as it gets and have been making gun parts for a very long time.They used to make Purdey's actions until Purdey's started to machine their own.They still make action for several other very well known UK gun manufacturers.
It is almost as quick to build guns from these kind of parts, if the machinings are good, as the fully cnc'd type parts.You also have the added bonus of being able to file the gun up to whatever shape you desire rather than what your given with the 3 dimensionally milled type action machinings.

Interesting statement.

If one were to review pages 54 through 65 of the book "David McKay Brown" by Donald Dallas one will see several photos of Hugh and Jeff Phillipson's shop with these two gentlemen standing in front of and working with their various CNC equipment (including EDM's for spark erosion maching) that they have been using to machine the slots for quite some time in the actions that Philipson's supply to the trade.

On page 58 of the above referenced book, Donald Dallas speaking of a period of 10 years or so ago states: "He (David Brown) also discussed with the well known component suppliers J.B. Phillipson their need to invest in new CNC machinery and soon after this they (Phillipson's) invested in a spark eroder and a wire cutter, Jeff and Hugh Phillipson were aware that not enough work for their firm was being generated by conventional machining and that they had to move forward. David guaranteed Phillipson work to help justify their purchase of a new Chameil machine."

If an action forging was purchased from Philipson's in the last 10 years, I suspect that it had to have some "CNC" machining work done to it prior to it leaving their shop.

Of course, the reknown gunmaker "Mr. Pugwash" (post above) knows this better than me.

Bv

I had the opportunity to visit the H&H factory back in 2001. They were using CNC machines back then, but there was still a lot of hand work involved.

I would hope that gunmakers that are at the top of the trade use all the modern tools available to them to make their product better. How and when to use certain tools is where skill and knowledge come together.

The photo shows excellent work, and I say that after having filed and shaped most parts of a SXS.

Greener writing in 1910 supports the use of machine tools when possible. So the idea that traditional makers resorted exclusively to hand filing is inaccurate. Using modern machines to arrive at the same result as hand work is legitimate. After all, the part that counts is the final fitting and heat treatment, not the stock removal that gets you there.

What is NOT legitimate is not telling, allowing the naive to fool themselves about the term "hand made". Even worse is not passing the cost savings to the buyer.

Purdey production manager Bruce Owen in an article he authored, threw that one to the marketing department, leaving the question he posed re cost unanswered.