doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Define "Best," Royal," etc. Guns - How To

Folks:

I'm relatively new to the world of fine double shotguns and am a bit bewildered by some of the terminology. Can someone either explain or direct me to an explanation of the various classes of shotguns. For example, I inherited several nice doubles but I'm not sure whether they are sport, royal, best or some other designation I've heard mentioned. Two are Francottes bought from Abercrombie & Fitch back in the day. Both of these guns have very nice engraving but I don't know if that puts them in a certain class or category or not. Likewise, are all Purdey doubles "best" guns or are there various classes within the group of doubles? If so, how does one tell? By the type of engraving or is there a mark somewhere on the barrel indicating what class the gun is.

I'm sure it's apparent that I'm clueless and I would be happy to read up on this but I'm just not sure where to start. Any help in pointing me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

Sounds like you've inherited some nice pieces. Francotte had a pretty diverse product line from field grade to "Best". Purdey has also had a couple different grades... though, today, they only produce "best" guns.

The best thing to do is to post photos of your guns. Load the photos to Photobucket.com and then post them here.

Good luck

Adam

Today, the definition of 'best' is largely conventional. Few people who line up for a Verdi opera at La Scala can explain what makes this music better than the opera written by a music professor of local community college and performed by the students of same college. They either feel the difference, or trust the experts which told them that Verdi is classic and community college performance is not. Likewise, few users, probably not one in a thousand, can really evaluate the level of quality that went into the gun, and to determine if it is a 'best' or not. The users agreed, with the help of experts, that certain guns of certain makers are 'best', and judge the guns accordingly. Reality is more complicated than "any Purdey is best, any Russian gun is a junk", although this rule of thumb does apply to most situations.

No formal attributes can define 'best'. Sort of like, the formal attributes of classical music are that it is written for strings, wood and brass. But not all music written for strings, wood and brass can be called 'classical', much less stand on the same shelf with Beethoven, Mozart or Tchaikovsky. Engraving especially has nothing to do with it. You can take a $200 Russian or Turkish gun, give it to the best engraver and cover all metal parts in the most fashionable style, and it won't make it a 'best' even for the respective Russian or Turkish factories, because they can do better than that.

'Best' is a thing of substance. "Best", roughly speaking, is what a gunmaker can do if price is not an issue. It means no compromise in every aspect of the gun. Beginning with choice of action - for instance, sidelocks have only marginal advantages over boxlocks (as far as price is not figured in), but a 'best' is normally a sidelock because the gunmaker doesn't want to lose even this smallest advantage. Same with choice of materials. Same with execution of all parts. For example, barrels must be fitted to action with such perfection, that if you drop a bit of oil on the watertable, close the gun, and it squeezes the oil out, leaving the watertable dry. Such precision is not really necessary for most sportsmen. But it is the absolute best any living or dead gunmaker can do, and for a gun to be real 'best', this is what a gunmaker must strive for. Same with meeting all requirements of the client. If the client want the right barrel to pattern in a certain way, you bore and rebore the barrel until it patterns this way and not any other way. Same with any aspect of gun and its making.

What makes it most complicated, is that 'best' is as relative as the speed with which you can run the 100 meters. For one nothing short of a world record is 'best'. For me, the best I can do is about 20 seconds, but it's my 'best' still. Same with gunmakers. What's best for some is only average for others.

W.W.Greener in "The Gun and its Development" (a book I highly recommend, a classic written in the golden days of Brit gunmakers when the concept of 'best' was defined) explained is this way. Most gunmakers can work to best standards. But few can sell their guns at the price level that would cover the expenses of building the guns in the 'best' way. So most makers must cut cost according to what they can sell their guns for, by putting in less labor, inferior materials, etc. This was written in 1880, but the general principle still works.

So, if you want to know if your guns are 'best' or not, there are basically two options for you. You can ask the experts (for example, uploading the pictures of your guns here), and agree with the majority. Or you can try to become an expert yourself, by reading, talking with people, and most importantly handle as many guns that are considered the world standard of 'best', and comparing your guns against them.

Very true.

"Royal" is frequently used on guns that aren't "bests" by a long shot. One example would be the West German Sauer Royal from the 60's. Decent enough gun, but a far cry from a "best"--although it was their top of the line gun here in the States.

I've had a couple of doubles that were a "Royal pita".......

Royal is a marketing term. It is also commonly used to refer to a type of engraving established by the Holland and Holland Royal Ejector.

Best Guns, as previously noted, are like porn: hard to define, easy to recognize. The highest quality materials assembled into a gun until no further work would improve it. There is a rough convention agreed: a hand engraved sidelock, double barreled, side by side because that is what the English, the originators of a society based around shooting sports, said it was. But then there are over and under's that rise to the level (Boss, et al), and no one would consider the top of the line Westley Richards drop lock side by side less than a best gun, and then let's not forget the Dickenson round action, and there is an agreed convention around "best" English boxlocks, and hey what about those crazy mo fo Basque makers with the crazy name of Arrizabalaga, and then the Italians like Fabbri who take engraving to a celestial level and then dare to mix in exotic metals like titanium receivers, and then in modern times or for that matter at any time has anyone ever made a "better" gun than Peter Nelson....

Getting the idea? It's an ideal, it's subjective, there really is no definition. At that level it combines wood, metallurgy, craftsmanship, vision, function, experience, and history into.....art. It's art, old horse, and nobody gets to say what's best because we all get an opinion. Well, except there's a bunch of experts who write about this crap for a living and in point of fact they get to decide what's best just as art critics get to decide that Picasso's are worth 120 large when most of us wouldn't pay 120 small for the weirdo's work. And then GLORIOSKY along comes this internet thingy and All of US, The Great Unwashed, gets us a platform to say all kind of wierdo opinion. Ain't it grand?

Seriously though if you can't articulate the difference between Verdi at La Scala and your local community college choir you really need to get a refund on your education. But, and it's a big but, if you can hear the difference at La Scala, and you will, you'll feel the difference between a best gun and one that's, um, not. Pick up a Purdey sometime, there's a surprising number of them in good gun stores all over the US. If you have any experience in handling and shooting break guns, you'll go "Oh, well, yes. I see now. Can I keep it?" And the salesmen will say "Sir, put the gun down and step away from the counter....." and you'll think "it's 15 feet to the front door, I think I can outrun this jerk to the car, if I can get to the car first........"

Thanks for the opinions and advice. In fact, one of the guns I now have is a Purdey and that's part of what started me on this course of trying to put a label on each gun I inherited. The very nicely engraved 16 ga. A&F Francotte looks nice, feels good in the hands, is fairly light, and gives me a sense of real satisfaction to look at it and shoot it. Compared to my Browning Citori it is special. The Purdey, on the other hand, just seems to feel better in an unidentifiable way. The balance and weight just seem to put the gun to the shoulder of its own accord and, when mounted properly, all you have to do is look at the bird and think about shooting it and the trigger seems to pull itself. Truly, it's a thing of beauty but what makes it different from the others I've recently been getting acquainted with is something I can't define - it just is. Anyway, that pretty much confirms what you all have been saying. I guess I'm just trying to learn the commonly accepted categories (grades) that my other guns fall into so I'll have a better sense of how they fit into the bigger picture of fine double shotguns. It's all new to me but I'm looking forward to the journey.

I've been trying to buy a 1871 Purdey thumbhole opener for about a year now. Someone went over the entire gun with naval jelly, has a nice green cast to it.

I emailed Purdey's with the s/n and was told it was a "best" gun".

Maybe I'll up the bid to $500

Decent question. I'll give you a "take" on it which works for me. The following was developed to provide a jump start on understandling Brit and Continental gun values from the 1890ish to 1960ish range. Three factors are needed to "SWAG" the value of any given gun: Brand Value level of the maker's name (BV), Original Quality grade (OQ), and Current Condition level (CC)

I find nine grades of Original Quality will suffice. Note that these grades do not imply levels of durability, longevity, goodness, fineness, or any other "ity" or "ness." Rather, they imply levels of value by the current day market.

OQ1 = best work SLE (+75% engraving, high quality wood, top craftsmanship)

OQ2 = "A" Grade SLE, Greener G-125, Best SLNE, Extra finish WR Drop-Lock

OQ3 = "B" Grade SLE, Greener G-70, "A" Grade SLNE, Full engraved
WR Drop-Lock

OQ4 = "C" Grade SLE, Greener G-60, "B" Grade SLNE, WR Drop-Lock
min engraving

OQ5 = Border engraved SLE, 1/3 engraved SLNE, 1st quality BLE

OQ6 = Plain SLNE, 2nd quality BLE, 1st quality BLNE

OQ7 = Border engraving BLE, 1/3 engraved BLNE

OQ8 = Plain BLNE

OQ9 = Colonial/Farmer

Word of caution: my research indicates that certain name brands and aesthetics inject a lot of bias into perception of handling properties. Keep in mind that most high grade guns were made to order (bespoke). The bespeaker should have been able to shoot his gun at the peak of his ability. Subsequent owners are on their own for stock fit, suitability of handling factors, feel, etc.

Post photos of your guns and I'll take a swing at value.

DDA