doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Early days of England's best gunmakers

Prince Joseph Pouiatowski's Reilly courtesy of dt/cc

DT/CC/XC - did Mr. R build it or did it start life on another bench?

Thanks to Dr Drew, Once again for posting the 20bore E M Reilly, I have the 12b also Cased with allLoading Goodies. The letter along with the 2 Guns is, European Royalty and the Reilly Invoice shows just how Mr Sturtevant of Newport R.I.U.S.A. brought the Guns to America.I am not the owner, just the Researcher/Cleaner/Photo'Snapper".The Empress Euginie, Mother of Napoleon lll. Used the 20b Quite Often' I hope to get the story into "ONE of the Glossie's...Some Grand Photos. The Guns are the Quality expected from London Best Makers of the period. The stripped-down photos will show this...DirtyDave /cc

Best guns, no doubt. But, we are waiting with batted breath to hear your take on who, or what shop, whittled the wood and metal on 'em.

I agree Rocket but it would seem that even for the Birmingham 'gunmakers' that finished the guns had these rough out shops providing them with 'in the white' forging that were later finished by either the Birmingham or London maker. These rough out shops would be impossible to track down and identify. And why would you need to, they only provided the raw material, the 'Maker' made the gun or finished product.

Well my last post seemed to result in doubling the number of these pages. And a lot of specific information is being shared, always a good thing. But my questions were more general in nature.

Some of your own comments since have included: do you feel the makers got away with one so to speak by outsourcing?, when you talk about English guns their makers or their purveyors you have to address each one individually., why does it seem like you want to perpetuate the myth that many or most of the makers were not making guns?, I guess I don't understand the point you're trying to make?, etc.

Here are my reasons. When I first started out asking a similar question on a post on English brands some time ago I got chastised for even asking if all were actually makers. I thought at the time that those in the know would simply respond by saying that “probably” of the well known names calling themselves maker that “perhaps” maybe X % actually made a fair portion of their components, maybe Y % primarily sourced available components to finish and assemble, and maybe Z % just had complete finished guns made for them with their name on it. Instead of any direct factual responses, all the answers were either evasive, diversionary, defensive, justifying, protective, etc. Similar response if the same question was addressed on any current English brands. It was like a political finger pointing debate rather than knowledgeable people sharing factual information. No matter how I rephrased the question it was impossible to get a direct answer, just like in politics.

So I decided to try again in a new post to see if this time around the question might actually get some direct answers, but the result was the same. So while I started out perhaps naively believing that nearly all 19th and 20th century English makers who labeled themselves as such did at the very least source, finish and assemble components, I am not sure anymore.

But I will admit that once I finally figured out that all these names were just revered as the gods of the gun world, and that the old paint can had a bees nest in it because those gods can’t ever be questioned, I just couldn’t resist kicking that can a couple of times as this thread progressed.

P.S. … at the end of the day it really doesn’t matter to me if 99% of the English makers made nearly all of their parts, or if 99% did nothing more than unwrap and wipe the grease off the guns that were made with their name on it by someone else. If I wanted an English gun to shoot I would buy the gun that I both liked and could afford, and not the name. The name would only really matter to me when I wanted to sell it for big $.

Makers Like Westley did make their own guns, but, did they make their own sidelock ejectors...I think not!
The better sidelock ejector has always been top drawer - so, what does this do to the make of Westley Richards eh?
You might just want a finished London Sle then.

Why do you think WR didn't make their own SLE?

Why do we think so many others did not make their own guns ol'Rocketman?
I looked two Westley Sle guns, one Belgium made and AA Brown the other.
Not many out there, and not their thing - thats why.

E.M.Reilly & Co; exhibited at the U.S.International,Centenial exhibition of 1876,held in Philadelphia. According to the "official catalogue", their exhibit included Breech loading guns and express rifles. A total of 20 leading British gunmakers of the day participated in this exhibition.[ The exhibition ran for 159 days and attracted 9.9 million visitors!]There is little doubt that E.M. Rilley was,in the beginning a bonafide gun maker in the best traditions of the London trade.I recently examined a cased, mint, pair of Reilly percussion pistols the quality of which was second to none!
In their later days they did develope into a wholesale gun makers and dealers. Records show that their business was established in 1841 and that it closed in 1917.