There's a whole lot of difference between one brand of American double, and what you said.
"A lot of the really good gunsmiths won't even touch American double guns anymore".
I've forgotten nothing about what he said, nor what you recently said above. Are you saying now that they only won't touch Smiths, or do you mean all American double guns? Last time I checked there were a whole lot more makes of American doubles than just L C Smiths. Dewey regularly does work on Foxes, and has had one of mine in his shop. You gonna tell me that Dewey, Abe and Paul won't touch any American doubles, or is it now just Smiths?
SRH
Ah, we are going to split some hairs today, eh Stan? Ok.
Let's say, hypotheticlly, your truck gun needed a restock, Stan.
Are you going to send it to Dewey? How 'bout rebarreling the same gun? You going to send it to Dewey?
Why not?
Now, simply pencil in the name of most American doubles where I wrote truck gun. Get them all, like Stevens, Savage, Cresent, Tobin, Fultons, Winchester 24s, all of them.
It would take a pretty special example of most of them, to be worth hiring the likes of Dewey, or, the others, Stan. Most American doubles were low cost implements, and not worth putting talent like that into.
You get that, right Stan?
Most, Stan. That isn't to say that I believe that the tarted up versions of the same American impliments are better than the field grades. I don't. But, the good 'smiths can afford to spend their time chroming those turds, should they choose to, and the check clears. And at the end of the day, I think the case could be made that there wasn't an American gun that could compare to the likes of a typical English or continental built A&D boxlock, although a couple got close, the H&R version of the same, and the Remington 1894 coming to mind.
The talented guys do have better things to do, Stan. Some of them will actually tell you that. They tend toward honesty.
Best,
Ted
