doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Churchill "Regal"......?

Would an EJ Churchill "Regal", SxS, boxlock/A & D action, that was built in the 1970's have been built by English gunmakers or is there a chance that Churchill would have "farmed out" the work to Spanish gunmakers?

Thanks in advance & Merry Christmas!

Contact Stephan Hutton at Brittannia Sporting Arms, in Portsmouth NH. He worked at Churchill at about that time. Just google it to get his email...I suspect at that time a firm with the name of "Wright" do work for them. Just contact him he will have all you need.

There were some Spanish guns imported in the 1980s and 90's that were called 'Churchill'. They were first inported by Kassnar then KBI. As far as I know, all were box lock with some kind of engraving most with double triggers, a couple models with single triggers. Also, most with extractors, but a couple models with ejectors...and I even saw one with ST, Ejectors, and tubes. These were definitely NOT E J Churchill. However, they were solid, decent looking, utilitarian guns worth a few hundred to something under a grand at most (for the ST, EJ and Tubes)

What's the address on the rib? Orange st? 61 Pall Mall? More than likely, the gun is 100% British. These late Churchills might have some quality issues that you don't see on earlier guns. Sometimes the fit and finish isn't up to par with earlier guns, this is especially true with A&F "Dallas" sale guns. With that said, I owned one of the A&F guns and it was just fine albeit a couple of very minor issues with the forend fit.

LeFusil, what were the A&F "Dallas" sale guns? How do they differ from regular EJ Churchill's?

Thanks!

In his book " The House of Churchill" Don Masters discusses some of the issues Churchill was having with rising production costs & attempting to survive in the 1970's.

Nothing is mentioned re. outsourcing production to Spain but Masters discusses several attempts to produce boxlock action bodies using investment casting rather than forgings in an attempt to reduce production costs. One of the aborted attempts involved a French company (Preciast S.A.) & this may be where questions re. non British parts arise.

Long story short, some boxlocks were produced in the mid to late 70's using investment cast action bodies. It was reported that the investment cast parts were difficult to machine & color case & unpopular with the gunmakers.

As Le Fusil mentioned, some of the guns produced in the last few years before production ended were not of the quality of those produced earlier. A friend of mine had a pair of very late production Premiere 12 bores that were decent guns but lacked in fit & finish when compared to earlier production guns.

1cdog,

The A&F Dallas guns were simply guns remaining in inventory (finished & unfinished) at the time Churchill went out of business & were sold at auction by A&F in Dallas May 15, 1981.

The "House of Churchill" lists the guns sold at that auction by model & serial #.

Brittany Man, thank you! That was very helpful.