doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Superposed

Yup, you're right on all counts, Chuck, except you left out the point that Jonty made. A Belgium made Super has life. Well, at least it did before the mid sixties.

I can think of a very good reason to buy a salt-era Diana grade for $1895 and did. High grade Supers from the late sixties, early seventies are not rusted and pitted by reputation and the stigma of a serial number but by the presence of salt.

I also have some trouble accepting that 90% of all of Browning's salt-year production were assembled with stocks stickered in salt given that grade 1s have plainJane straight grain wood rather than the crotch black walnut which is said by Ned Schwing to have been in short supply. I doubt if Browning applied the Morton process to every last stick if plainer grades of wood cured by slower processes were readily and economically available. I admit this is conjecture on my part.

I would expect a current 12K custom shop gun to be quite different in finish and attention lavished thereon from the garden variety grade 1s of the fifties and sixties.

One man's hogging cut is another man's (and another gun's) finish cut. If there's so much as a flat belt shaft overhead and a motive force besides turning a crank present, "machining" in the classical sense is going on and I would not want to underestimate its importance in rationalizing the cost of a production gun by starry-eyed paeans to the "hand-made".

Altho chronologically precedent to the Jap Citori with which it shares it basic design, the Belgian-produced B-25 may not be a superior gun. It is uniquely what it is and not simply a superficially-similar set of lines on paper.

jack

Mine has life ;-)

part of it can be attributed to the person actually creating and finishing the gun, and his perception of what feels good. I was fortunate enough to go to the customShop and handle countless guns in different specs, I therefore found it very easy to select a gun and hand it to them and say "here build me a gun to my spec that handles like this one"!


and do you know how they do it ? shaving unwanted metal from the action and barrels from where it isn't needed and carefully boring and balancing the stock - try asking a CNC machine to do that - asbsolutely no chance, apart from the fact that every single gun is different - not only due to specs but also down to wood density and machining tolerances.

They are though not without their quirky faults - look close enough and as with any hand made gun you will find them. Perversely !!! a Citori is almost perfect, but without a character or the feeling that it wants to get up and go and shoot itself...

Rabbit, agreed.

In some respects the Jap guns are better built, but in other respects the Belgium made guns are better.

The Jap machining is almost perfect - the Belgium made machining leaves more marks inside the action frame. But the engraving, quality and finish of wood, chequering and jointing is significantly better on the FN guns. But then again so it should be we are comparing a 525 that costs around £1000 in GB to a gun that starts at £7000 and goes on up as deep as your pocket and wife allows.


Jonty

Eightbore......Do you have the contact information for this historian? I own two pre-war Browning Superposed shotguns, and would like to research their background. Thanks, Grant.

OM70,

I can not find the information at the moment, so hopefully someone will be along.

I hope you can get ahold of him. The last time I spoke to the historian he mentioned he might be retiring soon.

A hint. Make sure you asked a bunch of questions (he likes to talk about the records) and note it all down. Browning has some odd rules about what they will put in the letter. As an example the original selling price will NOT be in the letter even if he tells you over the phone.

Murph, Jonty,
I absolutely agree with what you're saying about the Supers. If anything could be said in the derogatory about Citori's, it's that they lack individuality that gives them "life". But then, that's what they were trying since WW2 to shed their products of; individual differences that are traditionally percieved as 'defects'.

The Citori fills a price target market extremely well. Better than most, IMO. The Super of yesteryear, as a used gun, languishes in value (the standard grade guns, anyway) under it's true quality.

I have a joking saying about our airplanes that we used to build; "all hand made, no two alike"

The gentleman will tell you what you want to know, but, as one poster says, write it down, because a letter will cost you, the phone call will not.

The different grades of wood weren't cured together, rabbit. But they were later shipped and/or stored together which contaminated all the wood. Even after they were taken off of the ships and dunked in the water and then all put together in Belgium. Your buying a Diana Grade salt gun for $1895.00 pretty much tells the story of how a large majority of collectors feel about the salt era guns. But some people did get lucky. I just never felt like taking the chance of buying one at any cost. And my Grade 1 20 gauge doesn't have low grade wood on it. Most collectors and dealers avoid the salt guns. Good luck.

Jimmy, going by the price tags, there are advertising dealers here handling some very expensive firewood who haven't collapsed in horror at the thought of selling grade V Supers with suspect YOMs. Happened twice that I've noticed in the past year. Of course 4K asking is both an admission and an invitation, isn't it? 2K more so. I believe it's possible for the buyer to be aware without feeling an immediate urge to run away, but your point is well, and often, taken--as is mine.

jack