8-Bore;
I appreciae your input here. Some good points made in a true effort to state the high points of a 21.
First, for all involved, let me make two points here, First I have never claied to be an "Expert", only one who has opinions & second I have never said a 21 was a "Bad" gun.
Now to your points; as to the bbl stop, I have not really done a lot of study on this as to all the types which have been used. Bbl stops were of course in use for more than half a century prior to the 21 being built. A very effecient, yet simple one, using no moving parts was patented in 1872 by F S Dangerfield & used for about 25+ yrs thereafter by D M Lefever. I certaimly would not claim it as the best, but one would have to get up early in the morn & search all day to find a better one.
The best feature of the dovetail chopper lump is it does not require a high heat for joining. The same is true of a mono-block. Winchester seems to have got around the oft stated "Fault" of the dovetail CL requiring a wide bbl spacing by simply moving the dovetail down from the breech where the natural bbl taper gave adequate room for it. At least I have never noticed the 21 being particularly wider than others. I think perhaps this was a fault of the BSA which had earlier employed this joining.
One fault of either chopper-lump method is that the lugs by necessity are made of the same mat'l as the bbls. When made seperately the lugs can be made of a higher carbon steel than desirable for the bbls (and usually were), thus giving a more wear resistant steel. Parker probably had a one-up on this with the replacable wear plate.
Improvements in steel had I think made the coil spring design more feasibale than had been the case in the past. My very first double was a pre WWI J Stevens model 325 which likewase had a coil spring action, with the lock work very similar to that of a 21. After some 40 yrs they did go soft & would often fail to fire the shell & had to be replaced. The frame itself was a straight backed box look which very much resembled a flat side 21. A little frame sculpting & breaking up the flat back does wonders for a dbl-gun frame in the eyes of many, myself included. I always called that old J Stevens my "Pore-Boy 21" see I knew about the 21 way back in the 50's. I was well aware of the 21 long before I ever even heard of a Lefever other than a NS, but as soon as I learned about the Real Lefevers I began lusting for one.
The bolting itself is essentially the Scott Spindle with a single bolt which came about in the 1860's. Nothing new or spectacular there, but for what ever its worth I have on several occasions used the noted strength of the 21, along with the Parker, to point out that one good solid bolt is suffecient to holsd a break open gun shut. Mulitiple bolts are for the most part EyeWash unless "Exceptionally Well" fitted.
Bottom line is the 21 is a "Good" solid gun, but its a "LONG WAY" from being the Finest in the World.
Sam;
Its great you were able to hit 100 straight with yours first time out. Any individuals ability to shoot a given gun on a given day however does not automatically translate into that anyone else will do the same. I will have to say that over the past 50+ yrs my ability to hit with any gun can not be directly related to what I would consider its intrinsic value. I have shot some fairly cheap guns excellently & some much more expensive ones poorly. That of course is totally beside the point as is the collector value of anything to its actual quality.
Don't know if they still do or not, but early Mickey Mouse watches were at one point bringing exorbitant prices, it certainly wasn't based on their Fine Multi-Jeweled Swiss Movements.
