doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com A Mystery: the source of frames and forend irons

Chops,

Stoeger imported the Royal and Royal light in the early 1960's. Mechanically the same guns as Ithaca sold in the 1970's and early 1980's, only nicer! I think 12 ga only, some with DT and a more traditional finish, CCH and blued. I lucked into one with 28" barrels and foolishly sold it, for a small profit at least. At the time nobody knew what it was. I've seen a couple of them since, just not at a bargain price!

Chief

The Japanese copied anything and everything they could make cheaper and sell to the world market. It was called a 'Japanese copy' long before the center of cheap imitations shifted to China.

Trouble was, the Japanese eventually got to where their 'copies' were actually quality merchandise.

They were sought out to produce copies of famous firearms when the work got too expensive to do in America and Europe. Thus the Miroku Brownings, the Parker repros, and the Model 12.

The Chinese have a way to go yet, but I have no doubt they will get there.

Have a friend here in town with what I thought was a mid grade Birmingham BL until I saw the Made in Japan moniker. It is a nice gun. Check out the WR droplock copy at Hill rod and Gun archive. I believe it sold for ~ $2200 a couple of years ago.

Chief, the 1961 Shooters Bible does indeed show the SKB Royal Deluxe, with a price of $400. The same catalog shows the Bernardelli Holland and Franchi Condor--both sidelocks--for $450 and $470, respectively. I think SKB must have done some fairly serious corner-cutting when Ithaca was importing their guns. (Minor correction: that relationship lasted from the mid-60's through the mid-70's.) I bought a brand new Ithaca SKB Model 150 in 1972 for $162. That was a military rod & gun club price, so better than normal retail . . . and a real bargain. Eventually, Ithaca parted company from SKB because of significant price increases.

We also need to remember than H&H eventually owned Webley & Scott, and had boxlocks made there under the H&H name. Gunman, were you still there at that time?

Col. Brown,

I stand corrected! Bought my 100 in '77, it's Ithaca/SKB marked. Leftovers? I think I paid a bit over 200.00, still a great bargain as I have shot that gun a bunch over the last 34 years.

The '62 Stoeger has the Royal still listed at $400. with many up grades available. The one I had was a good gun looking back on it.

The post Ithaca SKB's, (385) don't have that "feel" to them the Ithaca/SKB guns have. They are much more attractive though.

Chief

For a brief period of time (I think a couple years at most), after the Ithaca-SKB "divorce", SKB's were brought in under the Mitsui name. Looked the same, minus the Ithaca Raybar front sight. But if yours is marked Ithaca, it would have been a leftover in 77.

The most recent ones (385/485) are indeed more attractive and have choke tubes--but heavier than the Ithaca-era guns.

To add to Jonesy's comment, as everyone knows, the Japanese not only made copies that were quality, they made products that were leaders in markets in their own right.

As to the Chinese, they are coming on at twice the speed the Japanese did. They are throttling back some just to keep from imploding. But they are already a marketing world power in just 3 decades of trade. I've been there once and have hosted their aviation authority a couple times, I'll see them very soon, and they visit us regularly, more for "how goes it" than anything. The point is, they are keeping a presence in the U.S. for it's potential. They buy huge numbers of commercial aircraft from the U.S. and the EU and other products.

I wonder if Miroku still makes s/s guns for european markets? I am still pissed off that Browning muscled their way into the Miroku line of guns. I have a Charles Daly Miroku Model 500 which is a fantastic gun in all repects. Unfortunately, it's a 12 but has 30" M&F tubes. Wonder when it was made? Chops

Chops,

Your Daly was made by Miroku sometime during the period of 1963 to 1976 according to the blue book.

I tried to hold out for a bargain on a Miroku model F SxS a couple of years ago. I should have just bought it. This is a twin to the Browning BSL, at half the price.

Chief

I don't think they're making any sxs these days. I was part of a writers' group that initially tested the then-new Cynergy. Some of us suggested to the Browning people that they ought to bring back the BSS. By that time, apparently everyone at Miroku involved in making sxs had retired. Might have been that they also no longer had the tooling. Anyhow, they said it would not happen. Too bad, because Miroku made very nice sxs--with a lot of us preferring the Dalys and their other models that were just marked Miroku.