Kensal, very good points. I'm going to have to rub my head a bit on that.

However, I am not asking what necessarily makes a "best gun" (as the makers you mention), as the techniques and materials could also be applied to other-grade guns that are made by largely the same methods. The comments Gunman made re Webley & Scott are what I was getting at.

As to the perplexing nature of my question, this author has always thought himself a journalist who write about guns rather than a "gunwriter" who knows it all. There's more than a semantic difference -- the more craftsmen I have visited the more I realize how little I know ... Hence the question.