doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Cheap English SXSs for newbies

""30" barrels are a must, for an English gun!""
I have a J P Clabrough SLNE with 28" bbls that is one of the best shooting guns I ever owned. I can think of absolutely nothing an extra two inches of bbl would add except unnecessary wt & slowing of it's swing. Of course perhaps the fact i'm only about 5'8" has some to do with it. I think the length of a person's arms has a lot to do with the length of bbl which best serve him. I don't much care what fashion dictates, 28" is my favorite bbl length for a double.

Rocketman,

Please explain your codes. I'm familiar with english guns, but haven't seen these codes. Have you developed your own model of what guns should cost? I'd like to see some of your equations. It might be quite enlightening.

Have alook at the guns for sale on my website - I'm building up an inventory of lower priced English guns for people just like you!

The only problem is the cost of export- but like Rocketman, you could come over and double up a visit to old London town with a souvenir that shoots!

I'd add one caveat to Rocketman's post. About the only English gun I can think of that doesn't fit his model very well is the BSA, which is a machine-made gun, as opposed to virtually all the other Birmingham boxlocks, on which most of the work was done by hand. If you pay the same money for a BSA as you would for another Birmingham nonejector, you've just made a costly mistake. And I'd also add that you're talking strictly 12's if you're interested in keeping the cost down. There's a significant premium for the smaller gauges.

Jake, in your suggested price range, the Scott 700 is a good place to start. Modern gun, and as Rocketman said, pretty much bulletproof. But there are quite a few BLE options in that $2500-3000 range.

The Webly 400 series action was the basis for a lot of 'Trade' guns and was the precursor to the 700.

Non-ejectors built on this action bearing lots of names of provincial retailers or gun makers are very commonly available for not much money.

Any gun of this type built between around 1900 and 1930 should be available for well inside your budget(£500 will do the job here).

They are well-built, reliable and decently balanced and finished.

Prarierat....on the opening page of doublegunshop.com, hit the lower drop box, there are dozens of dealers there...go through every one of em...Hill rod & gun is a good one,thadscott.com..
Also doublegun.com has a slew of dealers...check stephen cobb.
Look in the for sale section here.
Gunsamerica.com is another, but I don't like the new site, but you can sign up to be e mailed with a list of new listings as they come in, for say european or english guns..wish list i think they call it?
And plan ahead & find a good Double Gunsmith near you to send it to for a check over..that is money well spent & peace of mind.
good huntin'
franc

The model I use was developed from watching the market, especially auctions. It seems to apply to Brit and Continental SXS of 12 gauge (1890ish to 1960ish), wood and engraving typical for the grade of gun, and retail in USA. Extra finish, small bore, O/U, and double rifle command premiums. It is generally good for about plus/minus 10%, but don't try to make it gospel - it is a guide.

The organization is a 3-D set of pigeon holes - think of a Rubic's Cube with a 9 X 9 face and five layers deep. The face of each layer is nine Original Quality grades (OQ) by nine Current Condition levels (CC). Each layer is for a Brand Value level (BV).

The codes.

Brand Value (BV) = the price value added to a gun by the presence of a maker's name or lack thereof. BV1 = a mutiplier of eight and is composed of Boss, H&H, Purdey, and Woodward. There are 17 Brit makers in BV2 and the multiplier is six. BV3 includes the rest of the Brit makers and well known and highly reguarded Continental makers; the multiplier is four. Continental makers of recognized name generally fit to BV4 and have a multiplier of two. No-name or unrecognized name usually fit to BV5 and have a multiplier of one.

Original Quality (OQ) is independent of the make's name. If you learn nothing else, learn this, please. There are nine OQ grades from best SLE to colonial/farmer BLNE with a range of just over 20X. The grades I use are based on SL vs BL, ejector vs extractor, amount of engraving, quality of the wood, and fit and finish. With some practice, they are generic enough to be used with simple photos and descriptions. The foundation principle is that Brit and Continental guns are honest in correlation of appearance to quality.

Current Condition (CC) level is just that. There are nine levels with a value range of just over 20X. The range is pristine (CC1) to wallhanger (CC9). Again, the descriptions are simple, but require some observation and practice.

Anyone who runs Excel and wants the file is welcome. PM me an email address and I'll send it along. Anyone who doesn't run Excel and wants a copy should send me a land address and I'll send hard copy.

This model is no substitute for personal sutdy and observation. However, it can jump start your understanding by organizing the material into descrete segments and areas of study. For those who have handled enough guns and studied enough, the answers as to value are intuitive. That is good. For me, an organized approach helps me learn faster; and I need all the help I can get. When shopping for a gun, looking up a proposed price range for a candidate is a good "grounding" exercise; prices determined in the dispassion of study, not in the heat of a gun buy. Also, I find it very useful to look up the required OQ and CC to meet a posted price and asking myself if the gun meets those requirements.

Hey Smallbore, I've only been to London twice, once while on an extended trip to visit friends in Paris and once year before last herding around a group of my wife's high school students. I fell in love with it, but both times I tried desperately and without luck to find a London gun shop. We're planning on another trip next summer so I will make it a point to track your shop down.
Ironically, I did find a small gun shop in Paris, but I committed the unforgiveable faux pax of greeting the owner in English rather than my fractured French. He got angry and pretended to not know English, even though the friends we were with assured me that, like most of the French, he spoke it fluently. I got a kick out of that

I forgot to add, Smallbore, that the thought of actually buying an English double in London appeals to my sense of synergy, even if it is a plain-jane gun (I'm a plain-jane guy with a plain-jane budget anyway...)
Roughly speaking, how much would it cost and what is the procedure to export a gun from the UK to, say, my local gun shop here in Woodward, Oklahoma? Can you give me a breakdown of what's involved? I'm seriously intrigued. If we come back to London next summer it'll more than likely be with an EF tour group and we'd be there two-three days before going on to Paris and Rome (my wife's a humanities teacher, otherwise I'd rather loiter in London the whole 10 days...)
Would that be enough time to browse your shop and maybe get the ball rolling? Of course, my wife's kids would probably think it's kinda strange for Mrs. Prairierat's husband to be buying shotguns during their educational tour...

Prairierat

I don't run a retail premises but I can very easily put ten guns in front of you that are within your budget and of the type you specify. If we go up the road to a clay ground , you can shoot any that you fancy on the Sporting or Skeet range and do a deal if happy.

I can accompany you to your airport with the gun, fill-in the export paperwork and off you go with the gun stowed in the hold (if it is post 1897, you'll need some authority papers to show you are allowed to take posession of the gun in the USA). In the UK, it travels on my authority as an RFD.