Hi pooch, boy a very complex question in a lot of ways. The era of the cheap Spanish guns and the "Soft" steel legend really came into being in the late 50's thru the late 60's early 70's. The guns made by Victor Sarasqueta and imported by Stoeger were good quality guns. Stoeger did not import junk from Spain. They did request features from VS for what Americans thought a double should be (BTFE, PG,ST, vent rib etc). Once the Stoeger imports became somewhat successful, other importers jumped on the band wagon. The guns that they imported were by and large cheap "Price Point" guns (every gun is a price point gun, but the term has come to mean cheap & low quality). The importer would seek out a maker, who would be willing to make whatever gun and specs the importer wanted for a set price. The importer needs to make a profit, so they would request this, that and the other thing and only pay the maker X amount. The maker would complete the gun and would pretty it up on the outside, but in order for the maker to get a profit had to cut somewhere. Mostly on the inside of the action, where parts were not hardened properly, lower quality materials, bbl regulation was hit or miss and not a lot of time was spent on them to ensurea good gun. The guns of course showed this over use and thus we have the cheap throw away after one season gun. Spanish steel is some of the best in the world, even during the embargo, their steel was good quality, a lot of the meterials came from Sweden and other parts of the europe for this steel. The problem came in with the hardening and quality of steel used on price point guns. Like anything else, steel can be good or bad all depends on what you want the how much you want to pay. So the myth and legend of all Spanish steel being cheap came into being. The 80's saw DIARM come into being, this was the death of most of Spains smaller makers, it did in one sense usher in a new era of Spanish gunmaking. The firms that survived it (AyA being one) and those who did not join now started to get their Sh** together and started to make higher quality well regarded guns. There is a lot more to this story and I past over a few areas, but this is just a down and dirty answer. I'm sure others will chime in with some points I've missed or expand on what I've said, I'm looking forward to hearing them.
All the best!
Greg
