The following is excerpted from Doug Tate's history of the firm that is posted on AA Brown's website, which I think gets at HojO's question:
During the austere period immediately after the war, when the steel tubes used to make shotgun barrels were unavailable, the Browns once again developed a strategy for survival. . . . .
The firm's record books for the 1950s and '60s are replete with guns made by A. A. Brown & Sons for other makers.
A recent visitor was shown entries for Holland & Holland, John Harper, and even Alex Martin "ribless" guns. Robin Brown explained that the Browns had made "many of the ribless guns for Alex Martin" and many of the XXVs sold by E. J. Churchill. . . . . Robin Brown explained how the Churchill firm would order guns of identical specifications from different makers Baker, Wrights or Brown that were engraved and finished except that the stock, though inletted and attached, remained in a rough and unfinished state. When a pair of guns was needed, Robert Churchill would select two likely candidates from the rack and have a stacker set about carving the wood to fit the customer. Robin's father, Sidney, said it was "pure hell" for the woodworker, but it meant finished guns could be ready in four or five weeks. On 9 January 1931, the Prince of Wales ordered a pair of Churchill "Premier" XXVs, and the guns were miraculously delivered five days later. Robin and Sidney Brown's explanation of how Churchill guns were made would account for the short delivery time.
Throughout the postwar period the Browns continued to build guns for the trade. Perhaps because they were industrious at a time when much of Britain wanted to rest after the exhausting task of defeating Hitler's Germany or perhaps because they had a mature highly skilled workforce dedicated to building the finest guns available they flourished where others had failed. When Joseph Asbury, which machined many of the actions for the trade went under, A. A. Brown acquired its machinery, giving Brown the capacity to machine its own actions from the raw forging. They also acquired the business and name of A. E. Bayliss & Co., a Birmingham Trade manufacturer who was pleased to pass his business over on his retirement. . . .
In the early 1960s, much of the gun quarter was redeveloped to make way for Birmingham's inner-ring road. It was a time of turmoil for the trade: Shooting was unfashionable, and apprentices were hard to find. Many well-known names R. B. Rodda & Co., Bentley & Playfair, and Clabrough & Johnstone disappeared rather than face the challenges of finding new premises, markets, and a work force. A. A. Brown's Sand Street premises became a multilevel parking structure, but the company found a new home within the Westley Richards firm out at Bournebrook. Westley Richards continued to build most of its own Anson and Deeley designed guns, particularly the hand-detachable lock model known to American collectors as the "droplock." However, for approximately fourteen years A. A. Brown built the Westley Richards best sidelock ejector gun together with a number of Connaught boxlocks using Brown's own thick walled replaceable hinge pin action which allowed for sleek rounded styling.
