Interesting question. Certainly in the U.K. guns sales were hit in different ways. Most gun firms during WWI were contracted for government work. Gunmakers such as Purdey and Holland's were doing things like fixing scopes on sniper rifles. Most of the staff who were of military age were called up with many working as Armourers. Post WWI a lot of guns that had been on order did not have their customer anymore having become a casualty so that there we a number of already made up guns going second hand. The Government put huge restriction of gun making firms under The Defence of the Realm Act so that they could be fully utilised on war contract work. Similar in WWII with most on war work. I suppose that those that were made during this period were almost finished items that required little further work. Oddly, I have two Belgian guns with WWII war time date codes on them. Lagopus…..
