doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com AYA quality control dates????

what were the bad years for AYA? looking for a 28 Ga AYA #4.
I know there were some QA/QC issues over the eyars.
what years should I stay away from? I never messed with Spanish Doubles. I am a Fox guy but feel like trying something different.
Any suggestion or advice is appreciated

Kyrie has laid out a pretty good outline of what the trouble was, it wasn’t a year thing, it was small manufacturers suddenly being inundated with orders that the cottage industry that supplied smalls was not really able to cope with. It affected all the Spanish makers, here and there. I think his advice was to look for guns that had a known history of use, as, those guns would either have been repaired if they had trouble, or, never had it to begin with.

That isn’t always possible, clearly. I know people, myself included, who have never had a problem, and, more than one English trained ‘Smith that spit on the floor when you mention Spanish makers. It must have been a heck of an issue, at one time.

See if you can search Kyrie’s posts here, which is a good place to start. He is still out there, but, doesn’t post all that much anymore.

Good luck. Mine is an Uggy boxlock, by the way, no trouble to report, but, it was vetted by Cole Haugh, who imported and worked on the guns, back in the day. Still looks good, too.



Best,
Ted

Suggestions and comments offered entirely for what it’s worth:

Don’t limit your search to AyA. At any given price point all the artisanal shotgun makers produced pretty much the same shotgun. Hence, at any given price point, AyA artisanal shotguns are neither better nor worse than similar guns made by any other artisanal Spanish shotgun maker.

Have patience. Historically the Spanish had little use for 28 gauge shotguns and produced very few for domestic consumption. The vast majority of the small number of 28 gauge shotguns were made for buyers here in the USA. You will be chasing an uncommon gun (FYI, I just checked Gun Broker and found only three Spanish made 28 gauge shotguns, out of a list of almost 100 shotguns).

Establish how much you are willing to pay for the gun you want before looking for the gun. Be prepared to see prices that run from hundreds of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. Be mindful that the actual “sold” price of any artisanal Spanish shotgun (and really, any firearm) is determined by the buyer’s willingness to spend more than it is the seller’s desired price.

Be mindful that each and every Spanish artisanal shotgun is made for some specific purpose or set of purposes. This characteristic means all Spanish artisanal shotguns fall into a continuum that ranges from Light Game Gun, to Medium Game Gun, to Heavy Competition Gun (AKA live pigeon gun).

Light game guns are said to be carried much and shot little. These are walk-up guns, for which five shots in any given day of hunting is heavy use.

Medium game guns are said to be carried little and shot much. Think of driven bird hunts; hunter on position shooting game driven to him, a good day may be several hundred birds taken. These guns ae also called “Fur and Feather” guns and used to hunt birds one day, rabbits the next, and end the week taking boar or deer with buck shot or ball.

Heavy competition guns are just what the name suggests; made for heavy use in high dollar prizes in live pigeon shooting contests. “Heavy use” here means shooting tens to hundreds of thousand shells a year.

Understanding this continuum, and where on it any given gun falls, is important.

Someone who buys a light game gun and tries to use it as if it were a heavy competition gun wears his gun our fast (and then complains about how shoddy the gun was made).

Someone who buys a heavy competition gun and tries to use it as a light game gun just wears himself out carrying over hill and dale.

Hope this introduction to Spanish artisanal shotguns is of some help.

Good to see you posting, Kyrie.

Best,
Ted

Kyrie,
Thanks. I am looking for a woodcock gun. I have a CSM RBL 28 which I hit nicely with but would like to try a straight grip 28 and the AYA seems to be close to what I am looking for,. not gogin to shoot sporting clays with it. just the usual 5-10 shots a day every once in a while.

how reliable are their ejectors. do you recommend going with extractors over ejectors.

I have a 12 gauge AyA from 1998 and a 20 gauge from 2009; the ejectors on both have been 100% reliable as are my wife's Grulla SLE and Ugartechea BLE. We had the guns converted to optionally extract by having screws installed over the ejector springs - with the screws installed it extracts for clays and with the screws removed it ejects for flurries or hunting. We had this done on my 2 AyA ejector guns and my wife's Grulla and Ugartechea ejector guns.

20220418_123407 by Robert Holliday, on Flickr

The guns with the worst reputation were made in the mid 1970's from my experience. That said, any gun which has seen decent use over 20, 30, 40 or greater years should be fine. I would be cautious of a safe queen which has not been shot much over 40-50 years. I have seen a couple 12's which seemed as new and had been stored in a safe because they frustrated the owner due to issues. I had a gunsmith who had worked on hundreds of these guns and he would harden several parts on a routine basis to eliminate issues. He said it was a hardening issue, sears, firing pins and hammers I recall, more than anything else and once properly hardened the issue went away with just a little fitting. Sadly he has passed away so he is no longer an option. But on Spanish guns, even in the 1970's era I suspect all the issues have been fixed for the most part with the exception of the few "un-fired" safe queens. Look for a gun with obvious use but not abuse and be happy. The previous owners have made sure the issues were fixed years ago so they could shoot them. Nobody can stand to shoot a gun which does not work on a regular basis. It gets fixed or sold down the road until some owner does fix it properly or screw it up so badly it becomes a parts gun. I have seen both examples. And I never saw a 28 or .410 with issues, I am sure a few exist, but the ones I knew about were mostly 10, 12 and a few 20's.

Cole Haugh told me he did the same thing to any Spanish double that came in, regardless of what work it was there for. Anneal, polish, reharden the guts.

I’d guess he learned that the hard way.

Best,
Ted

I think Cole was a repair station for these guns at one time. I know he has been one for several other importers.

He was. Also, was the Ugartechea importer, at one time.

Best,
Ted