doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com For appearance's sake...

Did you ever buy a gun (or date a women) just because you liked how they looked?

Guilty on both counts here. Usually there's a bit more to the equation, but psychologists will tell you that the human "male" animal is clearly "visually" stimulated. Women in general (& all of their clothing and cosmetic makers) along with most of the better gunmakers clearly know this fact to be so damnedably-true and the "packaging" on any and all of these items is usually very-carefully considered before anything is placed upon "display".

Societal forces are ever-present in our lives (even in our later years), and while never being too-much of a "slave to fashion" myself, I find myself here playing a game I thought was well-over for me. I'm usually a "form controlling function" kind-of guy and I normally don't spend much time fussing over the "decorations". Economics have also always intruded into my life, so while I might appreciate the "better" options I usually default to the more practical solutions. True to my (much diluted) Scotch-heritage, I usually do a fairly complete "cost-benefit" analysis on something before I pony-up the cash for it. In this case, however, I've gone a bit astray.

LC Smith guns usually don't get much love here, and for reasons typically associated with "mass production". But...before Lyman C. Smith sold his gunmaking enterprise to the Hunter brothers (wayyy back in 1888), his shop was much more-aligned with the British model of "master and apprentice" gunmaking, and while the Hunter Brother's in Fulton, New York cranked out something like a half a million LC Smith guns over their 50-plus years of production, the much-smaller operation in Syracuse, New York only produced something like 6 thousand guns over it's relatively-short production period (and from only 1886 to 1888-9 for the hammerless guns). With the completion of the sale of the company in late 1888, the whole enterprise was loaded-up and carted-off to the "new" location in Fulton and production of guns resumed there (some say as early as in 1889). For the first few years, the guns remained largely unchanged, using the same designs and models (along with the actions, barrels and wood) previously secured by the earlier version of that gunmaking enterprise. This is one of those guns...





I don't believe I've handled or even seen a "Syracuse" type or grade of "Elsie" before this Quality 2 gun, and if I had, it must have been a specimen in very poor-condition because I simply don't remember finding it very attractive. Up until this point, all the LC Smith guns I'd ever really handled were the later Fulton models (& primarily field grades). I had actually acquired a very-plain Quality 1 gun shortly before this one (the earliest iteration of the "Field Grade" gun), there was a "Monogram" in the shop for a year or so that I got to measure and look-over fully, and I've seen and handled quite a few "Specialty Grade" guns over the years.

While all the Fulton guns were seemingly "flat-bottomed" actions the Syracuse guns were definitely not, with big "bolsters" filed into the base of each action and with matching shapes incorporated into the heads of the best "English" walnut stocks that were used almost exclusively then. While this gun was clearly not made in Syracuse (it's a 1st year Fulton gun, made in 1890) it is so-different than any of the guns that came after it and...it really pleases my eye to behold it.

It's a big and accordingly-heavy 30-inch tubed 12-gauge, made when one gun "had to do it all" & I'm certainly not going to be hauling it around in the uplands anytime soon. It's a got a bit too-much drop for me and it's a little short for me as well but...I look at it the way I used to look at my grandfather's Elsie, when all of this gun stuff was still "new" to me. It is just so "American" to me (and in so-many ways!) that I get a real "kick" out of it (and that seems to be getting harder for me to do these days). Pure fun, and hopefully some function to follow shortly.