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

David: Would you ever consider republishing your book on LC Smith hammerguns? (I'd very-much like to have a copy.) The few excerpts you've provided over on the Smith webpage have been very impressive.

I’ll be glad to. I’m out of state right now caring for an elderly family member but will get the details to you as soon as I get back to Cali-rado.

Lloyd, I have done a few updated versions because new material is always surfacing , but those are all gone. I only had 25 books that were self published. I was thinking of doing another and I will let you know if and when I do. Thanks for asking.

Thanks, and hope your family member is doing better.

Keith I believe you are right, the forging of the receivers were probably slightly thicker and then machined to the dimensions they used. I always called them convex ribs which someone had to hand shape. Why they did this who knows but again I believe it was for aesthetic reasons and later on when Fulton had their own molds and dies they did away with them and in late1899, the joint check was stopped, last one I have in my records is s/n 78444, s/n 78619 also 1899 did not have the joint check.
In a way it is a shame that it was done away with because it made opening these guns so much easier because they opened farther which made removing shells easier. These serial numbers are for hammer guns, I don't know at what serial number they stopped on hammerless guns.

David: I was just re-reading one of your prior texts here and I finally realized (Duh!...not sure why this took me so long?) that the formal name of the Syracuse operation was "The Syracuse Gun Company" who just happened to make "LC Smith" guns. A small but very important distinction here (certainly from a business perspective).

The Syracuse Gun Company became the Hunter Arms Company after the sale, but curiously...they both made the "LC Smith" gun. By rights, they should have been called the "Alexander T. Brown" gun because Lyman C. Smith was merely a "financial promoter" in all of this.

He bought into Mr. Brown's previous 3-barrel gun business in Syracuse, heavily promoted that company's then "new" hammerless gun designs and promptly sold it to the Hunters (for a handsome profit, I'm sure). He then abandoned gunmaking altogether to invest in another company (based on yet another A.T. Brown design) that became the "Smith-Corona'" typewriter. He funded the building of the LC Smith Tower in Seattle, Washington, starting in 1914 (one of the very 1st "skyscrapers" west of the Mississippi) using the profits from the sale his interests in both Smith-Corona and his many previous companies (including Syracuse Gun). Not sure why "LC Smith" means anything at all to guns folks (at this juncture) but that's "the power of advertising" I guess.

All the original engineering and design work came off of Mr. Browns desk. The "rotary bolt" that was used so-successfully (and for so long) by both of these companies (and by several others) was purely his idea. The "unsung hero" to the end, all the Syracuse "Elsie" guns reflect his genius and his engineering prowess. They also reflect the "build quality" of a small "boutique" gunmaking business that started in Syracuse, New York in 1877.

Postscript: I guess Lyman C Smith should get a bit more credit here, because after reading more closely about him in Houchin's book I can see why he might be more deserving of some admiration.

Lloyd that was the agreement made when Lyman sold the company to John Hunter Sr. that the name L.C. Smith would be on the guns. As to Alexander Brown, a very talented man, who worked for Lyman and all patents went to the gun company as it would now. If you work for someone and invent something while in their service that pertains to the that company, it belongs to the company unless they agree otherwise.

Alexander Brown later invented the Dunlop Tire and other things and at one time became superintendent of the Syracuse Gun Company.

In 1877 Lyman was contacted by his older brother Leroy (who worked for William H Baker) to help fund that company, Lyman agreed but now the company was called L..C. Smith Maker of Baker Guns, Syracuse, N.Y. Both Leroy and Baker left after 3 years and along with other business men including his brother-in-law George Livermore went to Ithaca in 1880. When they left Lyman business was not hampered and Lyman hired his younger brother Wilbert and at this time is when Alexander T. Brown came on board.

"Did some more reading here on the subject this morning. Too many "Browns" and "Bakers" involved here and way too-many gunmaking companies that also got started in Syracuse, New York in the 1880s (it was evidently a "hot-bed" of gun manufacturing during that period).

Long story short, doubleguns made in small shops by only a few "talented" people are usually (IMHO) superior to any guns made in an industrialized "assembly-line" process. The pre-Fulton LC Smith guns were made very differently than the veritable-deluge of firearms that followed after them. This isn't a knock on all the later guns (because some were pretty exceptional). There were even a number of post-1913 guns that were finished to a much-higher level and moreover, those many "field-grade" guns allowed for lots of folks (who otherwise could not have afforded a "decent" doublegun) to discover all the joys of "fine shotgunning" (myself included). Those guns are still being "handed-down" in families today that revere the memories of their prior owners and of all the past hunts that they were involved in.

Lloyd, I'm sure some on here are getting tired of this, but lets go on. In 1886 a Quality 2 hammerless gun went for $80.00 to the public, which in todays market is $2700, the highest a Quality 7 went or $740 and at the time was the most expensive shotgun made anywhere, today it would be $25,000. The average annual American wage in 1886 was $551, so $80 was a lot of money back then and really not many could afford these guns when most just wanted a simple gun to put food on the table. So these guns that have lasted 136 and some hammer guns even later goes to show how they were built. Compare some of the English hammer gun workings and then compare the workings of an L.C. Smith hammer gun and they look quite similar. Even though the later Fulton guns were mass produced there was still hand work that had to be done by skilled mechanics.

As a nod to convention, I finally ponied-up for one of Mr. Stubbendieck's "official LCSCA" (LC SMith Collectors Association) letters on this gun, and while it's nice to have, it really didn't add much to my knowledge about this artifact.

Sadly, (& as I had suspected from my reading) the records for that period are just so-spotty that he had very little to work with. He did a lovely job of filling the page with all the "known" (published and available) information from that period and about this particular model of LC Smith gun (options, total estimated production numbers and years produced for this model, and even the initial price when completed [$83.50, which is about $2,915 in current dollars]) but...really, the only added and "new" information for me was that "the finish date is calculated to be March of 1890". He also further confirmed for me that "at this time, Hunter Arms was using frames and other LC Smith parts that came with the purchase of the Syracuse LC Smith factory".

Another perhaps useful detail (and at the very end of the letter) was that of the 749 "Quality 2" guns recorded as being produced in Fulton in 1890, 601 of them were "of the same configuration" as this one (meaning I presume, the same gauge and barrel length). I don't mean to winge, but I was hoping that a bit more "enlightening" and insightful information would be revealed by these now "fragile & historic" documents (or even his particular insights, which would have to be substantial). Oh well, at least I now have this very nice "signed & sealed" and very official-looking document to go along with the gun when my time with it is ended. Perhaps it will help my son (or whomever) appreciate it more at that time?