"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.
Last edited by Lloyd3; 03/27/25 01:29 PM.
