doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Wilkes Barre Gun Company

Check this guy's YOU TUBE channel out

Pity it did not occur to him to open the gun so we could see more of the top extension.

muy bonito...

That gun certainly doesn't look like the C-Grades in my picture file.





The grade was marked in the wood of the forearm. Red arrow --



I kind of wonder if that guys gun was a gun assembled from parts by an employee after the company folded up and the frame didn't get hardened? Hence the off face and stripped out screw?

Here you go, Parabola

Did the WB gun company have anything to do with the Three Barrel gun company of West Va?

Nothing at all. The plant manager of Wilkes Barre Gun Co. was Albert J. Aubrey and they built a hammerless gun based on Joseph Tonks patents.

They were only in business for a short period of time in the early 1890's. When the Parry Fire Arms Company failed in Ithaca, NY, in 1891, the machinery, patents and parts went to Wilkes-Barre. Wilkes-Barre assembled quite a few Parry hammer doubles and put their name on them, and also made a hammerless double using Joseph Tonks patents #333,795 granted Jan. 5,1886 and #514,574 granted Feb. 13, 1894. The hammerless guns were made in four catalogued grades -- Grade A, $60 list, with twist barrels, 10- and 12-gauge -- Grade B, $80 list, with fine Damascus barrels, 10-, 12- and 16-gauge -- Grade C, $100 list; with very fine Damascus barrels; choice of full or half-pistol grip; 10-, 12- and 16-gauge -- Grade D; $125 list; with extra fine Damascus barrels; 10-, 12- and 16-gauge. The assets of the company were sold at auction in October 1895. There is about a page on Wilkes-Barre in a McIntosh article in Volume Two, Issue 1, of The Double Gun Journal.

Albert James Aubrey (Feb 23, 1862 to Dec. 3, 1947) was born in Meriden, CT., and by the 1880 "U.S. Census was, at age 17, listed as working in the gun factory, likely Parker Bros. (My math says he should have been 18, but the census says 17?!?) On Nov 25, 1891, Albert married Miss Blanche Boomer of Wilkes-Barre, PA. in Fulton, New York. Maybe he was working at Hunter Arms at that time. The 1893 Wilkes-Barre City directory listed Albert as plant superintendent for the Wilkes-Barre Gun Co. When Wilkes-Barre Gun Co. folded the 1895 WB City directory lists Albert as removed to Elmira, NY.

Albert became manager of production for Sears, Roebuck & Co. in 1904. He convinced Sears it would be more profitable to make their own guns then contract out. In 1905 they bought a factory in Meriden, and with Albert J. Aubrey as vice president formed the Meriden Firearms Co.

From the 1894 Wilkes-Barrel City Directory --

Wilkes-Barre Gun Co. -- Organized 1891; capital $75,000; Factory, Oxford cor. Wyoming; Lee Park. Moses W. Wadhams, pres.; C. Stegmaier, vice pres.; Jesse T. Morgan, treas.; George P. Loomis, sec.; Albert J. Aubrey, factory supt. Annual meeting of stockholders third Thursday in January, at factory.

No connection with Frank A. Hollenbeck. Frank was busy getting Syracuse Arms Co. going during the years Wilkes-Barre Gun Co. was in existence.

Wilkes Barre Gun Co. was capable of some fancy work. Some years ago Harry Sanders sent me this pic --

To fill in one gap (likely courtesy of Pete Mikalajunas)
As noted after Wiles-Barre went into receivership in 1895, Aubrey was a principle with Elmira Arms Co., and became the sole proprietor of Elmira Arms in Dec., 1895. John Willys and a group of associates purchased Elmira Arms Co. in 1898, and I don't know what happened to A.J. or the gun production. In 1900 he was living in Norwich, Conn. and working for Colt.
More about Willys here
https://www.stargazette.com/story/n.../22/dawn-auto-industry-elmira/689930001/
Elmira Arms Co. became a general & sporting goods co. and was in business into the early 60s.

Those are some nice old guns. I've never seen one in person, which is somewhat understandable considering that the total production is said to be less than 500 guns total.


Shotgun frames of this vintage were typically rather low carbon steel, so they were usually case hardened since the low carbon steel can't be heat treated. I don't think case hardening a few thousandths thick would do much at all to prevent a gun from going off-face, or preventing screw threads from getting stripped out. More likely the result of being shot a lot with inappropriate loads, and someone improperly tightening or removing the screw at some point.

The picture of the gun owned by Harry Sanders is very nice. But whoever pinned the stock through the cheeks in that manner was a jackass. With that fine and dark checkering in the cheek panels, it could have easily been fixed with a repair that would be nearly invisible. That so-called repair is about like fixing a defect in the Mona Lisa with a piece of duct tape.

Elmira Arms Co., the Hartmann brothers, certainly operated well into the 2000s, but at some point they slipped across the border into Pennsylvania and if I remember right still later to Florida.