doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com "Not In-House" British gunmakers.

" If they outsourced their guns to very qualified turkish
or pakistani craftsmen to cut costs, then are the k/quids you are paying justified?"

Jaycee, I think so. They price what the market will bear, as long as people keep buying the name. It's vanity, a conceit. We are what we own, eh?

I'm a bottom-feeder when it comes to British guns, with Army and Navy---made by some of the best.

"That's exactly what Holland & Holland did."

I don't pretend to know all the history on specific English gun marques, but I have done a little reading, and I was under the impression that Holland personally oversaw the "production" of guns with his name on it at the beginning, and that he then brought his nephew(?)into the business and eventually turned over the general overseeing to him but was litterally still involved pretty much until he died. I don't equate this to Holland simply being a designer of Holland guns at the outset anhd outsourcing the primary manufacturing to others to his specs, and then being a quality control department for the outsourced nearly complete components and then simply an assembler to justify his pricing.

I did watch a partial video which was on the net this past year on what makes an H&H a desired gun (I don't own the full video that is available). It showed the barrel blanks they received from the blank maker (I never expected them to make their own blanks) but it sure left me with the impression that they "made" the finished barrel from the bought-in blank in-house and simply didn't get a 90-95% finished outsourced barrel to just do Q.C. and final finishing on. And it showed them putting a screw in, finishing the surface flush to the receiver by hand, and then hand cutting the slot perfectly in the direction desired. This gave me a very different impression from buying their screws from a screw manufacturer, and never left me with the impression that what I was seeing was being done say in Spain for them and what I was seeing was actually a Spanish workbench and Spanish craftsman hands.

After watching the video for the first time I began to get an appreciation for why these guns may be worth the money with all this work in house with personal factory supervision during the various manufacturing processes, to insure the product was worthy of the H&H name on the finished product.

And if I am correct a $100K+ CNC machine can make more than just one part. You make a run of one part in a quantity needed to say last 6-12 mos, reset the machine over 1-2 days and make a run of another part. If you can sell $100K+ guns you can certainly afford to own a few CNC machines yourself. Pick up a Henry rifle catalog and read through it to see what they manufacture themselves. They are very proud of their in-house manufacturing (and believe it or not they can make a quality gun right here in the USA and have the retail prices of models range from an affordable $400-800).

I am beginning to think the "bottom feeder" for Army and Navy guns is the really intelligent one who is truly "buying the gun and not the name". He is buying an extremely well made gun that was made by a quality maker at a time where there was personal pride of manufacturing supervision by the owner of the gun firm.

So it seems that if all this is now true, that the great English marques are simply QC and assembly of components made from sources all over Europe, having a H&H or Purdey or whatever is simply for bragging rights to show off to your friends as to how much money you have and can spend.

I don't even have the cash for a best Spanish gun, but if I did I would be probably smartest to buy one of their best special order in Purdey or H&H style, save a lot of money by having no engraving whatsover, and then have a good engraver right here in the USA put the English name and engraving on it. It would be made and function as well as an English best from the practical standpoint, and all the guys at the range would go ooh and ahh and never know the difference.

This is much about ethnic prejudice and nationalistic bias as it is about vertical integration. As suggested above, no big-three U.S. automaker has even attempted to build a modern automobile wihout jobbing out parts production. At a time when parking a "foreign" car on the lot of a UAW local was forbidden, outsourcing to Japan was already in full swing.

If James Purdey were to "own and operate" a smelter and rolling mill in Turkey, would anyone find that bit of news reassuring. If he were to adopt a young Turkish lad, name him Jimmy Purdey the fourth or whatever and send him to learn action filing, would that satisfy anyone? Parts is parts; they do have to be made to fit together somewhere. The gun quarters of Birmingham, St. Etienne, Herstahl, etc. were no doubt a source of chauvinistic pride; apparently no one is happy with an "international" gun, however well executed, although the simple fact of outsourcing across national boundaries is as old as Spanish steel and Belgian barrels.

jack

O.K., so it looks like I am in the real minority here.

But someone please explain this to me: Why do forum members bad mouth S&W and Kimber for having shotguns made in Turkey for them with their brand to supposedly their design and "rice point", but it's supposedly O.K. for Purdey to theoretically do so?

So if I get this right and Kimber were to in theory spec out a great double made for them in Turkey that by all comparisons was the quality equivalent of Purdey for $35K, would forum members say it was an absolutely great deal and then recommend to others to buy the gun and not the name?

Remember that this is in theory, so thus under these circumstances possible, so you cannot answer that the difference is that no Turkish maker can do that.

Nice shot, rabbit. It sure hit me, as a sort of birthplace chauvinist. I am prejudiced against one country (with no members here) for political, not ethnic, reasons. No, it's not Japan. Having said that, it wouldn't matter to me where the parts were made or assembled (except for that one country) as long as it was a good gun . The Turks are wonderful people---there were no Turkish POWs in Korea---and the Chinese have arguably the strongest work ethic or one of the strongest anywhere. I have no hangup about an "international" gun, and expect to see a good Chinese one with parts from the US and Europe, like new Cessnas with US parts and German engines coming from China. My sentiments remain, however, with the old American hardware guns. They're part of me, part of my culture.

Sorry, it was a typo not prejudice, the previous post was to say "price point" not "rice point". Don't point any fingers at me.

By the way, I own American, English, Italian, Austrian, Czech and Turkish guns...shotguns, rifles and pistols/revolvers.

This is an interesting thread to me. I don't know much about the English gunmaking biz other than what I've read here and there. But I've spent all of my working life in and around the manufacturing biz, mostly aerospace, but some commercial mfg as well. That's why this thread captures my attention.

I did buy the H&H video. It touched on bits of the manufacturing here and there that the video producers thought would be of interest and it contained little detail and no surprises to me.

The points brought up about maintaining brand/nationalistic integrity and the point about ethnic predjudice all ring true to me. Our predjudices (forward projection of our past experiences) are what we base most of our daily decisions on, including purchases. The older we get, the more past experiences we have and the more 'predjudices' we have...right or wrong.

Outsourcing at any level, has pitfalls and advantages. The old aircraft makers in the golden age of aviation realized the pitfalls could limit their progress, affect their reputation, or bring their production to a standstill and sought to control those things by making as much in-house as possible. I see a parallel of that concern by some of the big name London gunmakers as well.

A great example of all the benefits and pitfalls of outsourcing by a highly held brand is the Boeing 787 project. It has had delays due to outsourcing and will also reap many benefits from it in the long haul.

Gunmakers without borders eh?

Thus, the debate has turned mainly amongst people from the Western Hemisphere, that mostly have not inside knowledge; meanwhile Britons had remained conspicuosly silent. Sometimes silence speaks a lot.

Let me insist that my original question IS RELEVANT, at least for many potential buyers that have the money but not the time to find out when they go "into a sea, of great guns and fine people, that is occasionally punctuated by sharks, charlatans and exorbitant prices" in the words of Ross Seyfried.

It is an established fact that outsoursing amongst the London gun makers is kept as secret as possible. Its is also a fact that they have no trouble mentioning that stocks are obtained from Turkey, but some are not so willing to say from where they obtain their barrels, frames and locks.

Lets asume for the sake of argument that a London gun maker gets their guns in the white from Spain. Once they are finished he charges €53.000 + VAT for a best side by side. Then lets have a look what the Basques have to offer in their top of the line side by sides. What we found is that we can buy three or four guns from Arrizabalaga, Arrieta, AYA, Garbi or Grulla, that will be in the same category, the only difference being barrel and wood finish and engraving. My bet would be that a good number of discerning buyers, having the money and being in the know, will go for a pair of Spanish best guns, spending the balance in a series of driven shooting parties, probably in Britain.

If this is the case --and I suspect it is-- it is not surprising that silence is the answer we are getting from Albion.

Why would anyone assume that ?