"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.
