doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Scarcity of A & N Small Bore Guns

Recently I received a page from the journal of Army & Navy for my 16 ga. The page has a total of 24 guns on it and reveals how few small bore guns were sold, at least in the early 1900's. It took A&N a little over 3 1/2 years to sell these 24 guns. Of the 24 guns 9 were 16 ga, 10 were 20 ga and 5 were 28 ga. Less than 8 guns a year.

If some one has a 12 ga page from Army & Navy I would be interested in how long it took them to sell a similar number of the larger bore guns. The other book may cover all large bore guns, I really don't know.

The gun of the times was the 12bore.
Just the thing for driven grouse, flighted mallards and pigeons.

Lowell:
I believe that is still true today on the other side of the pond. I am trying to get my arms around the percentage of guns that were small bore.

Thanks,

Mike

Dear Mr Brown

Thank you for your enquiry. According to the Army & Navy records that we hold, your gun was originally purchased by Mr J. Capping in 1913 for £07.07.00

A copy of the full entry in the sales registers costs £23.50. Please complete the attached forms and mail them back to us if you wish to use this service.

Please ask for a copy of the entry for gun number 58756 in volume reference HF6/8/13 and quote order reference number 06/2215/3776

I hope this information is of use to you.

Yours sincerely
William Bill
archive assistant

The Duty Archivist
Glasgow University Archive Services
13 Thurso Street, Glasgow G11 6PE, U.K.
Tel: +44 (0) 141-330-5515
Fax: +44 (0) 141-330-2640
E-mail: dutyarch@archives.gla.ac.uk
URL: http://www.archives.gla.ac.uk
--

Chicago, the page I have from the A&N records (March 32 to May 34) contains 23 12 bores. However, I gather from an entry at the top of the page that the guns were categorized not only by bore, but also by type. The entry at the top of the page reads "Anson Hammerless Ejector Guns"--which I would take to mean that sidelocks, hammerguns, and nonejector guns are all listed elsewhere. So those 23 12 bores would not have been all the 12's sold by A&N over that 26 month period, even though I'd guess sales might have been a bit sluggish during those Depression years.

L. Brown:
That's interesting, the Small Bore Hammerless page I have (Nov. 02 to June 06) seems to cover all types of actions. I am not quite sure how to decipher the descriptions. They talk about 1 A&W....., 1 A&D H'less. I gather the latter is a Anson & Deeley Hammerless and not sure about former. My 16 is a sidelock.

Of most interest is a two barrel 16/28 set and according to a note in the description, apparently a Purdey. I gather you could order a Purdey from the CSL, but it is assigned an A&N serial number and barrel numbers.

The Purdey would be bought from the co-op? It would be a Purdey except for the A&N serial and barrel numbers? Any notions of the arrangement? Purdey using A&N as a distributer? A better deal for the cooperators?

The Purdey/A&N rumour surfaces again!
More than once I've heard some reasonably well-schooled people speculate that a few A&N guns were possibly trade-built by Purdey; they've always been poo-pooed, but this may be concrete primary source evidence for such a legend.
RG

Purdey has always been forth coming with info on their guns - thats why this is a urban legend. I'm sure some overly excited chap has dialed them up on this very subject.
So, the ol'matey's set of guns, were Purdeys eh?
Oh dear, mother coulda had that operation!

....and why should this be surprising? Those laddies were just getting over using 8br and 10br breech-loading "SMOKE PIPES". You know, not for Nitro thingys.