This thread started with a set of questions regarding which British gunmakers make their guns "in-house" and which are making them from the trade, whether local or international. In addition, a specific question asked confirmation or denial of evidence on makers using Spanish guns in-the-white.
What was possible to collect (from SmallBore) is that the main names (Purdey, H&H, Westley Richards, Mackay Brown) work in-house. Some few others, says the same source, like Greener, Churchill and Atkin, Grant and Lang, do some (local?) outsoursing when subject to high demand.
Upon a second request on what happens with a third group of companies like William Evans, William Powell, Jeffery, Asprey (now defunct), the were neither ayes nor nayes as regard to outsourcing. Mayby nowbody knows how they go about their business, being this a working hypothesis worth considering. According to Salopian William Powell buys Spanish frames for their low end models.
In addition we also obtained a series of unsolicited views on the irrelevance of knowing who was doing what and from where in the British gun industry, provided that it was either liked by the costumer or duly certified by the gun assembler. Aside from being of little help, these patronising comments inspire irony at best and cynism at worst.
And, 400NitroExpress comments to my statements cannot go unreplied:
1. Buyers of high end guns behave, specially international ones, as they do, not as you think they should.
2. Testimonials from out-workers stating they cannot reveal for whom they work in the London Gun Trade is hard evidence, buyers that cannot check the ultimate provenance of their prospective guns does matter to them always, what does have little weight is circumstatial evidence from one individual that passes as an insider.
3. Prices of best sxs guns from British gunmakers of the third group start at the following: William Powell €45.000; Jeffery €38.400; Watson Brothers €48.600; William Evans €47.350. My hypothetical case has a solid price base, is a matter of adding some few more specs and it reaches the €53.000 mark. If any of these companies were getting a Spanish shotgun in the white it could make the trick, most buyers will spend all their lives before realising the provenance of their guns. So, who is really kidding himself?
4. Next time read all the thread and go to the meat of it.
