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

Be a good ol'bean, I'd be interested in, who here on this thread shoots a London sidelock ejector gun and has season after season?

Pair of Charles Hellis SLE Premiere game guns for seven years. Does that qualify?

Lowell,

I unfortunately never have, but perhaps like many who try to recognize and appreciate quality of design and manufacture in every product of man, I always felt that I would want to own an English Best if I ever had the means. And if I were able to pursue this desire, EJ's original question would have been second only to which ones appealed to my aesthetic senses the most.

Thanks EJ,

I am very surprised as to the many seemingly dark and dusty corners this tread seems to have displayed, and is not at all what I had expected when you started with your initial simple question.

I am now wondering for the first time if I am seeing an example of the king has no clothes, which had never crossed my mind prior to reading some of the responses to your post.

The true measure of the London gun is not found in academics, study or viewing. The quality of these guns are found in the field and not the collector's corner.

That places the Elsie 20 and Parker 16 0 frame among the pantheon of field guns , Lowell. Your conversion seems complete!

Lowell,

I agree with you, the London gun became famous and a world standard above all because it excelled in the field, amongst other things thanks to its mechanical supremacy, classical proportions and atractive finish. All this becuase affluent buyers, shrewd entrepeneurs and resourceful artisans came to a fruitful exchange in a properous industrial open society.

As any human instrument that becomes a sort of icon (like a swiss watch or a concert piano),the high end gun attracted much attention and study. Thus, it is expected to find all sorts of people and their legitimate interests touching the subject of the London style gun (not any more an English monopoly in my view). Hence, it also becomes a matter of pride (of production and ownership), desire of posession, market analysis, admiration, profit oportunity, collection and of research, depending very much on where you are standing. It is expected that some or most of these different angles arise in a forum like this.

EJ, you nailed it. Thank you.

EJ,
Your last post seems to capture the essence of the aspsects that make the English gun (or any other hotly pursued item, for that matter) valued by customers. So it seems to me that the potential customers of the new English game guns have some decisions to make. Purchase a longtime, well known brand that may (or may not) outsource to sources the customer finds to be in conflict with his reasons for purchasing an English game gun, or pick a different maker that makes an acceptable percentage of the gun in-house.

BTW, Tony Galazan advertises that he makes his guns in-house, I believe, for the very concerns brought up in this thread. He is selling 'made in America by Galazan' not 'assembled in America with foreign parts'.

I don't blame you. You want to buy an English game gun made in England, not some gun assembled in England with Wheretheheckistanian parts.

Chuck, you made my day!!! ROTFALOL

JC