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

I'm thinking if anyone now days needed 500 pins(screws)they would for sure order them and finish in house.I'm sure its been a long time sence any maker fell a tree and cut out a blank for a gun. I say Reggie ole chap go knock some beast in the head as we are running out of horn for butt plattes, we have a real greenhorn trying to make the grade.

KY, my point exactly, as long as they clarify who makes what.

It has been brought up here previously what would you consider if a major London
house had their guns made by very qualified chinese craftsmen. They would lower
costs, but....

JC

All that matters, is that the small bits are made by skilled craftsmen and the gun is put together by the same.
Barrel striking is the most important in a top-flight gamegun.
But, it is the finishing that you pay for and London charges dearly!

Transparency is essential for healthy markets, well informed and discerning buyers keep the trade alive. KY Jon goes to the point in his last paragraph. Being able to find out whether there are apples and oranges in the same basket and being able to tell the difference is expected in a free and informed society (Isn´t this what most of us have been fighting for in our respective countries for the last half a century?).
TDS´s statement on liabilities bearing on outworkers is very telling. Why a company would come to that kind of practise? The answer is simple: some gun makers want to keep their outsoursing out of the market´s knowledge.
Dig gave us some examples of companies not going and going sometimes to the trade, helpful information in my view. But what about others like William & Son, Aspreys, William Evans, Jeffery or William Powell?
So, the question remains open.

It seems to me that there is a lot of dancing around EJ's original question.

If I were going to spend $100K or more of my personal money on a London Best I would sure want to know if it was made primarily by their own in-house craftsman or made primarily by skilled Spanish or Chinese craftsman for them. This isn't a question of cutting the walnut yourself or making/buying outsourced screws for the gun. If it's primarily Spanish best I might be able to have three of those for the same money, or maybe seven Chinese best for the same cost.

If you were going to plunk down $500K for a Ferrari are you now telling me you would still do it if you found out it was primarily made for Ferrari by skilled Turkish craftsmen?

I don't care whose name/marque is on a gun, but if its made in Turkey the majority of gun forum members are brutal on the gun.

So I just can't believe that it suddenly make no difference to gun forum members if a London Best marque is made in Spain, Italy, or China.

Buying from the trade has been going on from the early days. It is not something new in the gun trade. With the top four or five you are buying name first and rest easy that the quality is there no matter who made the parts. You do not risk a reputation that took a hundred years to build by cutting corners or going to the cheapest bidder.

I would like to know how many Birmingham gun builders there were and bet that a handful made the vast majority of the guns we see today. And I am sure that even these few sent out for work as needed. At least in box locks, most I suspect were sold with a name engraved on the side but that seller did very little real work on the gun. Maybe a little finishing, or sending out for engraving and then finishing in or out of house. I do not care. Buy the gun not the name.

Car makers out source parts all the time. Do you think Ford or GM makes all the bearings or gaskets that they use? No they buy them from the trade. Do you think that computer makers build their own chips. No they buy them from the trade. Even gun makers who have real factories will buy parts in semi finished state or finished state when ever it makes sense for them to do so. Buy the gun not the name has never been better advice.

KY Jon,

As I said I really don't care if screws, bearings, gaskets, etc. are out sourced and I fully know that parts and sub-assemblies have been outsourced in every industry from the beginning of that particular industry.

But I also do not believe that Holland and Holland, Winchester, Ferrari or Porsche made their original reputations by having the "primary" manufacturing done anywhere but in-house.

Ford and GM are not the same as Ferrari and Porsche, and history in the auto industry shows that as soon as major prestige marques start outsorcing too much the justification for the high price begins to erode.

Rolled engraving is not the same as hand engraving, even if the rolled engraving is absolutely perfect which the hand will never be.

KY Jon,

there is a lot of cost involved in "buying the gun and not the name" as you say. Very few can spend enough time getting the right expertise when somebody is aiming at the high end of bespoke guns. Those international buyers who can afford the expense of a pair of best guns in the British market are the least likely to have such expertise and time to get it. These people and the market as a whole would be much well served if they were in full knowledge that who really makes what. So, this is why is annoying to ear the tune "you don´t need to know as long as you like it". It will not help the British shotgun industry in the long run.

KY, I totally agree to the "buy the gun not the name" premise but this applies only to
"obscure" names. If it says J. Purdey or Holland & Holland on the barrels you are
going for something specific. If they outsourced their guns to very qualified turkish
or pakistani craftsmen to cut costs, then are the k/quids you are paying justified?

JC

That's exactly what Holland & Holland did.



Which has nothing to do with the British gun trade. Ignoring the established traditions of an industry you're not familiar with won't change them. In the past, much more outsourcing was done, and with a wider scope, than is the case today, and no, it didn't have that effect. Far more than just using highly trained outworkers today, in the past, a great many British guns were "bought in" from other gunmakers, usually in Birmingham - from proven barreled actions in the white to completely finished guns. That didn't mean that the retailing gunmaker didn't retain full control over quality. It was entirely up to him to set that standard, and reject the work that didn't meet it. If he let poor quality out the door, his reputation suffered, and it didn't take many turkeys to do fatal damage.

Birmingham's great gunmaking center is long gone now, but while the infrastructure of the British gun trade has changed, the bottom line today has not. You can still get all of the quality that you're able to pay for. It's much harder today to retain the very best workers on payroll - because the demand for their specialized skills means that they can make more self-employed. Does that mean that your gunmaker shouldn't use the very best stocker they've ever trained to stock your gun because the guy happens to be self-employed now?



This is a red herring. No British best is going to be sent out with rolled engraving. If Purdey sends your new gun out to Phil Coggan or Ken Hunt for engraving, does that mean you got gypped because it wasn't engraved "in house" by a guy you've never heard of?

The last new Purdeys I've seen were still finished to the high standard that Purdey is known for. Unless something has changed recently, they don't do colour hardening or blacking "in house". They send it out to the best in the world at that work, the same company that any other UK gunmaker can use if they so desire. I guess that makes them fake Purdeys.