doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Who REALLY built most of the English guns.....

Yes, they could and, ocasionally, did. The issue was to attract the commission to do so. Best guns were built on commission (bespoke) - or at least finished up on commission. Nobody could afford to have a bunch of them sitting around in inventory. Remember, one went to his gunmaker to assure getting the right gun, for shooting instruction, and for advise. These are not the sort of services one expects from a factory. I'm sure the "names" did everything they could to keep the factories in their place and the factories did everything they could to sell as many high priced guns as they possibly could. Krrp in mind that there is no monolithic "it happend this way." Every "name," every factory, every customer, and every sale had some uniqueness. Guns were luxury items. There was no Wal-Mart where Everyman bought a gun with 100,000 idential siblings.

Why don't you believe a factory could build best guns? Who do you believe was incapable of getting out a best gun?

Nothing to do with a "factory."...how many gunmakers were there in England ?

Next you'll tell us..."buy the gun not the name".

That's a good philosophy if the old saying didn't exist "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"....ever hear the saying "that's why God made fat women".

All English gunmakers were not created equal.

There were hundreds of "names" that would appear to be gunmakers. Yet, we know that many were gun sellers only and many others were trade workers only. That still leaves a lot of craftsmen involved in the trade, but not a lot of "made wholy by hand from scratch in my shop" or factories. Shops and factories were overseen by Masters. Masters knew each other and knew who did what grade of work. Craftsmen capable of true best work often served as out-workers where they could set their own pricing. Any master could have a best gun built with as much work in-house as his shop was capable of or was economical and the rest by known out-workers; if his in-house stocker took twice as long to do a best stock as a known out-worker who charged 1.5X the in-house labor rate, guess who got the job!

Scott obviously could build best guns. Do you agree that Scott would sell a best grade gun within the trade? Where did W. J. Jeffery, William Evans, and A&N, for example, get their best guns? They sure didn't build them in-house.

You will always pay for the name. The trick is to not let the name blur the original quality grade of the gun and to know how the name is valued.

Rocketman!
I have reported back to you now about three times - with no answer, that I didn't believe Frederick Beesley ever produced his own gun built on the Beesley/Purdey action.
What say you!

Army & Navy is pretty much a case unto itself in the British trade. They never made guns themselves. Rather, they might be compared to Abercrombie & Fitch--but for military officers only (originally at least)--back when A&F was selling guns. Like A&F, A&N would supply the buyer with anything from a "keeper" gun (which A&F called a "knockabout") up to a first quality sidelock ejector. But I don't think there's any evidence that the "keeper" guns constituted a majority of A&N sales--as, for instance, the Sterlingworth did for AH Fox. Because they supplied guns (and other related equipment) to military officers, they did indeed do a good bit of exporting to various corners of the empire. BSA, on the other hand, was certainly a firm known for very inexpensive (and machine-made) guns--most of which would fit the "keeper" category.

I believe he did as I have, I think, seen examples. I'll post the next example I find.

And believe it or not, out of all these fine guns that were tested against the Model 21 proof test the one that came in second (at a distant second) was the Birmingham Small Arms shotgun.

The way I remember the story is Winnie 21, Purdey, then Parker.

Best,

Mike