doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Who made the actions (British)

The lock stamped with the name "Ketland" was also found on many American "Kentucky" rifles.

"In 1795 the United States ordered 3,000 musket size and rifle-pistol size locks from John Ketland these were issued out to various contractors to build muskets, rifles and pistols, for the Government."


From the mid-1700's through the mid-1800's, three generations of the Ketland family were heavily involved in the North American gun trade. The Ketland gun-making dynasty as started by Thomas Ketland who lived from around 1740 to 1816. . Thomas Ketland was a Birmingham, England gun maker however, the Ketland name is not associated with North American gun market because of the craftsmanship of the senior Mr. Ketland. Instead, the Ketland name is generally recognized due to the large number Ketland branded guns and LOCKS which were imported to this side of the Atlantic.

Try J.B.Phillipson.Its very unlikely that they would have been able to take on your work as they are extremely busy.Normally if you order actions from them it can take over a year before your order will be fulfilled,and if any design work is involved it will take longer.
Going back to the forgings it is generally recognised that,as well as for strength,forgings were used to reduce the amount of metal that initially needed to be machined to produce a starting point to make the gun.This was in days gone by when the machines were not as good as they are now.
The cnc machining is not complete answer to speedy gun manufacture.I have made a lot of guns both using modern machinings and also old machinings from pre cnc days,and a lot of the methods used from producing guns the old way are actually quicker than with the cnc'd parts.The answer is a mix of both but unfortunately however many times you try to explain this to the gun companies,the people at the top are blinded by technology and a box of great looking machinings that dont go together.

Phillipsons were the firm that everyone went to in the trade and I used a couple of trade actions from about 20 years ago when building a pair of 20 bore boxlocks for a former employer. They were were really good but nothing compared to the machined parts available today. The Mayfair Engineering shotgun actions and locks are quite superb.

http://www.mayfairengineering.com/