doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Early days of England's best gunmakers

The town I grew up in had a curious shop, one that just kept growing. A fair number of locals went in and out and earned a better than average (for the area and time) wage. They were machinists and the shop had machie tools. Truck loads of metals came in and wrapped packages went out. The owner periodically hopped into his Cessna 310 and flew off for awhile. When he came back, he usually had more work. The shop was called Detroit Tool; curious name since we were nowhere near Detroit. It made automobile dies. Who knew what that was, but it was good for the local economy, that was for sure. I agree that this has parallels in many trades, English guns included.

If you look at strong drink and an "industry" and "moonshinin'" as the cottage part of the industry, you have a parallel.

LG, I think you underestimate the prevelence of boxlocks in Brit shooting. Move down the social ranks a notch or two and, I think, you will find boxlocks aplenty being shot a lot. Keep in mind that there were a lot of social circles of varying levels of income. Shooting was not just one thing with one set of rules. Were this not true, we would not see all the graded sidelocks and boxlocks that have rather obviously had a serious shooting life.

Query: Can you make a sidelock gun, WR, WR? Reply: I get by with a little help from my friends.

jack

To beat this horse to death, for a while in my glamorous but meandering career track, I made thermoform tooling for "wide body kits" [Kydex class dividers, overhead luggage rack doors, window reveals] for commercial aircraft. Still said Lockheed on the airplanes which were "made" on the other side of the continent.

jack

Is it true that most English gun makers don't mine their own iron ore? Or get their blanks from company owed groves behind the shop?

DT/CC,
Have no fear about speaking your mind about out of town guns.I am not a big fan of WR, in fact I think their sleeving jobs which they used to do were awful.
Probably the cause of the demise of the Brum guntrade was the fact that the trade would provide any standard of finish dependant on the delivery date and cost.Where as if you had to ask the price of a Boss or Purdey, you probably couldn't afford it.
As for asking for a firm delivery date, all you got in London was a look of disdain.

The world is not in short supply of Brit boxlocks, nor the work-a-day Sle, which would make me believe they all saw some kind of action in some kind of social circle settings.

My decription machine not working but that last one made the old free associationometer peg. Someone was telling me about a tower shoot where the stands completely encircled the tower. Fortunately it was a large circle and birds were released in a manner which ensured that only a few stands would be engaged at any time. Just now I got a mental picture of beaters and birds completely surrounded by some old boys with--dare I say it-- boxlocks!, all of whom look exactly like James Mason. These daymares are frightening; please expand upon your observation, Delphic one.

jack

CC that Westley Richards reminds me of a Bentley with a Volksvagen engine.

Sorry Lowell. I checked Rocketman's post where he explains that there actually was a category of folks between M'Lord and his keeper who might be expected to buy guns and shoot them. Who knew?

jack

With American firms you get a Bald-Faced Lie, these days.