doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com What qualifies a gun as "HAND-MADE"?

I agree with Chuck Why?????

In 1962 we did not have CNC machines to make special tooling such as cams, so we use a Jig boring machine to cut the general
outline of the cam and finish it with a file. this took many hours of hand work. today I can use my computer to design whatever shape I need, write a program, and machine it to a correct size on my CNC and be done with it in a fraction of the time.
Why should I not do that.
Casey

Should have said "box of a boxlock" above. Not that it matters much now we're throwing money in each other's faces. Chuck's chronology of invention in the early 19th C appears to support Jim L's speculation and Jimmy W's terminology. Admittedly, invention does not always receive instant widespread adoption. Ginning millions of pounds of cotton and the way they built a couple of guns down at Purdys may be two quite different things for all I know.

jack

You boys better hope there's a value-for-dollar correlation of fit and finish found in your high-end guns. Maybe we should have a "perceived quality" thread. No Newtonian slapdown for that one, eh Jim? I'm told that you can buy everything you need for performance and durability in a $1500 racing bicycle. You can get one for 4-6K now without big increments of increase in performance--matter of refinement and attention to detail where it doesn't really count as well as where it does. Course that's a .01 of a second game in competition so itty-bits count. If you close your gun and it clicks like a miser's purse, will you get more birds? There are diminishing returns of utility for outlay as the price goes up. Whatever the past necessity of doing things the hard way, "handmade, handworked, and handfinished" are today principally a scorekeeper for big money.

jack

I stumbled on this website that has some history of gunmaking picking up in Gardone several centuries ago and progressing forward.

http://www.nowpublishers.com/product.aspx?product=TOM&doi=0200000001&section=ch01

Thanks, Chuck. Seen a lot of the stuff and the progression in Holtzapffel which I have. Comparison of the English and American branches of the Industrial Revolution very revealing of our culture-based biases about what constitutes "quality". Take a closer look this afternoon.

jack

A typical reason that intensive hand labor persists, long after it "shouldn't," is the high cost of mechanization / automation. IMO / IME this is a major reason that W-W didn't make it -- or perhaps a major symptom because ineffective management is arguably the root cause. I was in the W-W plant in the mid '70s and was astonished by the antiquated equipment and methods that were still in use.

Timely capital investment is required to remain competitive in manufacturing, but labor pressures and / or the desire to maximize current profits often delay it. A slippery slope develops -- as the firm becomes less competitive, profits fall and soon it becomes very difficult to raise the needed capital.

When I went to Eibar in 1981, the absence of machine tools in the shops of the "Spanish best" I visited was another jaw-dropping experience. It's a pretty tight community and left the distinct impression that these firms typically provide a basic livelihood to more families than one would expect possible, as the firms themselves work to survive.

I think the Fabbris continue to set the standard in optimally making the best guns. They use some of the best CNC-controlled machine tools available, and had almost finished developing a top-level DNC (distributive numerical control) system when I was there in 1984. (That was just a few years after the technology had been pioneered for and by the US aerospace industry.)

Fabbri's point is a very good one: They consistently maintain tolerances literally impossible by hand, then use skilled hands to do what only they can accomplish -- fine finishing and fitting, to the last few ten-thousandths of an inch in most cases.

Hang the cost and diminishing returns, I just want my gun to be perfect ;-}

Jonty

Outstanding, Chuck -- THANK YOU!

Fred:

I guess a lot of individual setups milled the m12 receiver and continued to do so until. . . Humour it with a couple whacks of the ball peen and good to go for another 40,000. Actually I don't see a hell of a lot of difference between turret tooling and punch cards and the same thing with computer numeric. Different guy holding the ball peen?

jack

Jack,
I was raised on conventional (non-numeric controlled)machines. The punched paper tape and plastic tape were the main NC machines of my machining days. When I was getting out of the biz, CNC and later DNC were becoming common. A primary advantage of these machines is their ability to do very complex tool paths. Another big advantage is the ability to repetitively produce close relatively tolerances. I say relatively because the machine is only as capable as the operator/setup man/programmer. Cutting tool flex, fixture rigidity, and the programmer's ability is always key and don't forget machine condition/maintenance. One of the first machines I ran in a leading aerospace company in 1974 had a tag on it from the U.S. Army dating as far back as 1931. It was loose as a long neck goose and you had to hold your tongue just right to get it to make accurate cuts, but it could be done. Later, I ran some machines I think are in that link to the evolution of gun making.