doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Spanish Gun Market. What is your input?

Kyrie, is your Luis Arrizabalaga from the late 1930s ? My two barrel set pigeon gun is nearly identical to your engraving and date marked 1937.

Value. They were good value , not anymore.

Mine is also a two barrel set, proof year 1952.



As an aside, I had a choice between that gun and a functionally identical AyA model 56 two barrel set. I chose the Luis Arrizabalaga because it had better engraving and was a little better finished.

From what I remember reading, several of the major Spanish players made a conscious business decision to move upmarket. Looks like they made that decision at the wrong time (recession) and now it is biting them in the butt (literally and figuratively). Example: Arrieta dropping a couple of their lower-end models. Didn't Garbi drop the 100 because it was priced for hand chasing rather than hand engraving?

Combine bad decisions with the recession and the $/Euro exchange, and it's a recipe for trouble. When you could buy an AyA No. 2 Round Body small bore with long barrels, new, for $3195, I was hot to get one but kept buying other guns instead. At current prices, I don't need that No. 2. Lots of the alternatives have seen much more modest price increases, so those alternatives are a lot more attractive. I'm an Uggie guy now, and quite happy with them.

Kyrie, I had not seen very many Spanish guns, but when I saw the one similar to yours, Made for the Duke of Donesta, I thought how it could not be better. It is a beautiful gun, even compared to many guns from other countries I have. It is made as a Pigeon gun. More history if anyone cares.

Jim,

What you would get would depend on a host of factors, the two biggest of which are how well he understood your usage and his own predilection for how best to get that usage out of a gun.

Just saying �for hunting quail and grouse� would probably be unwise. One of the factors that determines a gun�s proper weight is how much it will be carried, so the needs to know the kind of hunt the gun is for (�On any given day I will walk five miles over mountainous ground.�, or �I shoot driven game, and walk very little.�). Another factor that governs weight is how much the gun will be fired (�I regularly shoot one round of skeet a week.�, versus �I regularly shoot five rounds of skeet every day.�)

American hunters have a one-gun-does-everything mindset that is foreign to Spanish gun makers. To them, shotguns are like golf clubs; every gun has, and was made for, a specific purpose.

For something like chucker where a gun is carried over miles of bad terrain and fired maybe three or four times a day a light game gun is preferred (for a 12 gauge, weight generally runs in the six to six and half pound range). The Ascensio Zabala is a good example of a light game gun. Light game guns are lightly built, and require lightly recoiling shells. It�s not unusual to find the butt stock of a light game gun has been significantly hollowed out to balance the gun. Heavy loads cause excessive wear on the action and may actually break the stock.

For driven shooting where the shooter is on stand and cannot move, and will shoot dozens of birds in a day, a medium game gun is the �golf club� of choice. Medium game guns typically run seven to seven and a half pounds. An �all round� medium game gun will have two barrels. One set of barrels would be choked M/F for bird hunting, and the other set of barrels would be choked IC/IM for use with buck shot and slugs on boar.

Competition guns, like the Luis Arrizabalaga, are very special purpose guns, are very heavily built, and may run eight pounds or better. They are typically choked full/extra full, or at a minimum IM/F.

All that said, people do go the gun makers and want a dual purpose gun made. That�s done with the understanding that the resulting gun will do both jobs (say, bird hunting and skeet shooting) acceptably well, but neither job as well a purpose built gun would.

The Luis Arrizabalaga is an example of a dual purpose gun. Its primary purpose is live pigeon shooting and the secondary purpose is a medium game gun. It has a set of barrels choked IM/F for competition shooting and a second set of barrels choked IC/M for �feather and fur� hunting. Its weighs weight depend on which barrels are mounted (the competition barrels are heavier than the hunting barrels).

Remember the context in which the Spanish gun maker works; hunting has historically been a pursuit of the royalty or at least the landed gentry. These are the folks who could afford to buy shotguns like golf clubs, and that�s what they did � a gun for each purpose.

This is a mindset that is foreign to American shooters, and is one of the biggest reasons Americans get into trouble with Spanish shotguns. I know of at least two cases where guys bought light game guns, treated them as if they were heavy competition guns, and then bitched about low quality Spanish guns when the guns came apart. Conversely, it�s common for Americans to buy medium game guns expecting to get light game guns, and then [censored] and moan about how the Spanish cannot make a gun with the proper weight.

It was the only decision they could make. They couldn�t make any money on the entry level guns, and in some cases actually lost money on each of the low end guns sold. Mark my words; the least expensive Spanish shotgun is going to cost 7000 Euro. They will lose money on any gun sold for less. That�s not the choice of the Spanish gun makers, that�s the reality of the cost of making shotguns in Spain in today�s world.

Folks are complaining that these prices put them out of the market for a new Spanish gun, and saying they will punish the makers by not buy Spanish guns. Gentlemen, if you cannot pay what the gun makers have to get to say in business, the makers don�t want and cannot afford your custom.

Sorry, but there it is.

And the Turks are right there, a click of the mouse away.

Very nicely explained, Kyrie. Lets up the ante and go objective. It is one thing to say, "Make me a medium game gun." and quite another to say, "Make me a gun with the following envelopes of weight, balance, and swing efforts. And, by the way, I'll not pay if the specification is not met."

The English gunmaker knew that his job included "sizing" the gun for the customer's intended use as much as hitting stock dimensions. Shooters come in all sizes, strengths, muscle speeds, and shooting styles. It is unrealistic to expect the Spanish master to "check all the boxes" for a customer he has not even met, much less visited with and watched shoot. Thje
Brits had something of a relationship with their gunmakers.

Per pigeon guns - if you follow them closely you will find some rather small ones made for smaller shooters. Clearly pigeon guns, but with game gun weight. If you are a small guy, guess what you will get if you order a pigeon gun and fail to note your size.

Kyrie, how would you expect a Spanish maker to react to to the following hypothetical order? 7# 8 oz - 8#, 4 1/2" - 5" balance point to front trigger, unmounted swing effort of 1.9 - 2.1, and a mounted swing effort 10.0 - 10.5?

DDA

And the Turks haven't built anything even close to what the Spanish turn out day to day. I, and several of my friends, have owned Turkish sxs. We don't own them anymore. They were a lot less expensive but, guess what? You get what you pay for. And comparing English guns to Spanish guns is silly. The Spanish do make wonderful handling guns that are very reliable and you can get one for less than $10k. I don't know of any new English sidelocks under $40k. We were spoiled by the prices of these guns until Spain joined the EU.
I love the idea of a dealer bringing in guns with headed up but unfinished and rough shaped straight grip stocks. You could even have a big enough piece for either a POW or straight grip and have spare engraved trigger guards on hand. Unfortunately, most folks who want a bespoke gun want to buy it off the rack. I shoot a Perazzi and ordered mine exactly how I wanted it. I was willing to wait 6 months. I have convinced quite a few people to buy Perazzis and they have almost all bought off the rack because - they were unwilling to wait a few months. If you're a dealer you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. Pacific Sporting has unfinished DT11s in stock and for just a few hundred extra $$ you can have a custom stock. Curious to see if they sell well. I want the Spanish to succeed, but don't know how they can do it. DIARM wasn't the answer, but maybe a little bigger company is the answer. I guess I could pony up for a gun and help them out.
Hopeful,
Jeff