doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com What is prewar ?

Mr. Brown you sound as if you actually lived it. I for one was just speaking from a historical perspective.


Cheers,

Raimey
rse

I would call "pre-war" to be pre-ww1. "Post-war" is post ww2 and between them is "inter-war".

Seems there are different opinions on what prewar is. Possibly diffent even by manufacture. Looking at the Blue book on Winchesters for example. I observed that Model 70's consider up to 1946 as prewar. 47 to 48 Transition and pre-64 after that. Model 42's no clarification on the year, but the call out prewar models being valued higher. We know they are referring to WWII because no 42's were made pre WWI.
I do believe quality for the most part does seem higher on Double Guns built up to the late teens.

Only the Japanese-American sxs renaissance that started in the 60's, Raimey. The rest was a bit early for me.

Some say that there was only ever one World War and that lasted from 1914 until 1945 with a short lull to allow the enemy to re-group and re-arm. Lagopus.....

This is just Dr. Wanker taking another broadside at the Pro-gun Trump administration... something Dr. Wanker would never have done if either the anti 2nd Amendment Democrats Bill Clinton or Barack Obama were still in office.

Getting back on topic, I have two pre-WWII guns that were liberated from Germany after the war. One is a sidelock 16 ga. double, and one is a drilling. The workmanship on both is superb, and even internal parts that are not seen have a high polish finish. But I also once worked in a manufacturing plant where about 80% of the equipment was German. All my life, I had heard about the vaunted German engineering. But as I repaired this equipment, I couldn't help but think that if they built tanks, planes, and U-boats like this... no damn wonder they lost two world wars. It was overly complicated, and in many cases, it seemed designed to fail.

Yet I have read many times that the "Period between the wars" is when the greatest guns were made in Britain. Sort of expressed by the idea that these guns had all the latest refinements but were still essentially hand made. I believe that metallurgy advanced a great deal in the first 1/4 of the 20th Century as well. meaning that materials would likely have been better during this period.

So the 1930 Atkin gun I have on the way is not as good as an Atkin gun made in, say, 1905? Hard to believe.

"...in 1947 Atkin built a lightweight model version, much admired by Gough Thomas for its handling, reliability and exceptional quality. Gough himself taking delivery of one of these models." I specifying this gun in 1947 G T Garwood insisted that it should., in every way, be the equal in materials and workmanship as those guns made 'pre-war'. I think he was referring to WWII.

Just sayin'

C-man, seems to me how good your 1930 gun is might depend on how well Atkin was able to rebuild its work force after 1918. Or, if they didn't have sufficient skilled workers in house, whether they would have gone to "the trade" to fill any holes they might have had among their own workers. The British gun trade, in general, was certainly in better shape in 1905 than in 1930 (when there was also the Depression with which to contend). But you will have a gun that was built under more modern rules of proof. Post-WWII was even worse, for a lot of reasons. The British economy was quite slow to recover, for one thing.

But it seems to me an Atkin made in 1930 wouldn't have had any less handwork than one made in 1905. So much would depend on the skills of the individual workers involved, in both cases.

In my neck of the woods pre-war is 1860.

Good One!!! Love it!

Best,

Greg