doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 1891 Quality 1 Elsie

Stan:

Thank you kindly! I could never understand all the fuss about them when I was a kid. The one I had was nothing special (to be fair, it was post-1913 and it had been used very hard before it came to me). These guns were spoken-about in almost hushed tones by the denizens I grew up with (in poverty-stricken Appalachia) and even by their elders(!), but they mostly left me cold. Accordingly, the first decent British double I ever handled completely blew me away. As a ruffed grouse hunter, the British stuff was the far-superior tool for that game (certainly more-affordable).

Even now, it's hard for me to compare the average "Field Grade" Smith to almost any well-executed British game gun, but this one is a little different. Perhaps in the higher grades that "magic" was more-present (and an adolescent from the "middle of nowhere" wouldn't have had much of an opportunity to see or handle one of those guns) but no matter, as a doublegun fan I've always been curious about them (nostalgia clearly played a big role here as well). I knew nothing of the Syracuse guns (if I've ever seen one up-close, I don't remember it) and Brophy's book (the only one available for most of my life) really only confused me further about them. Fast-forward almost half a century and this very-early Fulton gun seems to complete that circle for me.

It boils down to machine-made versus hand-made guns I suppose, where even the machine-made ones can have enough skilled human-interaction with them (& in them?) to produce a superior product. Lots of the pre-WWII guns produced in this country seem to have that "magic", rifles, pump guns and even handguns don't rely so-heavily on the "fit, balance & handling" aspect of a firearm, but doubleguns absolutely do. Somewhere along the way, the L.C. Smith gun lost most of that "magic" (at least in many of their base-model guns) but this one still has it, and in spades (it seems).

I've looked at hundreds of Syracuse L.C. Smith's, both in hand on in pictures and have never seen one with cracks behind the locks, why, because it was the more dense European walnut not American walnut. The L.C. Smith's pre-13 higher graded guns with a lot of figure used some of this European walnut and root or crotch American walnut. American walnut is not for side lock shotguns.

That pattern on the barrels is absolutely gorgeous, Lloyd. The gun is definitely a special piece.
JR

Really? How about the cracked stock on the A1 Grade on page 63 of Brophy's book (1983 edition)? Or the crack behind the lock of the No. 3 Grade on page 67? Both grades were advertised as stocked with "fine imported English walnut. "I've heard the Smith-European walnut argument before but relying on a (presumably) superior material to compensate for a lacking design is not a strong selling point.

Thank you Mr. Roberts.

It is certainly causing me to re-evaluate my understanding of how these artifacts work. It's a big, heavy, 12-gauge gun, with no cast at all (dead neutral, even at the toe) and yet... I shoot it very naturally. How it does that baffles me, as it can only be attributed to all that drop (which minimises face-contact thus alleviating at that need for cast?). There may be some geometry issues I'm not considering here, but it also seems to fit just about everybody else that has picked it up (so far). British guns work fine for me, as long as they are appropriately cast (on in my case, especially the bigger 12-bores). This is my first arguably-decent American doublegun, and it is causing me to reconsider all my preconceptions about the species. It is humbling me a bit, I must confess. How a backwards little company from nowhere Syracuse, New York, in only what 1883(?) came up with this seemingly rather-universal configuration is altering my view of the world... just a little. I clearly still have lots to learn.