When you buy a best name makers highest grade gun you are buying his reputation as well as the gun. Boss, H&H and others would never have allowed anything but the best workmanship to go into their best grades. Their reputation was their future and their fortune. Soil it by selling anything but the best, as a best, and they were out of customers. I think that Thimothy S has it right, a buyer got peace of mind when they bought from a name maker regardless of who made the gun.

Retailers, who use others as makers, still have to make sure the goods are up to snuff. Sears sold millions of guns but made none after 1910 or there abouts. They let others make the guns but they retained quality control over the gun. If the gun was made below their specs they would have stopped selling the gun and sent it back to the maker.