doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Interesting article about Miroku

The latest Shooting Sportsman contains an interesting article about Miroku, maker of most of Browning's guns.

Jim does it mention makeing the SKB sXs's durning the 60's and 70's for American import

Will,

SKB is a different company. SKB stands for Sakaba, an old samauri family name.
http://www.shirstone.com/skb/history.html
Miroku
http://www.cheaperthandirt.com/EveryGun/GunMfgDetail.aspx?id=679

Larry Brown did an article or two on SKB.

Pete

No, and I'm not too sure they did, even though your memory says yes.

Will, I believe the company making Ithaca o/u and sxs shotguns in the 60s and 70s (later SKB), was named Mitsui. At least that name came to mind when I read your post. I'll see if I can find out more and I'll get back to this thread if I do. I know SKB made the Ithaca doubles because I had identical guns, except one was marked Ithaca and the other SKB. B.C.Miroku makes the Browning BSS (and made the BSS sidelock) and Citoris.
Joe
P.S. I found it: http://www.skbshotguns.com/faq.php

S K B made the Ithaca guns during that time. When Ithaca failed to pay a huge amount that it owed S K B, that venerable Japanese gun maker almost folded.
Just for info----S K B is the second oldest continual builders of armaments in the world. Beretta is, of course, the oldest by about 50 years.
Their quality had always been very good to very, very fine.

Best,
John

Ithaca SKSs were made by the SKB company. Never by any one else. There are people living who worked for Ithaca and lived in Japan essentially at the SKB factory. I have a lot of old correspondence between the companies(Ithaca and SKB). We need to nip this wrong info in the bud.

Ok folks hot off the press I just talked to and visited the site that claimed Miroku/SKB the same older guns. Some Parts do still interchange but now in big red letter he states his info is wrong they are different manufactors. He still holds that Miroku Daly guns and Win 101 share lots of parts. Who knows for sure whats real,Chevy built Olds motors and we know how that turned out.

I think a little research will prove that Winchester 101s were NOT made by Miroku. My recollection is that they were made by a firm called Nikko, there may have been some similarities but the lock-work on a Win 101 is very different than a Miroku Chas Daly. The Miroku guns used v type mainsprings and top lever spring, the under barrel hammer was hinged from the top tang. The 101 used coil springs in the lockwork. I guess it is possible that both used some generic parts much like the Spanish and Belgian guns.

Jim

I agree on Nikko but they are both Citori and 101 kinda superpose in design. Who realy knows what was what back then with import laws and setting up for American style guns.Look how close the Parker repo and Win 23 are.I see big differences in say the SKB Royal and the B.C. Myluck but not so much in the American market guns built to a price point.