doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Need Some Enlightenment??

Could not find old postings on Andrews. I think Bodington was one of those who replied and I think he said the firm made barrels for Rigby.

The point I was trying to make in my previous post was that many 'Best' guns may have started life elsewhere before being proofed and finished in London.Certainly actions & barrels were made in and around Birmingham pre & post WW2.
Undoubtedly it is a matter of pride to own a Purdey,I used to own a Boss O/U but as many who have owned one will testify owning and shooting one is a very different set of circumstances.It was not very nice to shoot, very 'lively' in the hand and second shot required 'application'.

I agree.

Have you found that other O/Us perform better than the Boss?

I've never shot a Boss O/U, or, now that I think of it, any O/U.

Those stacked bbls bug me.


OWD

Prudey is to Patek Philippe what Peter Hofer is to Franck Muller. I hope this comperison helps you. I mean, isn't this perpetual drive through English countyside getting a bit long in the tooth by now? I'm out of scopolamine patches.

OWD: You and I are really saying the same thing ... that London's prestige and money drew the provincial talent that built many of the "best" guns to come from that city. You earlier said, "Guys like John Robertson and Thomas Southgate could have worked for anyone and lived anywhere. They chose London for a reason. I bet this reason was money." I agree, and Robertson is a perfect example. He began his professional exodus in or near Edinburgh, then went to work for Whitworth in Manchester, Richards in Birmingham, and finally, Purdey and Boss in London. He followed the money.

Despite what others may try to make of it, I'm not out to attack the London gun trade or the quality of their work. I'm not trying to argue that London isn't the source of the true "London best" gun, or that "best" guns are not the pinnacle of the gunmaker's art.

What I am trying to suggest, though, is that perhaps the lowly British boxlock (albeit a very nice one) has a stronger claim to the title of "quintessential" British shotgun ... that perhaps, based on utility and popularity, if we had to point to one and only one type of gun, the classic Brit boxlock (and not an elegant and fabulously expensive London sidelock) is the finest (dare I say "best"?) example of that nation's contribution to our favorite hobby. Sort of the same argument I suspect Lowell might make about American guns ... that the Fox Sterlingworth "gentleman farmer's gun" is a better universal representative of that nation's shotgun production than an AAHE Parker 28-gauge.

I can appreciate what a $250,000 sportscar represents without insisting that the pleasures of driving can't be achieved without one. A $60,000 sportscar will do me very well, thank you. TT

One needs to understand that maker's name is about brand value and that original quality grade is about how much time/money the maker put into the gun. Surely we all understand that the brand has an impact on retail price and that quality grade of the product has an impact. Maker's name, maker's location, and quality are not synonomus. The Brit trade was a trade indeed. Technology, material, and skill tended to be mobile. What any maker needed was available from another shop for a price. Note that most shops were owned or supervised by master makers; masters knew who did what work, how good they did it, and what prices they charged. It is entireley clear that most, if not all, shops (reguardless of location) were perfectly capable of delivering a gun of original quality grade equal to any comparison. The issue was not capability, rather, opportunity. Opportunity came in the form of a commission; basically nobody could afford to stock "off the peg" best quality guns. Since best quality guns were expensive, no matter who made them, commissions tended to come from society groups that were both more affluent and more inclined to shooting as entertainment. Some society groups were fairly specific as to which gunmakers should be patronized.

From the gunmaker's point of view, it was about making the best living possible. A machinist in Birmingham might very well make more money that a store front in London. A top worker might well profit most by lower cost living in Birmingham while accepting work from the London shops as available and from Birmingham and provencial shops as fill-in (rail connections were quick and sure by the time frame under discussion). Shops did as much work with in-house workers as possible. But, they used out-workers as needed for specific skills and for overflow. The gun trade had all the usual business problems and used all the usual techniques to solve those problems.

I do not believe that London had a lock on design, materials, skill, or handling. But, Boss, H&H, Purdey, and Woodward did succeed in elevating their brand value in the current market. The second level of brand value contains makers from many locations, as well as London and Birmingham.