Here is an extract:
Best guns would always have to be demanding in the number of man-hours expended, for they were made with an eye on perfection rather than cost. The more humble fare for the general public, for export and for working service rather than sporting excellence had a lot to gain from being produced using mechanised means. As the 20th century progressed, mechanisation enveloped a great many industries that had previously had a craft structure and gunmaking was to prove no exception.
To exemplify the methods then being developed in the production of component parts and the subsequent assembly of sporting shotguns, we can look to the large and important Birmingham gunmaker C.G Bonehill, operating out of the large Belmont Firearms and Gun Barrel Works.
By 1900 Bonehill was able to offer a wide range of shotguns and double rifles and the machine-made boxlock was the staple of his trade. However, before looking to the action itself, let us consider Bonehills approach to making the barrels.
Traditionally, Damascus barrels had their lumps dovetailed in place, as did early steel barrels. Later came the chopper-lump barrel which most discerning sportsmen seek nowadays on any best sidelock. Bonehill had ditched both in favour of an assemblage of what he called his Patent clip lump and extension top piece. This consisted of the two barrel tubes, machined to fit flush with a machined lump with integral connecting piece, which clipped into the top-rib. When joined together, they formed a very strong barrel, all the parts of which were machine made. The maker claimed it makes it impossible for a top piece or underneath lug to come off.
Bonehill contended that it would cost twice as much to make the same components and assemble them by hand as it cost him to do using machines.
What is more interesting is that Bonehill boxlocks were made within the factory by machinery from the best material, on the interchangeable system.
The interchangeable system. Here is a new concept to the maker of sporting shotguns. To date all guns had been made individually, one part being added as the last was completed. Nothing was interchangeable! If you had a pair of identical guns, labelled 1 and 2 you could not put the barrels from number 2 on number 1; they would not fit!
Now we have makers like Bonehill pumping out identical guns with parts from any one that will fit any other one; or which are mathematically correct in the parlance of the advertising in his catalogue. David Baker questions the actual interchangeability of parts from one Interchangeable gun to another, and they were made in various sizes and variations. Perhaps they did need some basic fitting but the idea that parts could be ordered and fitted, even with some work necessary at the final stages was still a big step forward for a trade which had until that point only produced one-offs.
To discover the specifications of the guns being produced this way, we can again refer to published material. Bonehill tells us that his Machine-made hammerless shotguns (of which he claims to have sold 3,000 already) have the following specifications:
The guns are barrel cockers.
They have perfect trigger safety arrangements. The trigger safety is made in one piece and locks the triggers until the thumb piece in the top strap has been pushed forward to cover the word SAFE. It can be automatic or non-automatic, as desired.
They are fitted with intercepting safety bolts superior to any yet invented, which render dual or premature discharges impossible. These blocks act in front of the hammers and effectually block their progress until removed by the pulling of the triggers.
They have screwed-in steel bushes in front of the breech action, which hold the independent springless strikers. They act as a check, preventing gas from entering the interior mechanism.
The mechanism is mathematically correct and this together with its great strength and the ease with which the guns are manipulated, render breakages and disorder improbable.
Twin themes are embodied in the Bonehill approach to gunmaking: quality of materials and scientifically designed components, allowing for guns with great strength, reliability and shooting qualities to be produced at low prices.
Bonehills interpretation of a best boxlock or as he calls it a Best hammerless ejector with box-shape breech-action is an A&D, square bodied gun with top-lever, double triggers, recessed church window chequered panels with diamond drop points , straight-hand stocks, disc-set strikers, intercepting safeties and full-coverage scroll engraving. Barrels could be finest steel chain twist damascus but the maker recommends finest steel barrels with patent clip barrel lump and extension top piece. A pair cost 75.00
Bonehills interchangeable boxlock, sometimes known by the name Belmont Interchangeable, after his works, is made from 36 component parts (excluding the action body). Any of these parts could be ordered as replacements or spares from the maker and fitted without the need of a specialist finisher. Regardless of the grade of gun, every internal part was the same, the only part available in different grades was the top lever, ranging from 3 shillings for a plain A grade to 4s 3d for a higher D grade.
Bonehills boxlock shotguns ranged in price, according to exterior finish, from the No.1 at 13.10s at the lowest end to the No.4, costing 23.5.0 at the highest. Ejectors could be added to any model for an extra 6.00. The lower grades have semi-pistol grips, flat side panels with drop points, top-lever, Greener cross bolt, intercepting safety, Purdey under-bolts, Deeley & Edge forend catch, minimal engraving and are described as a perfectly reliable but inexpensive weapon. The No.4 gun is set up as a best gun in every respect. It has the same square action with greener cross bolted top extension, but is profusely engraved and has chequered side panels with drop points and fancy borders to the chequering to the hand and forend. Wood is the very best selected curly figured walnut.
Double rifles built on the same interchangeable action cost 21.15s and Cape guns with a shot barrel in 12-bore and a rifle barrel in .577/.450 could be had for between 20.5s and 32.5s depending on finish.
It has often been lamented that the British gun trade did not move with the times and that it took foreign firms to grasp the need to mechanise gun production. However, as we have seen from this one example, British gun factories in Birmingham long ago established the machine made, interchangeable principle.
Bonehill had been pushing machine-manufacture friendly designs since 1877. His patents culminated in the Belmont Interchangeable, described earlier, which he first offered in 1887. Clearly, such forward thinking alone was not enough to cushion the industry from the tumult the next half century was to bring to bear. Bonehill and other British makers, like J.P Claborough, had solid export trades with the USA and appeared to be going from strength to strength until that most capitalist of countries betrayed its faith in the free market when it introduced the McKinley tariff in 1890.
