doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Help with Gunmaking Definition: "Hand-Made"

The makers themselves in places like Ferlach make the distinction--maybe we should get them to give us the definition from their perspective...Steve

I like gene's statement. "More time on the bench". The time spent working a hand tool rather tham a machine provides the opportunity for more attention to detail and thus better quality,
No guarantees just opportunity.
Meanwhile I'm off to read that chapter in W W Greener's book

Don't overlook the fact that more hand work doesn't mean more quality. It can mean less quality. How about all that hand fitting of those Russian sourced Remingtons and those poorly made Stoegers, or some of those early Turkish guns, or some of those old poorly fitted American guns. Hand work in guns more often than not, equates to poor fit and finish. That's what makes those that are of exceptional craftsmanship disireable and hard to find, hard to afford, exceptional, etc.. Poor quality hand work abounds in common doubles, it is everywhere. For every exceptionally high quality hand work example in a double you can find, there are easily dozens that are poor quality.

I agree.
Actually I would think more machine work could mean better quality for the money.
I recently had both a Webley and Scott 700 and a lower/mid grade Greener boxlock apart for a strip and clean.
I would think both these guns roughly equivalent grade wise but 60 odd years apart.
The Greener while well enough made had many variables when comparing each part of which there were two .
In short it was fairly obvious they had been largely filed up out of larger forgings and hand fitted.
The W&S however looked far more precise with every piece looking like a mirror image of its counterpart.
The tolerances were also better,although to be fair the Greener could have had more use.
In fact its hard to see how a boxlock could be made much better internally than the W&S,other than a high polish.

Simple: a pair of learned hands that has proudly spent a lifetime of having been there before and couldn't imagine them being used for anything else.




to produce a sucking fit so tight you can read the stampings of the action it was mated to.......no Perrazi stockbolt here:





that is hand craftsmanship a machine can't duplicate

Clif,
I appreciate fine hand craftsmanship at as well as anyone here, maybe more than most. But overwelmingly more often than not, hand work in guns is done poorly or mediocrely.

It'd be interesting to see a traditional type sidelock designed on a total design/mfr system like CATIA and manufactured by machining the stock head. I wonder how much hand fitting of the stock head could be avoided. Given what I've seen on airplane design and mfr, I'd say its just a matter of scale and that a complex traditional sidelock stock head could be fully machined to fit if the metal was made the same way.

Good thread.

Vic, I'm a fan of your writing and welcome the opportunity to suggest it's time to admit that the idea of "hand made" probably does not really apply to shotguns. "Hand fitted" has meaning we can all understand; perhaps the modifiers necessary are to distinguish high, medium, and low levels of hand fitting, or indeed to describe the general range of hours necessary to finish a given gun.

We can all concede that the top British and Italian makers use high levels of hand fitting, the Spanish and second level Italians are probably more medium level because of their business models, and then there are others who offer guns all over the range (Beretta, Galazan, et al).

I concede that there may be a use for the term "hand made" but needs to be reserved for those rare guns that truly start out as raw material that is shaped, fitted, and finished under the eye and guidance of humans without cnc machines. They exist, but are rare and priced accordingly.

Best regards,

RobC

I appreciate all the thoughtful responses.

Per Robc's comments, perhaps "Hand-crafted" is a more accurate overall descriptive term than "hand-made"?

And under the definition "hand-crafted," the chief requisite would be "hand-fitted."

Yet, I also think "hand-filed" should be part of the description -- at least in describing the British/European gunmaking tradition, as the major components (action and furniture, etc.) were all "touched by the file" and often extensively so.

Kensal made a good point about 'interchangeability." When I initially posted I was referring to it in the way 19th Century British observers would have regarded the "American System of Manufactures" where practical interchangeability would have been the goal.

The problem with definitions is they change over time: interchangeability in the 1870s meant something different than in 1940 and again in 2000. So ... what about the inclusion of the term "non-standardized" parts instead of "non-interchangeable"?

My goal is to use language as precisely as possible�in this case describing hand-crafted guns before the CNC revolution. The latter (CNC) is again changing what we mean by hand-crafted, but maybe that's another topic....

Insights, Arguments? (Thanks)

Mr. Venters:
In your travels, I assume you have visited both Purdey and Hollands... as I have.

I also assume you have seen the CNC/spark erosion machines they use to help make their products.

Thus, I suggest that the root of your elusive definition does not rely on how the metal or wood is removed or formed, but how precisely and with what degree of art.

As C. G. Bonehill once remarked to the observer of many machines in his manufactory (paraphrase), "Craftsmanship is in the final stroke of the file, and the final stroke of the file still remains."

So far, I can see about 137 angels on the head of this pin...

Vic, I think you've summarized very well. I like your inclusion of "hand crafted" as a descriptive. "Hand filed" as a common descriptive may be a bit too much, but you're the pro writer, see how it floats. I suspect your target market is, at a minimum, a reader who has the knowledge to understand the distinctions you suggest.

Not sure if you're going to create confusion with "non-standardized." To me, the ubiquitous use of the H&H sidelock indicates standardization, but certainly not interchangeability. No doubt you are referring to the actual parts, not the design per se, but mayhaps you'll have to make that distinction perhaps more than you want lest you confuse the readers.

Best

RobC