Couple horseflies in your yogurt there, Larry. One, is, you can't get a nice, new 700 built to order. Yes, there are English boxlocks available new, but, you can arm your 4 man hunting camp with Spanish boxlocks for the price of one. Two, the Spanish design might be a copy, but, it can be had with some improvements, disc set strikers being a HUGE improvement over integral striker/tumblers, for us mere mortals who don't rent our basements out to a skilled gunsmith, anyway. I've seen two good English guns sidelined for months over broken strikers. I have been told there exist 700s with disc set strikers, but, I've never seen one.
I've seen them on a 500. Yes it was light, and had a 2 1/2" level of proof. And, it was really old, too. A few of us have moved on from our frail, old, lightly proofed, but, still expensive, gun phase.
You can specify some nice options on a Spanish boxlock, self opening (not my cup of tea) hidden third fastener, steel shot proof, 3" proof, second set of barrels, fitted case, whatever you are willing to pay for. A used 700 is a nice gun, but, they ain't free, and you can get a lot closer to bespoke out of Spain, for realistic money.
Until someone very knowledgable, who is from Spain, tells me there were no companies building guns there, prior to WWI, I am going to believe the Spaniards did have an arms industry. I doubt the queen of Spain sent Christopher Columbus to England for armament for his first big adventure, after all. Civilian arms production would grow quite comfortably out of military production.
Best,
Ted
Ted, the Spanish were making a lot of military rifles back then. The Spanish Mauser was a superior weapon to our own standard issue 30-40 Krag in the Spanish-American War . . . but of course it was a German design. They do know how to copy good designs, no debating that! And no debating they made shotguns. Just a question of how many they made, how many survived, and where they are. As Greg pointed out, there was a lot of nastiness in Spain during the 30's, and the Basque region was on the losing side. But I'm still not quite buying the idea that, assuming there were all that many Spanish guns of very high quality, used for driven shooting as they were in England, some of them would not have shown up in this country--unless, for whatever reason, a whole lot of them don't exist any more. The Brits do have the advantage not only of not having been invaded since the 18th century, but also not having done much fighting on British soil in close to 3 centuries now.
You check prices on the AyA 4/53 lately, Ted? You can get a really nice W&S 700, maybe even cased, for about the same price as a nice used 4/53. Which would I take? Well . . . a good friend bought one of those Arrieta 2" 12's. Much more expensive gun. Nice that it did have disc-set strikers, because it had broken strikers almost immediately. I had a pair of mid-grade A&N boxlocks from the 30's with disc-set strikers. W&S made. They're nice features--especially if you're likely to break a striker. Those guns also weighed right at 6 1/4# apiece with 28" barrels. That's not much more than the weight of Spanish 2" 12's. So what you buy depends on what features you like. But then that Spanish 2" did have a modern 850 bar proof . . . which I guess is kinda nice to have, but also kinda defeats the purpose of weight reduction, which is what a 2" 12 is supposed to be all about.
No question what you can do bespoke out of Spain . . . NOW. That's not up for debate. What we're questioning is the output of the Spanish industry compared to the British 100 years or more ago, and how many survive today.
