doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com How to determine English gun grade

A Purdey "B" grade is still going to be a better gun than a Midland or Cogswell .So as I said previously grading is subjective .

With WW Greener,the # represented price in Guineas at the time of manufacture , didn't it?,or at least some of them?
(shoot , I nearly wrote Guinness, ha ha), so that might help with his guns.Some of those awesome looking scallop shell fenced boxlocks in the 70 or 75g were lovely looking, surely Best Boxlocks?
There are a couple on FoxHill, & Double Gun HQ sites I believe
Its a tough subject for sure.
Cheers
lads
franc

claycrusher1900,
I sent you an off topic Private message/
cheers
franc

I came across this in old emails and it reminded me of this post. To my untrained eye, it reeks of understated quality. Now only to free up 18K...

https://new.liveauctioneers.com/item/42962897_cased-james-purdey-sxs-shotgun-c

Subjective compared to other makes; quite objective when compared to guns from the same maker. No one would ever miss the difference in quality between my Webley & Scott 400 Grade 1 and a 400 Grade 3. Nor would anyone ever mistake a Purdey B for a Purdey "best". So both the name and the grade influence value.

In the description it states,

"They have made shotguns since 1880 for all of the Royal Houses"

That's short a few decades. I'm of the opinion that these English guns established their reputations of durability during the muzzleloading period on three continents including North America. From there, and if they survived the transition to the breechloader, never looked back.

Granted there are guns built by firms from other countries as or more expensive but they do not have the history of quality and durability under the harshest of conditions established by these English firms.

"We want the English gun for it will not blow up and hurt us and their locks work in the winter time." So said numerous American Indians to a very frustrated and exasperated John Jacob Astor founder of the American Fur Company.


If you want references, I'll get them for ya.

Depends on what you mean by "harsh conditions", treblig. The English established quite an empire in sub-Saharan Africa. Ted will confirm that one factor contributing to the unique Darne action is that the French--in the same empire-building mode, in the same part of the world (as well as SE Asia and a few bits and pieces in Latin America)--discovered that in hot, humid climates, paper shells would sometimes swell to the point that break-action guns wouldn't function. The sliding breech gun was the answer to that problem.

Also interesting to note that during the late 19th century, both the British and the Americans ran into problems with their military rifles and the then-new metal cartridges. Both the trap door Springfield and the Martini-Henry had jamming problems. Part of the issue was the metal alloy; part the strength (or lack thereof) of the extractors. But both caused problems for American soldiers fighting Indians and British soldiers fighting Zulus--especially in rapid fire circumstances when they'd get hot. At Rorke's Drift (the battle depicted in the movie "Zulu!"), the guns got hot enough that rounds were cooking off as soon as they were chambered. And NCO's were kept busy clearing jams.