Reb87,treblig1958
Thank you...thank you...that sbt is definitely the handwork of Emil Flues...even the engraving is Flues done...I wish it was mine to own and shoot...
The lock time, though a good selling point, had relatively little to do with the tremendous volume of sales and production numbers. The reason this model was so sucessful was because the design was far less expensive to machine and produce overall.
I will try to answer this question, but there will be members who just won't like the simplicity of the answer...
You see, Emil didn't have a milling machine...or an electric drill press...or a lathe...When he needed a receiver,
say a boxlock, inletted for the internals (springs,locks,and levers), he used hammer and chisels to inlet the steel...along with a crank drill, breast drill, and files...as you might imagine, this was a VERY labor intensive process, and it gave you not only time to think, it almost forces you to take the shortest route between start and finish. This handmade approach to making doubles led him to the very least amount of complex steel inletting and the fewest number of handmade parts in order to get the job done. This led to a relatively simple means of cocking the gun by breaking the action. He patented the design in 1895, while once again living in Michigan....the patent number is 546,516, and there's damn good reason it didn't appear in Snyders book...Emil went on refining and perfecting the shortcuts in machine work for patent 546516 for another 10 years. These shortcuts were employed in his latest guns, but were not added in a subsequent patent. Sometime around 1905 he began negotiations to sell this refined version 546516 to Ithaca Gun Co. It was the refinements that interested IGC more than the patent itself. It seems that an absolute minimum of required machine steps coupled with a minimal of internal parts to be machined, augers well for mass production techniques and corporate investors as well.
This design, coupled with Ithaca's already existing mass production assembly line, and the fact that Ithaca was in a "do or die" situation with being overly invested in R&D and the re-tooling costs associated with all the recent transitions from the Crass/Minier/Lewis models, led to the the lightest, rightist, fastest low cost double being produced in America. Within a few short years, Ithaca had captured so much market share that the big boys were forced to respond. Parker responded with the Trojan...LC Smith responded with the Fulton...Fox with the Sterlingworth, and Remington just threw in the towel ending their SxS production line in favor of the more modern repeaters of the day...more later
