Most mechanical designs are derivative, but using the term plagiarism would only seem to be appropriate when a gunmaker takes someone else's design and claims it as their own. Once the patent expires, gunmakers are free to incorporate various designs as they see fit without need of royalty payments or even attribution. Do we need to reference R. Tradwell for his invention of the coil spring (c. 1763) each time one is used?
Just curious, you mentioned Zoli on your list of shameless copies. Zoli openly attributes its locking bolt to Boss, but is there another gun that it supposedly copies? I get ATA (Beretta 680 action) and the Yildiz Pro (whose parts interchange with Perazzi).
