doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com question for the collective

am awaiting delivery of a W & C Scott gun purchased on gb - my copy of crawford's book on scotts is "lost" somewhere in this house, in one of dozens of boxes of books yet to be unpacked. here's the gun..

https://www.gunbroker.com/Item/1085152120

and here's some questions; serial number agrees with sellers 1902 date, proofs are proper for that era, address is correct, but the combination of the bolsters and the fancy back don't seem to conform with anything i can find. the "reliance" model comes close, but has a pinched section at the front of the bar. am i correct in thinking this is a fairly straight forward webley screw-grip gun - that for some reason was completely marked up as a scott - to be delivered to mahillon in brussels as the retailer? the gun has sling swivels and what i suspect to be 70 cm barrels (seller says 27 3/4" and muzzles look unmolested), so it was configured for belgian market? no scott patents are present - and for that matter, none for webley either.

hopefully one (or more) of our british brothers will view this and provide some insights.

best regards,
tom

Interesting to see both the W.C. Scott Tower trade mark on the action and the W&S Winged Bullet on the barrels

It always spooks me when I hear some seller bragging about how perfect the bores are on his 123 year old gun, but, he post nothing, zero, nada, zip about wall thickness or if it remains in proof. It was proofed as a 12, and the bores should be very close to that, .729 + or - just a few thou.
Oddly filed action, not ugly, just different, the engraving and fitting up look very well done.
It was built early enough that someone almost would have had to specified the 1 1/4” proof level. It was not common in that era.

Is it something you want to use regularly? Be a shame not to.

Best,
Ted

Once your copy of Crawford and Whatley resurfaces, turn to p.64. Figure 53 shows a gun with a bolster that looks a lot like yours as well as a fancy back, but of a slightly different design than yours. Per the caption: "The Reliance or the Continental, a"B" quality boxlock made by Scott from 1900-1935. Per later information in the book, the Reliance was priced at 34 pounds in1906; 170 pounds in 1910; 34 again in1914, and 48 in1935.

many thanks, larry....and "reading between the lines", the name "continental" might very well be related to the sling swivels and metric barrel length.

best regards,
tom

Just to show how well I believe you did with that buy… and these guys are usually inexpensive.

i had searched out a few photos of reliance guns; https://www.gunsinternational.com/g...e-12ga--sxs-shotgun.cfm?gun_id=100967340
https://www.gunsinternational.com/g...4--nitro-proof.cfm?gun_id=102627810#lg-1

and courtesy of larry's tip i did find one example of a continental, from a morphy auction a year ago: https://auctions.morphyauctions.com/lot-593731.aspx
and from france, a much later version, that's evidently greener bolted (?) https://www.naturabuy.fr/fusil-chasse-cal-20-item-9833609.html

but each example i have found has the single curved indent at the rear line of the action body, and has a step down to a pinched section, at the front of the bar, and all of them have conventional english barrel lengths.

and most seem to be marked with legends on the ribs, rather than at tdc on the tubes themselves - just enough differences to be puzzling.

thanks to all for sharing knowledge.

best regards,
tom