Hard to believe how all these vintage guns were turned out when someone says it takes almost 100 hours to stock a gun. Good grief. I doubt it ever took Malcolm Cruxton, Mickey Rainback, Ebenezer Hands, etc 100 hours to stock a gun. Most of these guys could turn out a finished stock and forend in around 16 to 20 hours or 2 to 3 days at the bench.
I think part of the problem is the gun community here in the states has put the capable craftsman here on a pedestal. Calling them “artisans”etc. Of course they’re gonna charge the prices they do. Overseas, stockers in the trade don’t buy into the whole artisan thing, it’s simply their job. They basically get paid by piece work. The faster they turn out high quality work, the more they get paid.
My mentor here in the states who trained and worked in England has told me on many occasions how much time the factory allotted for stockers to finish a job on a new H&H Royal shotgun or double rifle…..and it was no where near 100 hrs. Bolt rifles built in the factory were allotted even less time, and if a boxlock came in to be stocked, it could be fitted with new wood in about a day, checkered the next and ready for finish by day 3. I can only imagine in Birmingham, the trade stockers were even faster.
Italians, Spaniards, Belgians, French and Austrian-German gun stock makers are even more efficient.
My conversations with Tony Treadwell years ago, he said the same thing. He couldn’t believe the prices we paid here in the states for gunwork. He had a Stephen Grant SLE stocked in Birmingham, it was finished in less than a week (no rush), and it didn’t cost him much more than what a good condition Fox Sterlingworth would have cost an American back then.
Ted Schefelbein has a story about his Darne getting stocked at the Darne factory while he watched and it being finished by lunch time. A Darne isn’t exactly the easiest gun to put a stock on either.
One of the more “reasonable” guys I know here in the states is a graduate of the Ferlach school, highly trained, has worked for now defunct gun company here in the states, his restocking prices are high, but nowhere near some of the other “well known” stockers often mentioned here. He considers his prices charged for stocking ”fair”. I concur with him.
I certainly appreciate the work the craftsmen do here in the states, I’m a very satisfied customer with many of them, some I even call friends. With that said, I do think that the prices charged for stocking have gotten pretty high here in the states. I can’t afford it any longer.
Do you own/operate a US small business in 2025? I own two that are unrelated, I’m constantly amazed at how little eventually ends up in my pocket. The insurance company makes more than I some months!
Funny H&H is brought up, their marketing department and managers need to get together apparently. In your case you say they don’t even allot 100hrs to completely stock a royal, yet their marketing department claims months to do a best oil finish. I’ve done it, that finish done traditionally takes 16-20hrs spread out over a long period. Their marketing department claims around 1000hrs to build a Royal. Make it make sense. Are they liars or does it take such time?
I’ve heard of these mythical people you bring up, yet to meet one. And it’s easy to contact many well known trade workers on the other side. I discussed this exact thing years ago with the best and most regarded freelance stocker in the UK, that wishes to keep his name out of such discussions. Stocking, checkering, and finishing a round action gun takes him 90hrs.
Let’s further extrapolate the claims of an H&H stocker, or stocker of yesteryear working in the trade doing solely that. First, they served apprenticeship doing such, and theres a good chance stocking is the ONLY thing they did in their entire tenure. Of course they are going to be quicker than someone in the US who has to delve into more broad work to stay afloat, even if they claim to be a stocker alone which is extremely rare, especially regarding SxS’s. Let’s assume a stocker at H&H does 10-15 Royals a year. I’d be shocked if a top stock guy in the US does 15 in his lifetime! Apples and oranges, but I think one can take my example and see where I’m going with it.
Cost of living and business operations are high in the US, with UK being the closest. Business cost in France and Italy is an outlier there, but cost of living is lower. It all matters.
Ironically I had a modern production H&H double rifle in last week, the stock finish wasn’t best quality, nor was the inletting, nor the washed out area of the stock just in front of the recoil pad…yet he paid six figures for the gun. I do better work…Maybe it was an apprentice project.
