They have lovely racy lines and, all of the ones I've shot, fast handling. That having been said, there are a number of sub categories. There are a few with wood extended to cover almost all the actions (bar-in-wood). There are (maybe even rarer, and somewhat hard to justify either aestheticaly or from an engineering standpoint) a few Dickson trigger-plate actions made with false sideplates to resemble a conventional barlock. I know there are fewer than a couple dozen of those. There are round actions with top-rising cocking indicators and without. In the really rare category, there are fewer than half a dozen three-barreled guns and side-opening O/Us. They are all as strong as all get-out and very hard to wear out. The new ones by David McKay Brown are faithful to the basic design, but improved in all sorts of ways (better ejector disks, for example) and are even better, IMHO. (On the other hand, YOU try to get David to make a side-opener or a bar-in-wood.) Dickson/MacNaughton will make a bar-in-wood if you ask quite nicely. In short, it's a fascinating category, with not a less-than-wonderful gun in it, assuming decent condition.
