Last I heard…H&H, Purdey, and others make their own barrels in house. Pretty much always have. A barrel blank is not a barrel. They get those from whomever. The actual making of the barrel is done entirely in house. Other provincial makers almost certainly outsource the barrel work unless they themselves specialized (apprenticed) in barrel making before striking it out on their own.
My theory for the absurd cost of having new barrels made by one of these makers is this…..price the work so high that nobody will want to have it done, that way most of the effort stays will fulfilling new gun orders.
If someone sent a late 1890’s or early 1900’s H&H Royal back to the factory and spent 30k GBP to have a new set of barrels made for the gun…the gun would not magically be worth 30k+ GBP. It would now be a very nice vintage gun with very expensive factory replacement barrels….and the entire gun maybe worth 10 to 15k USD….maybe 20k USD to an idiotic buyer who just had to have it (those guys are out there).
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