So I was chatting with an ex H&H barrel man this morning who still does a bunch of work for the trade including the big name houses and was floored with the cost of a new set of barrels through a top tier gunmaker. I knew it was high because I had a price quote a little of ten years ago of 22,000 gbp. I about dropped the phone when I heard the current price 37,000 GBP. Lots of work and skill required to be sure but dang, that is some serious loot!
And here I thought 15k was ridiculous……that was the cost of a friends Stephen Grant he sent back to London for new barrels in the early 2000’s.😳
Was that for chopper lump or dovetail lump barrels? Do you get a choice?
I wonder what the cost comparison would be to have new barrels made on the continent….more than a few capable, best quality makers in France, Belgium, Germany and Italy to take on the job.
I’ve seen some really nice, high grade Scott Tri-plex’s that had new barrels made in Germany and Austria…high quality stuff made with Bohler-Antinit. Tough barrels to make and fit too with the odd cocking bar & rod system.
I agree completely and I firmly feel a top tier craftsman should be well paid but 37k GBP? Totally absurd. Especially as you and I both know, the work is not done in house but simply run through the order books.
ACGG Professional metalsmith, firearms import services.
Billie the way you are following me around the board like a little puppy makes me think you may be internalizing your anger. That is not healthy for a gal of your advanced years and waistline. Instead, I think you should be dancing
That’s absurd for a set of barrels. Insane. I would buy a nice set from Italy. I bet you can have them engraved and stamped with whatever you like. Wanna bet?
Billie the way you are following me around the board like a little puppy makes me think you may be internalizing your anger.
I wasn't following you around at all SKB Stevie. And I'm not angry either. Actually, I'm smiling right now. You must be projecting and thinking of all those hours you followed me and burned the midnight oil doing extensive internet searches looking for dirt on me. Funny how doing sneaky things like that can come back to haunt you. We know you'll deny it again, but we also know that you posted false information here that I planted for you to find in your internet sleuthing.
Actually, if you were paying attention, I was just reading posts by several folks who mentioned that they had very recently utilized the firearms import services that you continually advertise here in your tagline. And it occurred to me that each of those sales SHOULD HAVE resulted in Dave Weber getting paid the same $12.00 fee that honorable guys regularly pay him when they sell the guns, scopes, sights, books, stock blanks, Double Gun Journals, bore gauges, and other items they advertise here.
When you think about how many other guys have also mentioned using the services you continually advertise here, over the years, it probably adds up to a nice chunk of change. I wonder how you'd feel if Dave cheated you out of the same amount of money??? And if I ever cheated Dave out of even one $12.00 fee for a sale, you'd never stop harping on it. And you know it. So stop crying and pay the man.
I saw work done on Holland guns by Lutterotti in Italy and to my eyes at least it looked as fine as any UK work. The person who had it done said the price was one tenth of what was asked in the UK.
You charge what the market will pay. H&H can do it, or have it done, for less but we’ll heeled owners must be willing to pay it. New guns are near six figures so a third of that to bring back the portion most likely to wear out to factory new condition to me gives the gun four to six decades, if not more, of use. Spread out over 50 years and perhaps several owners, it seems less outrageous. I wish I had a rack full of guns worthy of investing that much money into.
Back in the golden age of gunmaking, when most of the work was done by hand, a rebarrel cost 3 guineas on a 100 guinea gun, or roughly 3 per cent. Fast forward to today, the age of CNC and certified steel etc, and the ratio jumps to 30 per cent. Something does not compute.
For 30 plus thousand pounds you can find a superb example of a Stefano Zanotti improved Holland type SXS. Improved in the sense of stronger lock up and rebounding locks. With superior finish and engraving to boot. See here an example with pinless locks. I shudder to think how much an English firm would add on for pinless locks!
As for charging what the market will bear, that is a questionable practice. It leaves room for serious competitors, (those that can provide the same quality product at a lower price) to undercut you. And when that happens those that paid what the market could bear feel defrauded.
We still live in the USA ? Can't anyone use dollars ? I mean, the British didn't beat us and we don't use the gbp over here. Just wondering what happened.
We still live in the USA ? Can't anyone use dollars ? I mean, the British didn't beat us and we don't use the gbp over here. Just wondering what happened.
Funny folks those British, when they quote a job they quote it in the currency that they use. The audacity of it all.....
Google will provide a multitude of links to sites that can quote the current exchange rates. At today's mid market rates it coverts to $48,305.
I like competition but there are other considerations. Have a barrel “made” by the original maker and the value is better than having it “made” by another. Ironic thing is same craftsman might make both. Using outside workers has been going on for a hundred years. I don’t know if most makers are even building enough guns to keep specialists like barrel maker employed. So they fall back to a long held tradition of using outsourcing as a solution. H&H are getting a premium for their name and the enhance resale value that represents. While expensive, I think new barrels will continue to be made by those with deep enough pockets. It is just out of my price range. For that matter I suspect a nice engraving job would be as well and that always has been outsourced. Norms of the trade.
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).
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. (those guys are out there).
That's certainly a tried and tested method of avoiding work/jobs that you don't want to do while at the same time, not refusing the job. You may be on to something.
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.
It has not been that way for some time Dustin. Blackers, Peter Higgins, Mike Birch...these are the guys doing the work for the big houses. H&H no longer has a barrel man at all.
3 Guineas (we liked to use those to upset the Spaniards as the gold coins we stole from them were a tad to heavy to use as gold Sovereigns) was not the price of replacement chopper lump barrels in 1895.
It was the extra charge ( in this case on a best BLE by Edwinson Green) for using Whitworth chopper lump barrels on a gun whose base price was £35.0.0d bringing to a total of £38.3s.0d.
Forgive me for using Sterling, but that was how it was priced.
I do not believe a 100 Guinea gun would ever have been re-barrelled by best makers for 3 guineas (unless the customer was a Prince of the Realm, or holding a working gun to their heads, or both).
My WAG is that re barrelling a side by side would be at least 25% to 35% for the current new price of a similar gun.
It is notable however that muzzle loader to pinfire to centre fire to ejector conversions were carried out , which these days would appear absurdly uneconomic.
Colonial double gun makers would provide a 2nd set of barrels for about 1/2 of the price of the gun
1910 Norvell-Shapleigh Hdw. catalog
The list for No. 00 NE was $60; No. 0 $82; No. 1 $102; Pigeon $160; No. 3 $134; No. 4 204$; No. 5 $268 and Monogram $478 = almost $15,000 today
And BTW is not at all uncommon for the Hunter Arms shipping records to document a No. 2 with damascus barrels at a later date fitted at the factory with Armor Steel (No. 00) barrels
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.
It has not been that way for some time Dustin. Blackers, Peter Higgins, Mike Birch...these are the guys doing the work for the big houses. H&H no longer has a barrel man at all.
Really? I had not heard that. I guess I better get caught up. Hard to believe Purdeys and H&H’s big investments in new computer controlled brazing furnaces etc and barrel boring equipment, etc went to waste. Damn.
H&H has recently made some of the bench men redundant for the very first time. After the new owners made that decision some of the old staff left on their own. H&H being without a barrel man is a new development and not of their choosing I believe. The big houses outsourcing re-barrel work is not new.
Outsourcing a re-barrel job might have been easier than interrupting production flow already in the works for a customer. It was done to a standard not done by a craftsman who was as sought after as Becker would be for Fox. I had heard a couple makers were without in house workers but was told outsourcing was capable of keeping up with demand
A few year ago the name makers were buying a lot of their own guns to rehab in house then sell to customers who could not afford a bespoke gun at that time. Some were with worn out barrels and some were with 26” barrels which were put if fashion.
I wonder what demand there is for bespoke guns these days when you are easily able to spend 100K pounds on a gun? Are they building 50 a year by Boss, Purdey and H&H? There always will be a few people with means and interest in having one made, just not in my circle.
All of this discussion is worthless to anyone other than a fool and his money, save the odd bullshitting value. The very idea of a set of sxs shotgun barrels costing $48,000, regardless of how finely they are made or how fine the gun they are for is, is an absurdity and abhorrent to anyone with minimal intelligence. More like a really bad joke. JR
I realize everyone on this board already knows this to some extent.
The real question for me is where rebarrelling can be done at a price I can pay without going too far upside down.
My desire vs reality may already be ridiculous.
If the market gets so expensive that new guns don’t get made, high end double guns begin to die.
If the trade makes rebarreling impossible by price (we are almost there now) And worse no one is even doing it then all the worn out guns with thin walls become permanent wall hangers.
We are a fringe hobby that is shrinking more and more and the shrinking trade supporting it is concerning if you want to get an old gun rebuilt.
We will soon be left, if we are not already, with playing with those old guns still serviceable, that is until they wear out, then oblivion.
While it can be argued that there are plenty more side by sides still serviceable to supply our actual need, as opposed to our wants, it is that we want to be able to have.
I understand another post I read recently on the math and economics buying an already sleeved gun as smarter than buying one needing to be sleeved, true, however it ignores an underlying principle which is I want what I want. I have three guns for which I need barrels. All are shootable in their current form, I simply want new barrels on them. One I may of located a set of barrels in the white, but whether that works remains to be seen.
The other two a Purdey 16 with cut 26inch barrels that have Briley tubes that I want to replace with sound longer barrels, and a Boss with excellent wall thickness 12ga tubes on it, but I have discovered the frame is really lean and the same width or narrower than several of my light 16’s, so I want to have a set of 27inch 16ga barrels in addition to the nice thick 12ga 28inch barrels it already has.
Why because I like so many others on this board want that, and what they want, they want
New barrels are like the holy grail. A good set of new barrels will last through to my life, what is left of it, through into my Grand Son’s life (I pray he will like my guns and that I will last long enough to teach him)
The price point has been and will be the problem, I am not sure what that point is
My hope is that someone(s) on this side of the pond will start providing new barrels for classic British guns, whether someone already here or someone emigrates from the collapsing British trade and then provides the service.
In the end reality we face market forces that overwhelm desire and reason, there are not enough of us doublegun lovers with money to create the marketplace we want.
....In the end reality we face market forces that overwhelm desire and reason, there are not enough of us doublegun lovers with money to create the marketplace we want.
Maybe, there is a reason to support today's AR and Glock shooter. Down the road, a few of them might purchase a pump shotgun and give it a go at their local skeet range.
....In the end reality we face market forces that overwhelm desire and reason, there are not enough of us doublegun lovers with money to create the marketplace we want.
Maybe, there is a reason to support today's AR and Glock shooter. Down the road, a few of them might purchase a pump shotgun and give it a go at their local skeet range.
I would agree, and sometimes we are one in the same. I hunt almost exclusively with vintage doubles, but I have a .300 Blackout on an AR platform with thermal optics, a 6.5 Creedmoor on a Ruger Precision platform, and carry a .45 ACP and a 18" barreled Winchester SXP in my truck. I find it perplexing when a shooter is so carried away with one genre of gun that he "rejects" others as being, somehow, unnecessary.
There is likely a lesson here in the ill-fated attempt by Simmons to produce new Parker barrels at a price and quality that worked for both the maker and the purchaser. There was lots of interest in the effort I couldn't find the original thread on the PGCA but here are some follow-ups
Another comparison. Atlas Arms supplied replacement Parker barrels, using Vickers Nickel Steel, manufactured by ARMAF in Belgium in the 50s and 60s Semi-finished barrels were $75 + $40 for complete fit and finish = $115 or about $1100 today.
The average hourly wage in the U.S. in 1960 was $2.26. In Belgium about $0.62.
Just check that the price quoted doesn't include the Value Added Tax that we in Britain have to pay. You in the U.S. will have this tax deducted and that is about a 20% discount. Although I guess you might have some sort of import tax to pay. Note also that if made by someone else it won't have Holland & Holland on the top rib or else it would be considered a forgery intending to deceive. The work will probably be outsourced anyway to the same firm in Birmingham that another top London Gunmaker would use and have his name put on. Such are the vagaries of the British Gun Trade. Lagopus.....
These are consumer goods that are luxury products. The makers/sellers should offer up the fruits of their labour at any price the market will bear. Good for H&H if someone will pay them $45,000 usd for a replacement set of barrels. Or $150,000 for a new gun. It's called the free market and if they want to continue in business and no one is buying at those prices, my guess is they will come down. In the mean time, more power to them.
These are consumer goods that are luxury products. The makers/sellers should offer up the fruits of their labour at any price the market will bear. Good for H&H if someone will pay them $45,000 usd for a replacement set of barrels. Or $150,000 for a new gun. It's called the free market and if they want to continue in business and no one is buying at those prices, my guess is they will come down. In the mean time, more power to them.
The next thing you know, you Canucks will be condoning Capitalism Hope you are well James.
My WAG is that re barrelling a side by side would be at least 25% to 35% for the current new price of a similar gun.
I think Parabola's estimate is on the money. Ten years ago I was looking to order a Spanish sxs from the factory, with an extra set of barrels. The premium for that extra set of barrels was 35% of the price of the shotgun itself.
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