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Apr 29th, 2024
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Dewey Vicknair
Unregistered
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Dewey Vicknair
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MR Vicknair, I'm a little late to this post but went to your website to have a look at your work you have posted on your gallery. I was a little surprised to not see any English guns pictured. In fact all were American guns. I'm guessing this is due to as you pointed out you have expenses to meet. Just surprised because of your earlier comment:
"I have many years working on shotguns from every industrialized nation on Earth and I can tell you that there is nothing impressive about any classic-era American shotguns."
I would not even start to argue about the quality of of the many fine guns made outside of the USA, but it Just goes to show you there are still guys like myself still willing to have our American turds polished, but sometimes we like to think the guy doing the polishing likes our turd. First, if you wish to question my CV, please do so in a straightforward manner. Second, would second-rate (or worse) work from a gunsmith who likes your particular brand of gun (or at least professes to) be preferable to first-rate work from a gunmaker who is indifferent to your brand?
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 13,158 Likes: 1154
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 13,158 Likes: 1154 |
It is refreshing to read well formulated opinions from someone with lots of experience. I would not take offense at any comments Dewey has made concerning design qualities of American doubles, in fact, along with canvasback, I would greatly appreciate his comments on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the other American classic doubles. For example, much has been made of the fact that a Fox's lock work is so simple, with so few parts, and how that supposedly makes it more reliable and longer lasting, without as much need for "tune-ups", as the Parker, which has been described by gun writers as being "hellishly complicated". Have you actually seen that to be the case in your work, Dewey?
Your ability to write well and convey real life experience puts you in a small pool, Dewey. Could you possible share some more of your thoughts on the other American designs?
SRH
Last edited by Stan; 11/01/15 07:57 AM.
May God bless America and those who defend her.
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Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 6,487 Likes: 394
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 6,487 Likes: 394 |
Stan, it is exactly those common perceptions about Parkers and Foxes that prompted me to ask Dewey for his thoughts.
Remington's I just like so I thought I'd throw them in too. Lol
Couldn't agree more with your descriptor......"Refreshing!"
The world cries out for such: he is needed & needed badly- the man who can carry a message to Garcia
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Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 5,021
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 5,021 |
He's not the first here to point out the design flaws on American doubles although with his talent and experience his opinion certainly pulls the most weight. No one called them 'junk' no one called them 'a turd' all they did was point out the design flaws.
Get over it guys because your gun isn't, "The bestest one in the whole world."
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 7,723 Likes: 480
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 7,723 Likes: 480 |
I wish I had taken pictures of a Smith stock that was given to me to dispose of. I took it to a band saw and cut it in one inch or less segments noting how thin the wood got in each segment. In a couple of places it was just a fat Popsicle stick in thickness. Mass produced guns are in-let more than needed in some places. If hand inlet the amount removed would be less but the cost go way up. The Smith in-letter had to do five, ten or more a day not one a day like a custom stocker. Hence extra wood needed to be removed because time did not permit otherwise. And they lasted under normal use for years before cracks became an issue otherwise they would have been forced to make changes to keep selling new guns.
Smiths crack because the wood left after in-letting is too thin to transmit the recoil from the action to the shoulder. It compresses, it flexes, it cracks. Not all the time, but a very high percentage of stocks will fail. Add loads with excessive recoil, over oiling and failure to do routine maintenance to keep everything tight as possible and cracks are inevitable.
Other guns have similar problems. Remington 1894 and 1900's split at the head at a very high rate. The repair is fairly easy and last, but a better inlet design and change of how the wood fit into the back of the receiver could have eliminated this issue. I suspect half of those I have seen have split stocks and every one I have pulled the stocks on have them (cracks), wither seen from the outside or not. The cracks are there even if you do not see the stock spreading.
To me a Smith crack is almost a bargaining point to a buyer. Drop the price because I see a crack in the stock. You know they are there and look for them. They are not so bad the gun can not be shot so are as much a cosmetic problem as a functional one.
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Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 1,935
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 1,935 |
"Character and soul... Ducati and Triumph owners have been trotting out that tired excuse for years. Machines, like humans, have no soul. Anthropomorphizing of machinery is
a weak substitute for comprehension.
If you're going to call someone out on what they "haven't done", you might be willing to share some examples of your work.
You are in no position to know what I have, or have not produced."
One main difference is I'm not spouting off over how poorly designed certain products are. When you do so, you are putting yourself in the firing line.
Your production output? What I do know is I can't find on any car lot a Dewey for sale. I can't find a single Dewey side by side for sale. It's ridiculously easy to produce one-off items of high quality; let's see you put that same item into mass production and have it turn out anywhere near as well. You fight it out with the government, suppliers, production planners, accountants, marketers, distributors, and end users and see how much of your original design is left.
But I'll repeat the part of my post you ignored...hindsight is 20/20. It's a gratuitous exercise to look back on what someone did 100 years ago and hand out judgment.
There is one fact that can't be argued - 100 years from now there won't be a single person arguing over whether or not the Dewey side-by-side shotgun was really that good or not.
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Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 6,487 Likes: 394
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 6,487 Likes: 394 |
KY Jon, Had to laugh at the accuracy of your comments re: Remingtons split even if you can't see it. Someone up here just asked for advice/assessment on a 1894 A grade. I told him the stock is split....can't see it but it's split. Sometimes people don't want to hear that but as you say, a potential bargaining tool. I'm not done buying Remingtons but I expect every one I buy to have a cracked stock.
The world cries out for such: he is needed & needed badly- the man who can carry a message to Garcia
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Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 6,487 Likes: 394
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 6,487 Likes: 394 |
"Character and soul... Ducati and Triumph owners have been trotting out that tired excuse for years. Machines, like humans, have no soul. Anthropomorphizing of machinery is
a weak substitute for comprehension.
If you're going to call someone out on what they "haven't done", you might be willing to share some examples of your work.
You are in no position to know what I have, or have not produced."
One main difference is I'm not spouting off over how poorly designed certain products are. When you do so, you are putting yourself in the firing line.
Your production output? What I do know is I can't find on any car lot a Dewey for sale. I can't find a single Dewey side by side for sale. It's ridiculously easy to produce one-off items of high quality; let's see you put that same item into mass production and have it turn out anywhere near as well. You fight it out with the government, suppliers, production planners, accountants, marketers, distributors, and end users and see how much of your original design is left.
But I'll repeat the part of my post you ignored...hindsight is 20/20. It's a gratuitous exercise to look back on what someone did 100 years ago and hand out judgment.
There is one fact that can't be argued - 100 years from now there won't be a single person arguing over whether or not the Dewey side-by-side shotgun was really that good or not.
A gratuitous exercise because hindsight is 20/20??? Without looking back and dispassionately assessing something, how do we progress?? It seems to me you are missing the point. I don't need to be a car company to recognize that a BMW is a better designed and better made car than a Ford Fiesta, with one exception (depending on who it's marketed to). The Ford is cheaper.
Last edited by canvasback; 11/01/15 10:58 AM.
The world cries out for such: he is needed & needed badly- the man who can carry a message to Garcia
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Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,271 Likes: 521
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,271 Likes: 521 |
There are more than a few good gunsmiths that dislike working on Smiths. Ask Abe Chaber & Paul Hodgins what they think of the design. I know Paul won't even consider taking on any work when it comes to Elsie's and I'm pretty sure Abe is the same. And before you go off on Paul for being a gunsmithing snob......he absolutely loves colt 1911's, browning superposed, Winchester lever actions & pump guns, etc. He actually likes some American doubles too, although he usually refers to the inner workings as crude (which many of them are, let's be honest), but he can appreciate the ingenuity and simplicity. Parkers & Remington's he thinks are very good.
I had a conversation with Freddy Bruner years ago and even he had a few negative things to say about them (I had a field grade Elsie that needed work, top lever spindle screw broke), and if your a Elsie guy, you know who Freddy Bruner is.
Anyone with half a brain can understand why we like our American doubles. Why are they important to us despite being simple and crude and at times inferior to other gun designs? Well, because they're ours I suppose. We are nostalgic bunch and while we look at, use and enjoy them, our minds undoubtedly go into a mode thinking about the past, "the good old days", a hard working blue collar first generation American making guns in an old factory. A small farm tucked away in the heartland, the farmer walking a weedy patch with his prized nitro special hoping for a rooster to flush...a guy sitting on a central flyway marsh in the early 1900's with a long barreled, American made double, probably a 00 Elsie taking a limit of Mallards or even a goose for Christmas dinner, the old timey pics of the group of guys on the prairie, model A in the background, holding their prairie chickens with old American made doubles cradled in their arms..it warms the heart and makes us happy and proud, that in itself is more than enough to justify our passion for our American made guns.
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Joined: May 2008
Posts: 8,158 Likes: 114
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: May 2008
Posts: 8,158 Likes: 114 |
There are more than a few good gunsmiths that dislike working on Smiths. Ask Abe Chaber & Paul Hodgins what they think of the design. I know Paul won't even consider taking on any work when it comes to Elsie's and I'm pretty sure Abe is the same. And before you go off on Paul for being a gunsmithing snob......he absolutely loves colt 1911's, browning superposed, Winchester lever actions & pump guns, etc. He actually likes some American doubles too, although he usually refers to the inner workings as crude (which many of them are, let's be honest), but he can appreciate the ingenuity and simplicity. Parkers & Remington's he thinks are very good.
I had a conversation with Freddy Bruner years ago and even he had a few negative things to say about them (I had a field grade Elsie that needed work, top lever spindle screw broke), and if your a Elsie guy, you know who Freddy Bruner is.
Anyone with half a brain can understand why we like our American doubles. Why are they important to us despite being simple and crude and at times inferior to other gun designs? Well, because they're ours I suppose. We are nostalgic bunch and while we look at, use and enjoy them, our minds undoubtedly go into a mode thinking about the past, "the good old days", a hard working blue collar first generation American making guns in an old factory. A small farm tucked away in the heartland, the farmer walking a weedy patch with his prized nitro special hoping for a rooster to flush...a guy sitting on a central flyway marsh in the early 1900's with a long barreled, American made double, probably a 00 Elsie taking a limit of Mallards or even a goose for Christmas dinner, the old timey pics of the group of guys on the prairie, model A in the background, holding their prairie chickens with old American made doubles cradled in their arms..it warms the heart and makes us happy and proud, that in itself is more than enough to justify our passion for our American made guns.
Well said, indeed.
"The field is the touchstone of the man"..
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