"...most capitalist of countries betrayed its faith in the free market when it introduce the McKinley tarrif of 1890. This imposed a charge of 35% plus $6 on every gun....allowing American makers like Parker, to succeed with what was an inferior produt." (p.122)
I was incredulous when I read this in his book. Inferior to what? By what standard were they judged? American gunmakers made guns that would stand up to the requirements of American shooters of the period. And they did a darned good job. What British gun could have stood up to the decades of use and abuse our shooters subjected their arms to. In our vast country with supplies of ammunition limited guns were shot with whatever was available and this was generally with what the Brits would have called "magnum" loads (If they'd had that word then) and unsuitable for their fragile arms. British guns were designed to be returned to a gunsmith for frequent upkeep--American guns had to endure decades, even more than a century of use without anything more than an infrequent drop of oil. Inferior? Blasphemy! I would gladly put any Parker, Lefever, Smith, Fox, Baker, ithaca, and any other American gun up against their highly touted toys.
Go back and read the date-1890. There was no Fox, if you said "Parker", it probably meant a lifter gun to most folks, as the hammerless had been on the scene very briefly, and some products produced by the others were pretty crude. More than one gunsmith reported Parkers with a bunch of soft parts in them, and Parker hammerless gun have a bunch of parts inside. Everything used black powder, and there were no magnums, as such. The typical US 12 gauge was built on a 10 gauge frame, and was a heavy gun with 30" barrels.
Hate to be the horsefly in the yogurt, but, there exist plenty of US built doubles that are sub-par. Especially lower grades.
That typically isn't the case with even low grade English guns of any time period.
Sorry.
Best,
Ted
