Well, if you have to have a sidelock and your upper limit is $6,000 I do admit you have chosen a sticky pond from which to get out unscathed. You WILL struggle to find a decent English one at that price.
My advice would be save a bit more and get something good rather than spend what you have on something second rate.
BTW Run with the Fox - my father was born a citizen of the Irish Republic and his father in Kilkea Castle- and his mother, Lady Alice FitzGerald would be turning in her grave at the thought of her descendents being called Limeys by the American born offspring of some exiled bog trotter.
Not exiled bog trotters--at least you don't have Lord Boycott in your past peerage-- I'll respect the Limeys when you pull out of Belfast- where my late maternal Great-Grandfather worked as a ship's millwright for Harlan & Wolff from 1890 until 1909, when he came to America-- not too may bogs for him to trot on in that great shipbuilding town and port in the Emerald Isle--He left of his own free will, not exiled as the Limeys did with their "undesirables" and Australia. Your laddy-bucks do crank out a few fine guns, but the best period for Limey craftsmanship ended with the "Guns of August" in 1914- your Country lost many fine trade and craftsmen from 1914 to 1919- thanks in part to your Sandhurstian numbnutted Generals like Haig- and the butcher's bill he caused at the Somme in 1916- My thesis is, and always will be, if you live and earn your living in America, buy an American made gun, and have a qualified master smith (like my friend Buck Hamlin) go over it, and shoot proper light loads if you prefer (as I do- ditto the late Captain Paul A. Curtis) a sidelock over a boxlock--I have 4 LC Smith 12 bores- three are pre-1913 graded guns, one is a 1932 graded gun, all have double triggers, two have selective ejectors, two have manual extractors (or "luggers" as you Limeys like to call them) and they perform for me- on live birds and occasional clays- like a Steinway under the fingers of the late Dave Brubeck-- However, I am not that hard of heart that I would NOT offer my condolences to the Limeys for the recent passing of the late Iron Maiden, Ms. Maggie Thatcher- one tough old broad con cojones hechan de laton, no es verdad?--Not attractive, but neither was the late Eleanor Roosevelt, nor Sir Winston Churchill's Frau either- but in the ball-busting world of international politics, looks don't count- it's performance, and Maggie was a first rate performer in the political arena usually reserved for the Herrenvolk-- Ta ta--
