You mention you have used the British Gunmakers volumes, but am I misunderstanding that you are asking what is in these volumes ?
The gun room for whom i have done work for has all the volumes, and i have used them to locate names and addresses for specific makers when i have been looking for things in my own collection. But i have only looked through the index to find a specific maker, and the book seems to be just pages of names and address's.
I would be more interested to read about how the industry developed over time, how mechanisms were perfected and who was responsible, in more of a narrative informative fashion. As apposed to a reference book with names dates and addresses.
