==================================================================================================
30295. (1888)

Gary, re your 8 bore (30295), there are a lot of rifled guns posted in the list of serial numbers (17343, 18766, 18954, 20808, 21305 ...27847, 28861, 30791..etc.). I've included links...most of those have photos. Click on them and compare. Check out especially 26733, an 8 bore restoration project I believe. (I just checked the link...it's just a question with no photos.check some of the other big guns..). Also I think I included a couple of guns that were in a New Zealand auction...without serial numbers. One had a 12 ga shotgun barrel coupled with a Rifle barrel.

A lot of ink has been spilled on whether Reilly's made their own guns. After playing around with this for a while...and I am not an expert....using logic, I think they did. They did not put serial numbers on guns they were only marketing though they would put their names. And there is a unity to what they produced. they may have ordered components and assembled them - certainly that Martini with the Reilly Serial Number 17xxx used Enfield parts but they were put together by Reilly. (There are makers today redoing 1911 .45's and using their own names).

And somewhere I saw a picture of his building at 502 Oxford Street. I can't find it at the moment but it was a substantial 4 story building, far larger than you'd need to just conduct a business. (the picture is an engraving off an early label and I'm wrong...I don't think you could set up lathes and woodworking equipment in that building) . JC and EM always identified themselves as "gun makers" (or "gun manufacturers") and in one census claimed to have 300 employees. That building could have housed a couple of hundred I'd think.

Unless someone with access to the Royal Museum and libraries (trw999 ???) can do some more digging that's about the extent of what I can say. It's just a feeling but the guns that came out of his building had a certain flavor (I looked at 100's of photos over the past couple of months) (and if you want to have fun and really be energized...click on those links) and whether he founded and welded the damascus barrels himself is sort of like asking if Jeep really did build the carburetors for their vehicles in Toledo, Ohio; and in fact I'm wondering if substantial firms like Holland and Holland had their own foundries - logic and economics says they couldn't and didn't - or if they ordered barrels then put them together. (I'm getting way out of my depth here and will defer to people who know).

One more thought, Reilly stocks were always interesting and he used a lot of French wood apparently...this was commented on regularly long before others started use interestingly veined woods.. My gun is an example.

Last edited by Argo44; 09/11/18 09:01 PM.
Baluch are not Brahui, Brahui are Baluch