Gene,
Are you the author of the up coming article in Diggory's new online publication?

I think you are very close to correct in your hypothesis. When looking back through your thread and at the 2 A&D guns with the WR top levers pictured on pg.22 I noticed neither gun has a "T" preceding the serial number. Something I think of as fairly typical if WR had finished up the guns. On barreled actions sold to the trade the serial number was usually lacking the "T" prefix. I would bet my bottom dollar WR built those barreled actions. Pretty much everyone else was using the Scott spindle as soon as it was developed. I am not certain all guns finished up in house and sold with another retailers name always had the "T" prefix but many of them did.

Another thing I noticed was the advertisements in the London daily to stop on down to Oxford St. and have your gun fit, try it out, watch it be built. While certainly much of the advertisements of the day were full of falsehoods, this seems pretty legit. It does not seem you would pay good money to advertise a service you do not offer. My guess is Reilly at some point had settled into buying barreled actions and doing the fit, finish and stocking of them on bespoke items while at the same time offering a catalog of pre-finished Brmingham built guns.

Interesting reading for sure and thanks for all the effort.

Steve



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