Originally Posted By: SKB
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




Steve,
What you're describing is how probably a good 80 to 90% of turn of the century English "gunmakers" operated. It by no means meant that they all had a working factory that was capable of complete gunmaking. Stocking and finishing, while definitely considered sub-categories of gunmaking isn't gunmaking in its entirety, especially when your talking about companies that owned actual factories producing weaponry at the rate that Argo44 claims Reilly was doing. Some of these factories that actually produced complete guns from forging to finished gun.....didn't employ half the people that Argo44 claims Reilly had employed at the time.
With that many people employed and building guns don't you think its a little suspect that no one claims to have worked for Reilly? That none of these employees struck out on there own and pronounced that they were formally of Reilly's and now produce their own guns? No articles of workers, especially the super skilled type that might have been head hunted by other prestigious London gunmaking firms after Reilly shut its doors? Actioners, Barrel makers, finishers, stockers, Iron mongers, all would have been in serious demand.

A lot of provincial gunmakers, smaller firms, etc. used barreled actions and did the stocking and finishing. They also brought in completely finished guns... Nothing new about that, most everyone knows that. That's not exactly "gunmaking" in the full sense.
Its also a known fact that most of these makers had these barreled actions or finished guns either serial numbered for them by the makers they ordered from or they were ordered with no serial numbers...and were then later engraved with their own serial numbers prior to being stocked and finished at their shop, again...common knowledge. Serial numbers are most definitely NOT proof that the company built that particular gun. Back in those days, it was completely acceptable to tell little "white lies" in the gunmaking industry. White lies because it really did no harm and everyone was getting in on the action. Completely true? Not at all. Most of these shops (the 80 to 90% I mentioned earlier) had no real gunmaking equipment, very few of them had an actual milling machine (extremely expensive). Most of them had the tools and equipment for general repair and stocking. That's about it. Finishing was rarely done in house, almost always done by an outworker who was probably unknown to the general public at that time. Barrel making, etc. could be done in house, but was also usually done by outworkers. Very few shops had a house engraver. Again.....almost always an outworkers job. There were a few exceptions obviously. G.E. Lewis did most of their engraving in house. Argo44 claims that most all of these REAL gunmaking activities took place at the Reilly location. Nothing he's produced show's any of that taking place there, I don't buy "advertisements" and shop literature as proof. It's truly hard to believe that Reilly was a full on gunmaking factory, producing the amount of weaponry at such a prolific rate and nobody is documented to have apprenticed with them, struck out on their own, skilled workers weren't head hunted or moved on to other factories, machinery required not shown to have existed at the premises, and the list goes on. With the output of guns supposedly coming out of the Reilly factory, isn't it odd that Reilly didn't have a "house style"?? Most every London gunmaker had a pretty specific house style. Whether it was an engraving style, a particular kind of action, etc. No Reilly I've ever seen (I've owned a couple over the years), has a specific look or distinguishing feature about it. You know...something that identifies it as being a Reilly. That's extremely odd, damn near unheard of for a gunmaker with a London address. I honestly cant think of 1 that didn't have a particular calling card in regards to style, action or features found.

Even with all of his time consuming research that he's done, as impressive as it is (I don't know where he finds the time! Its a pretty monumental effort that's definitely to be commended),
I'd say he's still a ways off from connecting the dots as you say.