=============== *37 Comments on Reilly Stocks TEXT ===============

*37 Comments on Reilly Stocks

Reilly from very early on reportedly used French walnut. During the 1830’s and 40’s his highly figured stocks differed from the standard English walnut offered by other makers and may be something of a marker.*37a

. . . . .Note: This commentary on stocks is meant to be confined to Reilly. However, as background, per UK newspaper records, English walnut production was falling considerably short throughout the 1830’s and by 1840 Arsenal was importing Continental walnut stock blanks.

. . . . .-- There was debate about this in Parliament in 1843.*37b There certainly are numerous records for the importation of French and Continental walnut stock blanks in massive quantities into UK during the 1850’s. It is impossible to determine from raw shipping records who got what without shop accounts.*37c

. . . . .-- The lack of home grown walnut, however, elicited a great deal of concern in the English gun-making fraternity from 1840 on; numerous commentaries were written in journals and alternative woods to walnut searched for.*37d John Rigby in his introduction to the summary of guns shown at the 1862 London International Exposition had this to say:
. . . . . . . . ."Walnut, which is now almost universally used for gun stocks, is a scarce timber in England, and for years we have been obliged to seek our supplies abroad. Italy has exported the greater portion of the wood used in our Government arms for some time, and large numbers of French and other Continental gun stocks are also sent into this country." *37d(1)

Reilly likely had his own in-house stock makers. A good stock-maker at the time could produce up to 9 (military - not custom) stocks a week (according to an 1856 article comparing the just opened Enfield machine stock maker to handicraft stock makers).*37e. With his established connections to France, Reilly may have had his own methods of choosing and importing quality French walnut stock blanks.

Reilly almost always throughout the history of the firm used a straight English stock for SxS shotguns.*37f The exception to this are big-bore fowlers; A goodly percentage of Reilly shotguns 10 bore or larger had some type of pistol grip although this was not ubiquitous and was quite personal.*37g

He almost always used a pistol grip stock for rifles,*37h and if not, early on a trigger-guard extension which aped a pistol grip (a "scroll guard").*37i

A number of Reilly post 1870 rifles were later converted to shotguns. If a Reilly 12 gauge and smaller "shotgun" has a pistol grip stock, it almost certainly was repurposed from a rifle. The markers for such a conversion are the pistol grip, barrel length less that 30” and weight.*37j

Note: After Riggs bought the name in 1922 most “Riggs-Reilly” guns, both shotguns and rifles, used "Prince of Wales" (the popular name nowadays) stocks. See Chapter xx belos.*37k

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Last edited by Argo44; 06/04/22 11:49 PM.
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