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Old April 28, 2008, 09:25 PM   #4
James K
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Join Date: March 17, 1999
Posts: 24,383
Spanish shotguns were made by literally dozens of small shops, and were sold under hundreds of names, usually those of importers in other countries. With maybe one or two exceptions, those guns were made on a cottage industry basis.

A factory of sorts would forge, say, hammers. Then Pedro would pick up a basket of hammers, take them to his cottage, and file them to match a gauge. Then he would take them back to the factory and trade them for money and more rough forgings. At the factory, a fitter would hand fit and harden each hammer. Eventually, Pedro, and Jose, and Manuel and their cousins would produce a shotgun, which might be of reasonable quality, but which was cheap because Pedro and the others didn't get paid very much.

But when the gun was imported into the U.S. and sold, if that hammer broke, the gunsmith wrote the factory or importer and received the rough forging, not the finished hammer. So it was up to the American gunsmith, who was getting paid a lot more than poor Pedro, to file and grind the hammer until it fitted. The customer was usually unhappy about paying more for the repair than he did for the gun in the first place.

IMHO, forget Spanish doubles unless they are made by AyA or maybe one or at the most two other makers. And definitely forget those marked only with an importer's name.

Also, again, Anson & Deeley made shotguns with a patented type of action; that action has been much favored by Spanish makers. But saying a gun has an Anson & Deeley action so it is as well made is like saying a car has the engine head painted red, so it is just like a Ferrari.

Jim
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