Been playing with vintage American Double shotguns lately.  Shooting mostly but looking at a lot too. Most were offered in different grades. As you go up in grade most obvious difference is engraving, then wood, however grade to grade the internals are finished better too.   Polish inside the locks, jewelling on the bridles etc.  It was common practice for the more experienced workmen to do the high grade work with newer workers assembling and fitting the field grade guns. Or so the period advertising said.

I am not sure this was the practice with single shots. To my knowledge if you ordered a Stevens many options available including engraving however the inside of a plain gun has the same finish as a fancy one.  May have been different brand to brand my Winchester experience is more limited than Stevens

Anybody have any insight on how it was done on American Single shot rifles?

Boats

Quote:


Boats, 

For my two cents, I'd say those words apply overall, but with varying degree for each manufacturer. And I'm pretty much in agreement with Dave's observations. 

Internally, the original Winchester and Remington rifles made for the civilian market gave you the same production standards from field grade through high grade. The internal parts weren't highly polished or jeweled like you find in the vintage American shotguns you've looked at, or like you see in a British-best double rifle, but they were very well made, heat-treated and fit, providing good servicability over an extended period of time. 

Winchester's production to gauge with extremely close repeatable part tolerances resulted in minimal hand-fitting required. Remington's tolerances varied a bit more, requiring somewhat additional hand-fitting, but both manufacturer's gave you the same high quality regardless of grade.  

When it comes to Stevens (and a number of other similiar primarily high-volume lower-budget manufacturers), you often see crude and rude internal fit and finish in the standard grades, changing to sometimes decent and better as you move to the higher end of their respective product lines. Part tolerance repeatability can be really sloppy, which required a large amount of hand-fitting, and you usually got what you paid for. To their credit, Stevens definitely improved their standards with the introduction of the 44 1/2, so maybe Harry Pope was able to teach them a thing or two during their brief association. 

It's kind of a tongue-in-cheek joke that an original Stevens (44 1/2 excepted) is often as close as a standard production rifle can get to being a semi-custom one-off, before being customized.

I own engraved Stevens and Ballards, and nothing internally appears different from others. One thing I have noticed with Stevens rifles I own or have owned, the engraved guns often have very plain wood and metal externally. 
On the other hand every Ballard I've seen that was engraved had very nice to presentation quality wood. I think Marlin put some extra grade wood on all engraved guns, even if it wasn't ordered, while Stevens did exactly what the customer paid for. So if someone ordered a engraved Stevens and no other options, that's all they got.
I have a regular Stevens 44 in .32-20 that has some of the best engraving I've ever seen on a Stevens, but is bone stock in every other way.

Westerner have always gone for plain guns boats and cars, & spent my money on fancy Women.

However have been interested in engraving lately, Whole lot of it I don't like.  Few I like a lot. Seems to me it's the difference in fine art and folk art, or carved birds and duck decoys.  American engraving as seen on classic American Doubles,  Parker's, LC Smiths etc really catches my eye. 

All this toward getting my Low Wall project rifle engraved.  Now that my eye is getting educated on shotguns am starting to look more at Rifle engraving.  Don't want it to look German Italian or British, must look like what it is working target rifle that has a few extra bucks put into embellishment.

Boats

Boats
True, I remember two incidents; one was a discussion on target rifles. When the conversation turned to Stevens one old hand remarked how crudely the Stevens actions were finished on the inside. When asked why so many Stevens were fine target rifles he turned and said "I never said they didn't make good barrels."
The other was reading in the Kelver book how Pope complained bitterly about having to fix all that was wrong with the Stevens actions so the rifles would shoot properly with one of his barrels on them.
I believe that when you ordered from the custom shops you got a rifle that was finished with a little more care. Not just slapped together on the assembly line.
40 Rod

boats wrote on Oct 31^st, 2011 at 4:20pm:


That book is getting as hard to find and expensive as the higher grade guns!   

David

boats wrote on Oct 31^st, 2011 at 6:43am:


Boats, 

I don't want to disillusion you, but a 'few bucks' won't buy you anything in the way of engraving these days. A few hundred bucks will get you some scratching a couple of thousand will get you some really nice work by a very competant engraver and full coverage could cost you up to five 'G's' or more. Your rifle will be worth a lot more if the engraver is a 'known artist' in this field. If you go that way make sure that he signs it, as then there should be no argument over its provenance.

The other unpaletable part is that long wait for the work to be done. Top of the range craftsmen are not as cheap these days, far from it.
In the hey day of the American side by side shotgun when the factories employed a good number of engravers on low wages. Today some companies have a custom gun department which includes engravers, and these depts aren't cheap. Every craftsman takes years to learn his skills and quite rightly he won't be willing to work for peanuts, for anyone.

Best work out how much you have to spend, then ask an engraver what it will buy.

Harry

Harry "few bucks" was tongue in cheek !

It's going to cost more for sure.  However what I have in mind is real simple. Border around the action flat sides and some simple flourishes around the screws and pins.  Leave the sides open for a simple panel job perhaps Bullseye target one side Squirrel other which is what the gun is built for. Probably do the panel's as a 2nd step. It has to look right and want to go slow on that part.  Work will be American style like on period LC Smiths.  Won't be using a "name" engraver either. Spending more than the rifle will ever return if sold makes no difference to me.   

To my eye balance is important and it's not going to be a fancy rifle in any way.  Full coverage is impressive but  not something that's ever caught my eye.  Everybody's eye is different though.

Boats