reliable long guns that are cost effective will outsell the one-offs simply due to mass public appeal.
same for back in the day, same for today.
Well yes and no ,
True mass production as we know it today , did not exist tell into the mid 19th century .
What did exist was a one off type of mass production where a company would have a large labor force OR would have guilds producing components that would later be assembled . But all to often that also included the problem of parts not being interchangeable .
Take for example what is limped into being called the NW Trade gun today .
Very large quantities were produced for the trade market here in the Americas’ .
Depending on the maker some were junk to the point they would not work “poor reliability “. what happened was in the process of trying to make the gun cheaper and increase production , they took a gun that was of poor quality to start with and made it even worse . William Johnson talks about this issue in his diaries and letter from the NIB,. It got so bad that he and others in the trade market , could not get rid of their stockpiles .. It should also be noted that the actual cost of even those guns was very much what one would pay today to have one built
Another good example of quality and reliability with large availability , yet little to no market would be the military arms . We know from many different diary accounts that these guns were simply not wanted by the largest % of civilians and Natives alike .
On the flip side however , if we look at companies like Hall who produced a reliable long arm and whose sales and production numbers far exceeded those of Hawkens , in the very same time frame. Do we still not have to ask , where are those guns are and why a company with very small production numbers and sales , was so much more desirable .
Infact to the point that the hall rifles are near lost in reference. Possibly to the point that if it wasn’t for the rifles ability to be converted to breech loading during the US civil war, we might be mentioning the Hall rifles as nothing more then a foot note .
Flash forward to today and our true mass production which provides interchangeable parts within the model and maker .
Back in the 1970’s there were probably 20 or 30 different makers . Everyone from Sears to Ithica, Winchester and Remington was jumping on the band wagon.
Even 20 years later the companies that were left were those who for the most part were producing what was consider a far less reliable gun . IE Jukar and Adesa
TC was still marketing their line . But their sales paled in comparison.
CVA later drop production with Jukar and started having their rifles built in Adesa .
When Traditions started up , they to took on contracts with Adesa . Thus you had both companies whish while slightly different are basically the same , with for the most part interchangeable parts .
IMO those guns are for the most part reliable even though they are very cheaply made
If however we look at the price , they are also entering or passed the relm of a much higher quality gun like TC or the Italian imports .
Yet TC is now out of the market . CVA is gone . You now have Traditions and Pedersoli and its subs which produce the lyman , investment arms lines ..
Both of which have been IMO probably bolstered by Smith & Wesson shutting down the TC side lock lines just as traditions sale probably increases when CVA dropped out of the market .
Today IMO the market has changed in that more and more the customer is looking for a better quality piece . Back in the 1970’s when I did my apprenticeship, there were only a small few who were building custom muzzleloaders . Back then we were either buying parts through Dixie , reclaiming original parts or making our own . But within a few years , we had more options as quality makers started to pop up .
Today . There is a whole behind the seens industry with just about everything anyone would want or consider wanting . The numbers of people building and marketing their rifles has boomed to the point its not hard to find someone who can build you what your looking for .
Price wise . Well im sorry I hate to tell you this but the relative price has frankly not changed all that much in 300 years. For the most part a working serviceable custom rifle is still costing in the ball park of 1 months wages . No one is getting rich . For the most part the vast majority of smiths and builders are still making less then minimum wage .
Then you have those who are making maybe 14-16 an hour if they are knowledgeable and fast . Those who are making going shop rate , which is a small hand full are doing so do to modern technologies so as to bolster their production .
Those who build extremely high dollar piece, who make journeyman and master wages are few and far between and their production numbers are very small .
So let me close this long post by saying this .
Production wise , in the time frame we are talking about , the guns that were mentioned , could not have been built and sold for the relative cost they are today . So frankly that’s out of consideration . They would have cost just as much as anything we today consider to be custom or semi custom IE around one months wages for the common man .
Would those guns become popular to the point they were recorded as anything more then a footnote . IMO probably not . I say that not because of quality but because they would have been entering the market at a time of great and drastic change in the firearms industry
Topic: Would it raise any eye brows? (Read 1596 times)