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Mehul:

Lockmaking had concentrated in the Black Country by the 17th Century, and most seem to have been in Wolverhampton, not far from Birmingham. The best known in the breechloader era were Brazier, Chilton, and Stanton. All three were highly respected and used extensively in best quality London guns. I've always enjoyed the irony in the fact that the heart and soul of many a true London best was it's Birmingham locks. Brazier's were probably the best. Of course, these locks were hand made, as were the guns they were intended for.

The gun trade survived only as a shadow of itself after the loss of the empire, and it was tough to keep ancillary businesses like Brazier's and Chilton's going. One of the recent owners of Brazier's apparently wasn't a lockmaker at all, but a machinist. Using a hand made lock as a model, he made thousands of locks on CNC machinery. A friend of mine, who was in the London trade at the time, went up to have a look. The fellow had made what would have amounted to a lifetime supply for the entire trade, and couldn't understand why he couldn't sell out his stock quickly! Of course, with best guns, one size doesn't fit all either. That's essentially what I gather that the new owner bought.

Read some of his spiel. His argument is essentially that handmade guns are inferior to machine made guns, and are dangerous by comparison. Touting his "SolidSolid" rifle barrels, here are a couple of his comments about conventional DR barrels:

"Because the barrels are converging, they can only be expected to group rounds of a specific mass and loading at a specific given distance. Double rifles commonly seen with multiple folding "express" sites are at best a suggestion of bullet impact."

I have trouble reading this stuff because laughing that hard HURTS.

He goes on to state that re-regulating conventional double rifle barrels "require the gun to be entirely torn down, barrels separated, and then re-soldered in order to re-regulate..."

That's all my sides can stand. Nothing is true in either statement. There can be no question that he has never shot a double rifle nor ever seen one regulated. He is certainly no gunmaker.

As for his SolidSolid barrels (a set of double barrels bored from one piece of steel), it's very old news. It was done successfully in England and on the Continent 100 years ago, and was abandoned because it wasn't the best way, not because they couldn't do it.

I hear that he is not well thought of in the trade. Judging from what he puts on his web site, I can understand why.

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"Serious rifles have two barrels, everything else just burns gunpowder."

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