Hi,
I am in the process of building a 1765-1775 English fowling gun sized to fit a teenager or petite woman. It is for the wife of a reenactor friend, who also is active in living history and the gun will represent a better quality export gun from London but not first quality. Every gun I build is an historical adventure for me, which is why I do it. In this case, with respect to the stock architecture, lock, and hardware, I was inspired by the work of Griffin and Tow and most importantly, William Bailes. When I begin a gun, my first stop is my library of references, books and photos. In reviewing all of my books on British gun making, I kept encountering statements like, “the first to intentionally color case harden parts was William Bailes”, and “the first to attach a sighting rib to double barrel fowling guns was William Bailes”, and “the first to place a roller between the feather spring and frizzen was William Bailes”, and “the first to case sporting guns (usually Japanned tin cases lined with baize fabric) was William Bailes”. Like Joe Manton, William Bailes was a great gun maker, and like “Old Joe” he died penniless. Bailes was a very great gun maker but he suffered because he catered solely to the wealthy crowd of sportsmen and never secured large government contracts for military arms. Like today, the gun makers that got wealthy did so with military contracts. The rich sporting crowd were notoriously bad and slow at paying bills and many of the best British gunmakers were ruined by those society thieves. Anyway, I am a William Bailes fan and I raise a toast of a good single malt scotch to that great gun maker.
dave
