Membership is $40 annually and their mission described below. The organization is active and membership includes a quarterly publication, the L.C. No vintage double gun company is complete without some kind of collectors club. They were also one of the first gunmakers of the time to offer a single trigger, their “Hunter One-Trigger”. was the first to offer auto-ejectors in 1892. There were few other American makers who did the same, but none with the same clout as L.C. Smith was one of the only American makers to produce a sidelock shotgun, where the internal mechanisms of the gun were fixed to the side plates that extended back from the action. There were additional high grade guns made, but production of these guns was limited to under 1000 of any particular model and as such they are a rarity. guns and are what one would likely find on the gun rack at a local shop. These five options represent the most commonly found L.C. In addition to Field Grade, the company produced Ideal, Skeet, Trap, and Specialty guns ranging from $25 to $1000. Field grade guns were stamped as such on the water table of the gun. The most common of these became the ‘Field’ grade. Needless to say, the latter system was in place until 1913 when the change in hands resulted in new options for Fulton Arms L.C. The earliest were described as ‘qualities’ rather than grades from this vintage. Smith guns, that is to say guns from the pre-1913 date, were graded with numbers or letters, ascending/descending and covering a variety of options available at the time. Image courtesy of Dogs and Doubles.Įarly L.C. 2 with ejectors, refereed to as model 2E. Smith gun owners during the past 50 years! Your gun bears the most famous name in shotgun history. “Welcome to the hundreds of thousands of shooters who have joined the ranks of L.C. But safety is of particular importance when we consider all the other factors at play when wingshooting. There is a time and place for keeping history alive, no doubt, and I have a share of very old guns - hammers and Damascus included. The same goes for the risk of shooting Damascus steel barrel guns. For most wingshooters there is romance in shooting old guns, but one does question the efficacy of using a hammer gun in real-world bird hunting scenarios. You would not want to put a modern 2¾ inch sporting load through one of those vintage 1800s guns. Most of the early guns were either hammer guns or had Damascus twist barrels, and were built to handle the common loads of the times. Smith Baker, most of these models would be impractical for today’s wingshooter. Though a number of models were available in early Baker Vintage production as well as the L.C. Smith Collectors Association Models, grades and options for the L.C. The Marlin Arms Company did produce a few guns in the late 60s and early 70s, though production was very limited.Īd from 1915 – Image from L.C. Production continued for four or five years until a portion of the factory collapsed, causing an eventual shutdown and the suspension of production. Though company ownership changed hands over the course of time, the next significant purchase came in 1945 when the Marlin Arms company purchased the L.C. During this period of production, options and variety were added to the lineup, including a number of grades, gauges, stock configurations, ejectors, and trigger options. Smith Gun that most folks are familiar with began at length. At that time the company passed to John Hunter of Fulton, N.Y., and the production of the L.C. Smith to make guns under the Baker name until 1889. Baker and Leroy Smith would go on to create the Ithaca Gun Company, leaving L.C. Their offerings included side-by-side shotguns with external hammers and three barrel guns - side-by-side shotgun barrels over a rifle barrel, commonly referred to as drillings. Baker and the brothers Leroy Smith and Lyman Cornelius Smith began making guns in partnership in 1879 under the Baker name. They are also unique in design when compared to many of the other popular doubles of their time and are inarguably tied to wingshooting history in the States. Smith is easily one of the most recognizable names in the world of American double guns. Exploring the shotgun manufacturer famous for their American sidelock
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