The Case for Best Guns in India

[Bespoke]

it is an excim policy,which does not mean it is being imported.

I can't follow you what you are trying to say.How does importing comes into play here?

[marksman]

Thanks Bespoke for making me proud of my possession all over again.
Marksman

[peterdk]

please allow me to be the devils advocate here.(you can publicly hang me afterwards)

But untill you actually have a gunculture in india that is able to maintian and protect those works of art, that are entrusted to you through inherintance, you really are not allowed to yell about the evil people that buy's the guns in your beautyfull home land and export them faster than hell away from india.

my view on the subject is that these guns belong to the world as any great art does, there will never be another golden period for the craft, that i hold so dear and making best guns to the standard that once were is practicly impossibly.

but letting the best guns from that time period stay in india, is like hanging a rembrant unsuperviced at a kindergarden finger coloring class(please excuse the analogy allthough fitting it is a bit offencive, but it is the best i can come up with), you dont have the gunmakers to repair and maintain the guns, your gundealers actually belive that when the barrel adress says to HRH somebody then the gun belonged to royalty you have people that actually toy's with the ammo that is shot in these guns. IMHO you are not in a posistion to guard these guns even if you had the money to do so.

so my heart cry is this, please oh dear god please let the guns go or put them up for safe storage in a museum, untill you have beaten your politicians into submission, to allow you to handle them right.

just so this is not a lot of hot air, i will show exhibit no 1 as evidence of what i am talking about.

this is the mussel end of a Alexander Henry, double rifle, best gun in my collection. At least it was a best gun untill it had the misfortune of landing in the hands of a indian hack AKA gunmaker that desided it did not shoot well enough for his client, so he desided to do a full rerfurbishment of said gun.
now after he removed the ribs of the gun he brought out the nice big buffing wheel, and started out polishing the barrels down you can see the result in the barrel in the right look at the upper left part of it, the barrel wall are now paper thin, after he desided he better stop, so he could still charge the client, he had to put the ribs back on the rifle and regulate the rifle again. now the ribs are hammered back into place, in the places where it didnt fit after he polished they were squeesed into place with pliers before he he continued to solder them together, now the barrels are pointing in several direction and are not even level with the action....

i should explain that the barrels are a fingerprint damascus 12 bore, a true dangerus game rifle of the black powder days, and impossibly to make again as the technologie is not there anymore, the rest of the gun has been manhandled to the same degree as the barrels by one or more indian gunhacks, in a conservative estimate it will proberly take me 9 months(60 hours week) or more to get this rifle back on track but it will never be a best gun again, this is sadly not a sole incendence as almost 70% of the guns i have seen coming out from india is affected in the same way to some degree or other.

i understand the traditions and pride in the same, a lot of you guy's feel about the guns in india, but that same pride and lack of knowlegde is killing the guns out there at a very fast and scary rate, so please let them go, before there is no more guns left to manhandle.

now you can beat me on the public square

best

peter

[Vikram]

Peter,

There is little to contradict in what you say and I actually thank you for not mincing words in saying what you said.What,probably, Bespoke and others like me have in mind is not that they just want to see the guns physically kept in India,but keep them in conditions that these gun deserve.Much akin to what you say. There is a need to educate gun owners and dealers on the value of these guns and preserve them.

You have a PM.

Best-
Vikram

[peterdk]

e-mail send

best

peter

[captrakshitsharma]

Hey good stuff gents. excellent article bespoke and peter i see your point but there are a lot of very skilled gunsmiths in india...

[Bespoke]

Peter,

What you have said makes sense and I couldn’t agree more.

This being said I have mentioned in my post that one should be very beware of Indian gunsmith's when dealing with Best Guns and just because we do not have competent gunsmiths shouldn’t mean we should be deprived of these guns. I think the process of exportation should be allowed for purpose of repair.

I agree that a piece of art belong to the world but If we let these guns go there is no way we can have them back since there is ban on import, we feel trapped and find it hard to retain what we have, If Importation is allowed then I see no point in banning exportation but how fair is it that if you allowed no food but someone keeps sucking your BLOOD on regular basis! yup that’s how we feel.
We from IFG need to raise enough awareness so that Best guns get the treatment they deserve.
I will put it this way if Tigers are not well kept in India doesn’t mean they should be thrown out of India completely .The key is to change the way they are treated and save them from extinction.

Plus the flowing mane of Lions amidst innumerable battle scars will always be majestic compared to a bunch of monkeys in Caps !!

[dr.jayakumar]

it is an excim policy,which does not mean it is being imported.

I can't follow you what you are trying to say.How does importing comes into play here?

sorry friend i meant'' exporting''...so it goes like this..''.it is an excim policy ,which doesn't mean they are being exported from our country''.i have doubts that our country has such weapons at all?apart from defence and very few antiques.

Peter,

What you have said makes sense and I couldn’t agree more.

This being said I have mentioned in my post that one should be very beware of Indian gunsmith's when dealing with Best Guns and just because we do not have competent gunsmiths shouldn’t mean we should be deprived of these guns. I think the process of exportation should be allowed for purpose of repair.

I agree that a piece of art belong to the world but If we let these guns go there is no way we can have them back since there is ban on import, we feel trapped and find it hard to retain what we have, If Importation is allowed then I see no point in banning exportation but how fair is it that if you allowed no food but someone keeps sucking your BLOOD on regular basis! yup that’s how we feel.
We from IFG need to raise enough awareness so that Best guns get the treatment they deserve.
I will put it this way if Tigers are not well kept in India doesn’t mean they should be thrown out of India completely .The key is to change the way they are treated and save them from extinction.

Plus the flowing mane of Lions amidst innumerable battle scars will always be majestic compared to a bunch of monkeys in Caps !!

this would be a good argument when i file a writ on import restrictions,case pending due to elections.

[Bespoke]

sorry friend i meant'' exporting''...so it goes like this..''.it is an excim policy ,which doesn't mean they are being exported from our country''.i have doubts that our country has such weapons at all?apart from defence and very few antiques.

All I can is I know of at least more than 10 such firearms for sale at this very moment my friend.

[dr.jayakumar]

sorry friend i meant'' exporting''...so it goes like this..''.it is an excim policy ,which doesn't mean they are being exported from our country''.i have doubts that our country has such weapons at all?apart from defence and very few antiques.

All I can is I know of at least more than 10 such firearms for sale at this very moment my friend.

is there anything we can do about it?the laws says no arms can be tranfered,bought or get a licence for a firearm license during elections.i am not arguing,just thinking,if we can,in any way stop this?as an ifg'an...

[shooter]

dear peterdk,

nice eagle ring.
Left hand 3rd finger???

working man's hands as evidenced by the thicker than usual skin on your hands.

The mark on your thumb. Judging by a similar shade where the nail meets the skin and yellowish discolouration of your index finger, i would say cigerette.

If the yellowish discolouration is indeed a cigerette mark then why the left hand?

the fact that you are holding the gun in your left hand means you are using the right one for the camera showing you are right handed so why smoke with the left one?

The nails show no sign of recent or past trauma even mild one. (except at 7 o clock but thats to the skin)
Have you not been tinkering with your toys for some time now?

Do you use curved scissors to clip your nails?

the usual nail cutters such as commonly used in india dont give such uniform curve of such curvature unless one uses it to cut several small pieces at a time and then file the nail. It seems unlikely from a guy who works metal as it wouldnt be worth it due to trauma caused to nails.

Judging by absence of callouses on your knuckles, though you associate with the wandering people, you dont indulge in their favourite passtime of bare knuckle boxing.

carpet (blurred but looks like it) in the background shows indoor location. (therefore unlikely to be a workshop). but you are still wearing a long sleeved garment. You dont keep heating to a maximum.

some other things but wont write them here; discuss when youre in london.

[dr.jayakumar]

dear peterdk,

nice eagle ring.
Left hand 3rd finger???

working man's hands as evidenced by the thicker than usual skin on your hands.

The mark on your thumb. Judging by a similar shade where the nail meets the skin and yellowish discolouration of your index finger, i would say cigerette.

If the yellowish discolouration is indeed a cigerette mark then why the left hand?

the fact that you are holding the gun in your left hand means you are using the right one for the camera showing you are right handed so why smoke with the left one?

The nails show no sign of recent or past trauma even mild one. (except at 7 o clock but thats to the skin)
Have you not been tinkering with your toys for some time now?

Do you use curved scissors to clip your nails?

the usual nail cutters such as commonly used in india dont give such uniform curve of such curvature unless one uses it to cut several small pieces at a time and then file the nail. It seems unlikely from a guy who works metal as it wouldnt be worth it due to trauma caused to nails.

Judging by absence of callouses on your knuckles, though you associate with the wandering people, you dont indulge in their favourite passtime of bare knuckle boxing.

carpet (blurred but looks like it) in the background shows indoor location. (therefore unlikely to be a workshop). but you are still wearing a long sleeved garment. You dont keep heating to a maximum.

some other things but wont write them here; discuss when youre in london.

hmmm......i think you are a good abserver.did you do forensic anyway?i think its too unlikely for commoner to pickup on these.been reading your comments,its intense and deep,no way an average like me can dig so deep.maybe thats the reason you are in UK and i am in india............still wearing your sleeved garment,you don't keep heating to the maximum...i didn't get this?

[Bespoke]

You missed the good half moon on nails Poirot!
He lives in Scandinavian country so he has to have a good intake of Vitamin B12 to avoid depression in winter months specially and half moons are the evidence.

[peterdk]

Hey good stuff gents. excellent article bespoke and peter i see your point but there are a lot of very skilled gunsmiths in india...

please name one and show pictures of his work, as i am now convinced that india are totally devoid of even apprentice level gunsmiths comparing to europe off course.

best

peter

[dr.jayakumar]

You missed the good half moon on nails Poirot!
He lives in Scandinavian country so he has to have a good intake of Vitamin B12 to avoid depression in winter months specially and half moons are the evidence.

check yours..................