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    1895 Sportsmen's Exposition Hunter Arms Display Archived Message

    Posted by H. McMurchy on January 16, 2017, 3:30 pm

    Hunter Arms Display at the May 13 – 18, 1895 Sportsmen’s Exposition, Madison Square Garden

    Forest & Stream
    https://books.google.com/books?id=n0IhAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA424&lpg



    Hunter Arms’ Display “Always A Little Ahead”

    Events move rapidly in American, but there are few shooters now before the public in America who cannot easily remember back to a time when a certain event of importance occurred in the history of guns and gunnery in this country. It seems a good while ago, but really it was not so long ago when the first L.C. Smith gun was put on the market and began to be advertised as a good gun for American shooters to have. Comparisons are usually odious, but comparisons are very well when one compares his own success with his earlier shortcomings, and it will hurt no one to refer to the quality of the early L.C. Smith guns. Those were the days of 10-bores, of tremendously heavy barrels, of clubbish proportions and general clumsiness and awkwardness in gun-making in the United States—the days when foolish men carried around a cannon of a gun and shot at quail with 5 Drs. of black powder and 1 1/4 oz. of shot. The shooter of those days boasted of the solidity of his L.C. Smith gun, which weighed perhaps 11 1/2 lbs.—a truly awful weapon. Still, no one even to-day could deny the shooting qualities of these guns, for even in those days it was evident a splendid system of boring had been discovered. The most heated discussion arose over the shooting of these guns, but the guns went right on shooting. Still another fine feature of these old guns was the Smith cross-bolt, beyond doubt the best breech fastening ever put on any gun. Foreign guns have several very pretty fastening bolts, but some of them have not stood the test of time. In a few months the gun is loose, and hence dangerous and worthless. No one even in the modern days of excessive charges of nitro powder has ever seen a loose L. C. Smith gun. Even the old cannons, if you could resurrect them to-day, would be tight and sound.
    The Hunter Arms Co., manufacturers of this gun, are the only firm on earth who guarantee their guns not to shoot loose with Nitros. No other maker has this fastening. Then came the day of the hammerless guns, and the L. C. Smith gun as usual was a little ahead of the time. It happened that the writer, away back in the early '80s, purchased| one of the very first of these guns brought into his State. It was a 12-gauge and weighed 8 1/4 lbs. Eight years later it was still a sound, good gun, but the march of the L.C. Smith had long gone past it. The Nitro powder had come to stay. The L.C. Smith gun was the first to experiment with proper boring for the handling of the new powders. It was always ahead, not a little behind. Long ago, by this time, the reputation of the L.C. Smith gun was permanently established, and it was known as a perfect shooter in every corner of the land. Long since Harvey McMurchy had carried the banner of the L.C. Smith everywhere in America—and either then or to-day a better representative of a gun or a keener student of events never existed than Mr. McMurchy, and probably the public will never know just how much of the continued improvements in this gun have been due to him. Certainly it is only due to him to say that he and the gun grew up together. It was a matter of course that when Mr. L.C. Smith disposed of his interests to the firm which for some years have manufactured this gun (the Hunter Arms Co.), Mr. McMurchy should go on at Fulton, N. Y., with his old sweetheart, the L.C. Smith gun. Apparently there has never been any regret on either side since then. Certainly there have been many changes and improvements in the gun since then. Even more than ever, it has been the gun par excellence of America. It had ideas, and was not afraid to carry them out.
    Shooters began to be dissatisfied with American guns. They would shoot all right and wear all right, but they did not balance and handle right—they lacked elegance of outline and general symmetry. The Hunter Arms Co., always a little ahead, recognized that the great question next to be met was getting out a more shapely gun. Slowly and surely the lines of the L.C. Smith gun began to improve. People began to say “What a pretty gun!”
    Foreign guns began to appear with ejectors on them. Always a little ahead, the Hunter Arms Co. was the first to grasp the ejector idea. No better ejector has ever been devised by those who took more time to ponder. Simple and positive, with few parts, and so arranged that you can't load your gun without leaving it in firing order, it is all that can be asked and quite as good as has appeared. You can use this ejector in sea shooting, and it will work. Moreover, it will not “break” you to buy it. It is not a luxury, to go to the rich alone.
    But long before this another thing had happened which shows the good luck and good foresight of the owners of the L.C. Smith gun. This was the fortunate arrangement by which Mr. Fred Quimby became the selling agent of the gun. The firm is now the W. Fred Quimby Co. of 294 Broadway, New York City, and it cuts a great and growing figure in the sporting goods trade of the United States.
    As selling agent for New York, the Eastern and Southern States for the L. C. Smith gun, this firm does one of the great gun businesses of the country. This is how the Hunter Arms Co. exhibit was made in connection with those of the W. Fred Quimby Co. The goods were shown by Mr. Robert Hunter, Mr. William Hunter, Mr. Thomas Hunter. There are six of the "Hunter boys" in the firm of the Hunter Arms Co. They are nearly all large specimens of manhood, and Mr. Thos. Hunter said that he and his brother William together weighed 465lbs.



    And so our story of the growth of a gun has approached the exhibit at the Sportsmen's Exposition. What shall we say of the exhibit itself? Very little. The story that has gone before is the best description of a gun which has always been ahead in methods of manufacture and of distribution on the trade. There were twenty odd guns displayed, running in price from $45 up to $500, and not in any one of them could you find a hint that it was one of the offspring of the old L. C. Smith gun described in the opening lines of this story—except that it would shoot, and that it would not shoot loose! In total value the display was worth about $2,500. To show how the public likes a good article, it will do to note the fact that over $1,600 worth of these guns were sold during the week, more than half the total number shown, one a magnificent specimen which sold for $500. This gun was of Whitworth fluid steel barrels, magnificently engraved finish, and of a purity of outline hitherto unknown in American gun-making art. After this the foreigners must come to us to learn how to make a symmetrical and finely balanced gun. The art is at length attained here.
    Of the guns displayed in the cases the majority showed the Crown steel barrels, so popular as made by the Hunter Arms Co., though fine Damascus and the cheaper laminated barrels were also shown. A full line of sectionals showed the beautiful working of the lock, safety and ejector mechanisms, and one grand gun was shown unbrowned, “in the bright” to display the beautiful engraving before sending it to the bluer and browner people. The bulk of the twenty guns shown were of Crown steel barrels (this was the first gun firm to use that barrel material in America), and the straight hand, as made on all the handsome ejector Pigeon guns. By the way, the L. C. Smith was the first also to adopt this fashion of stock, now rapidly becoming so popular. In short, this is the gun which has always been a little ahead.
    Of Mr. L. C. Smith, often called the “lucky man,” it was sometimes said that if he should fall into the ocean he would come up covered with diamonds. Now, whether it was the inventor of this gun, or Mr. McMurchy, who so ably has shown it and seen it win the highest sort of honors, or whether it was the Hunter Arms Co. who have put their money boldly into making a gun “always a little ahead,” or whether it was Mr. W. Fred Quimby of New York, who has and probably always will handle this gun—whichever it was that was to blame for it most no one knows; but certainly the combination has been a great one and a winning one. Out of this the public can draw its own inferences in regard to the present and the future of the gun which has been “always a little ahead.”

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