[dogface]

Ok, I have admittedly never owned an O/U shotgun and I have only shot one once. But for the life of me I cannot understand the expense involved in the simplest of firearms design, a breach load smooth bore. Now you look at an AR settle rifle and all the complex machining and forgings involved and I am amazed they are as cheap as they are. I mean even my H&K USP is more complicated than an O/U shotgun. I guess I just can’t understand or justify or rationalize in my head the cost of one of these simple shotguns.

Is this a completely ignorant argument? Am I completely missing something? Someone fill me in!

[Hawk]

Am I completely missing something? Someone fill me in!

I'll restrict myself to straightforward mathematics. If you wish to continue believing that the typical O/U is "the simplest of firearms design", you would be well advised to avoid dismantling one.

I'm not bashing - it's simple human nature to not count the parts you can't see. It happens all the time in the handgun forums when folks express the mistaken belief that double action revolvers always have fewer parts than semi-autos.

Compliments of Numrich:
http://www.e-gunparts.com/images/schematics/Browning_Superposed_schem.jpg

Here's your AR upper:
http://www.e-gunparts.com/images/schematics/Colt_AR15UpperReceiverAssembly_schem.jpg

If you cruise to e-gunparts you can see schematics of the lower, the bolt carrier etc. It might make an interesting exercise to add up the parts and contrast the count to the Superposed schematic. Interesting but probably pointless. The AR-15 platform was designed for ease of manufacture and assembly. I can build one from component parts with little more effort than placing the parts in a shoebox and shaking it but I don't stand a chance of assembling a workable mid to upper end O/U from parts.


Others will be along to discuss regulation, fitting, skilled labor and the like.


I couldn't find a schematic of the USP but I really, really doubt that it's more complicated than an O/U.
H&K P9S
http://www.e-gunparts.com/images/schematics/HecklerandKoch_P9SP9S45_schem.jpg

[chas08]

HAWK
Excellent reply. Well done!!!

[oneounceload]

AR's are cast aluminum and plastic with some steel thrown in. made for adverse conditions, their tolerances aren't necessarily the tightest. They only have one barrel to worry about.

An O/U of any quality is all wood and steel - barrels have to be struck with precision to get the concentricity necessary. They then have to be joined to the mono or demi block with precision to keep that concentricity. After that, comes regulating them so they BOTH shoot to the same POA/POI. This is all done by hand, as is the brazing of the the ribs on the sides and top. The stock, especially on a better gun, has wood that costs, as a blank, more than a complete custom AR. Those measurements have to be taken from the customer and transformed by machine AND by hand to those exacting requirements. An AR has a plastic adjustable stock that basically really doesn't fit anyone well. The O/U stock is then finished to the degree as required by the customer - which might mean up to 30 coats of Tru-oil hand rubbed in between each layer. This can take weeks to properly dry and complete. Then comes checkering, engraving, and blacking (or bluing) of the metal.

Even on the lower end guns like Browning and Beretta in the $3,000 range - a lot of these steps are done by machine (laser engraving for example), there is still a lot of handfitting and regulating to drive the costs up. If you want even more expensive, look at side by sides.

[dogface]

Not to nitpick, but if you wanna go off of mathematics and parts count, on the AR-15, you only included a quarter of the gun. You left out the entire barrel assy, the gas system, the bolt carrier group, not to mention the lower receiver, and the entire fire control group. Now I do agree with you shoebox assembly method, they really are that easy to build. Bui I would not hesitate to taka apart that O/U you pictured there. Although the parts count is high, it is in a large volume of relatively easy access space, which was my gripe about re-assembling my H&K USP; it was like building a ship in a bottle with tweezers. And for the record don’t all barrels of all guns have to be concentric?

I guess I did not know about all the barrels were hand brazed/aligned, I guess I wrongly assumed they were machined together. And I see how the hand checkering/gold inlats/hand oiled artsy stuff would be expensive.

I would just like a mechanically sound perfect shooting O/U I wouldn’t care if it came with plastic stocks and flat sides in a parkerized finish, but no one makes that. I guess I’m just not one for the “sow gun” look.

Thanks for everyone’s input!

[oneounceload]

Browning makes a Cynergy with synthetic stocks

http://www.browning.com/products/catalog/firearms/detail.asp?value=014B&cat_id=013&type_id=299

and a large part of its low $1599 MSRP (street prices should be lower), is that plastic stock

[ArmedBear]

BTW the Superposed above is an early and relatively crude O/U design with a single big hingepin and a locking lug under the barrels. All you have to do is build the monobloc and grind out a perpendicular round chunk in front and a slot in the rear. This is durable, but requires a very large receiver. When JMB designed the Superposed in the 1920s, he didn't have modern industrial methods to fall back on. He had to design something that could be built, in a factory in the 1920s, for a price that at least some people could afford.

Newer, low-profile designs are even more difficult to machine perfectly -- and they need to be machined perfectly. Tolerances are very tight. Typically, they have short hingepins on each side of the monobloc, and a lockup point on each side instead of along the bottom (although the Guerinis are a hybrid of the two). They have to have perfectly-matched machining on each side of the monobloc, for the barrels to swing correctly, lock up properly, and to last for any length of time.

So, many production O/Us on the market today (Browning Cynergy, all the Berettas, SKBs, etc.) are even more complex to manufacture than the picture above, in pursuit of that elusive "points like a side-by-side".

[huntsman]

Is this a completely ignorant argument? Am I completely missing something? Someone fill me in!

yes and yes

Two different types of tools using different technologies from different times for different purposes.

[Matt-J2]

Well, it's not like you can't get a cheap O/U. Nowhere near as good as what these fellas are talking about, but you can do it. Certainly cheaper than a cheap AR.
To parallel, if you want an AR that has as much attention put into it as many of those O/U mentioned here, call up Larue Tactical and see how cheap it will be then. ;)

[oneounceload]

Quality costs - and GOOD quality costs even more

[Virginian]

It has nothing to do with simplicity of manufacturing, it has to do with supply and demand. They are in business to make money and charge as much as people are willing to pay. Look at Benelli autoloaders. Simplest design going by a mile, but they are among the most expensive guns of their type. I don't even like them, but plenty of people sure do, and they are willing to belly up to the bar and dole out the money.
Over and Unders are the "IN" guns for a lot of people, especially for clay targets. A LOT of people buy a gun with who will be impressed by it being a big factor in their decision. I didn't buy it for that, but I must admit I got a tremendous amount of satisfaction when we were down at Calloway Gardens years ago, and were shooting some skeet as a warm up for the quail, and everyone was oooooohing and aaaahing over this O/U or that, and John, the guy who ran the place, spotted my little 28 gauge SxS sitting at the gun rack. He asked who's it was and if he could look at it, and I said sure, and after admiring it for a few seconds he said, "By God boys, at least somebody's got a quail gun." Right then it was worth more than I paid for it.

[ArmedBear]

It has nothing to do with simplicity of manufacturing, it has to do with supply and demand. They are in business to make money and charge as much as people are willing to pay. Look at Benelli autoloaders. Simplest design going by a mile, but they are among the most expensive guns of their type.

These two points are not related.

The fact that Benelli could make and sell their autoloaders for less money does not lead to the conclusion that a quality O/U could be made and sold for less money. Maybe so, and maybe not.

Benelli's design has no relation to the design and machine work that go into an Over/Under.

Besides, Benelli does that now, with the names Stoeger and Franchi on the guns. There is no equivalent in the O/U market.

It seems to me that there's plenty of competition in the production O/U market, and if, say, SKB could make a good-quality autoloader and sell it for $800 regular retail, they'd do it -- because they'd have damn near the entire market. That's how business works.

That may not be true for the low-volume, higher-end makers like Perazzi, but that's how the market works for mainstream products.

[Virginian]

Some years ago when i was selling guns I had the opportunity of speaking with someone in upper management with one of the very well known makers of well respected O/Us, as well as the full line of other actions. I forget the whole conversation now but in response to my question about marketing he answered something to the effect "Over and Unders is where the money is. We make more money on one O/U than 5 semis." I took him at his word.

[ArmedBear]

"Over and Unders is where the money is. We make more money on one O/U than 5 semis." I took him at his word.


Some years ago, perhaps, though even if the numbers are exactly true, the difference between a $50 margin and a $250 margin doesn't mean a huge price difference for the consumer, on a $1000-1500 item. Porsche makes more profit on a car than Hyundai does, also -- that doesn't imply a Porsche doesn't cost more to make.

With good autoloaders retailing at a grand or more these days, I sincerely doubt that this is still true -- with the exception of highly-adorned guns, which tend to be the realm of break-actions in general, more than autoloaders. If you're talking about a $5000 O/U that's utterly similar to a $1500 model, but with machine engraving, fancier wood, and some other embellishments, then I'm sure that gun is a high-profit item. But it's a low-volume item. Remington will sell you a $5000 stamped-part pump gun, not substantially different from a $250 870 Express, too.

But I'm talking about an autoloader and an O/U that fall in a similar place in the company's lineup, not some prettied-up gun with a price tag no longer connected to the gun's actual function.

(I have absolutely no doubt that a Benelli Cordoba nets Beretta a much higher profit than a White Onyx does, given that they sell for the same price. I'm pretty sure it nets a substantially higher profit than a walnut Urika does, for that matter.:) But that's a whole other story... And there probably isn't a better-performing high-volume dove gun made, if that's what you want.)

Spend some time in a machine shop, and doing some more serious gunsmithing, and the differences between the mass-production-friendly designs of modern autoloaders, and the much more old-fashioned design of a good O/U, become quite stark.

That was Remington's genius in the immediate post-WW II era. The Model 31 had been built a lot more like an O/U (as was the Model 12); the 870 was built more like a wartime Jeep. Hence, Remington could undercut the competition by a LOT of money, when they brought out the Wingmaster. Of course, others have built on Remington's innovation over the years, even when Remington has failed to do so themselves. Now, just about every repeater design in producton owes much to the 870 and 1100.

Nobody's figured out how to stamp out an O/U at this point, though.

[Virginian]

I was in charge of the machine shop for years. If you have the capital, modern CNC machinery can produce parts the equivalent of what took a lot of hand work years ago. True, to get final perfection some final hand fitting is still required, but the amount is several orders of magnitude less than it was in previous times.

[mgkdrgn]

Is this a completely ignorant argument? Am I completely missing something? Someone fill me in!

It comes down to the 3 components of manufacturing:

1) Cheap
2) Fast
3) Quality

Pick any two .... (oh, and as Cheap & Quality won't deliver goods fast enough to keep the manufacturer in business ... that is an invalid choice)

[ArmedBear]

True, to get final perfection some final hand fitting is still required, but the amount is several orders of magnitude less than it was in previous times.

Of course.

That doesn't necessarily translate into a lower cost of production, when the machinery costs what it does.

A good modern O/U can be made with expensive 2009 technology and little hand fitting.

An 870 can be made with 1949 technology that Remington has had sitting around forever, and no hand fitting.

[dom1104]

does anyone other than me think its merely because thats what the market will bear?

I mean there have been cheaper O/Us. Stoeger and Mossberg and such.

But isnt this a "bling gun" to impress old dudes at the range?

I think if someone came out with a cheap one, it would be treated with skepticism. Its just, what people expect to pay.

[blkbrd666]

Is this a completely ignorant argument? Am I completely missing something? Someone fill me in!

I thought they were expensive 'cause Andy Griffith shoots one on the show.

[oneounceload]

does anyone other than me think its merely because thats what the market will bear?

I mean there have been cheaper O/Us. Stoeger and Mossberg and such.

But isnt this a "bling gun" to impress old dudes at the range?

Sure, you can slap a cheap O/U together - and it will work just like the Yugo did......kinda, sorta, and not for very long.

A GOOD O/U requires a lot more labor to get it right, and that isn't cheap. Even with advances in mfg. today - CAD/CAM, CNC, EDM, laser, etc. there is still a lot of hand fitting on a good gun to get it just right.

You can buy something cheap, it might work half-azz for a while and quit and you might be happy with that because you don't shoot it much. I look at it from the other POV - I'm going to shoot the gun, tens, if not hundreds, of THOUSANDS of rounds - by the time I'm done, the gun is the least of all the costs involved, so why not get the best I can afford or even more. In the long run, you get what you pay for.

[Leaky Waders]

Double barrels come in all kinds of grades and quality...just like rifles.

I mean you could fork out 400 dollars from something off the walmart shelf or order some custom dakota - both will shoot the same caliber.

Low end (cheap) doubles can be found at cdnn in their fliers. Modest priced doubles - beretta and browning (my price range) increase their cost on reputation and (I think) by 'upgrading' their products. Merckels and the P guns go even higher and their shooters appreciate their attributes.

These serial 'upgrades' probably require some additional cost in manufacture to start that may swing to the advantage of the company once so many units are made. Plus, the advertisement spent on declaring their new models are justified as better so people will buy them. All of these costs are passed to the consumer.

I mean, it's not a double...but look at the Vici. Touting it's 'new' 3 piece or whatever technology. Sure, they have changed the action some..but they are touting selling the 3 pieces...the lock stock and barrel? The same way Davy Crockett bought his guns a long time ago.

The good thing about doubles is that they seem to hold more resale value. But, that's because of the initial outlay from us the bewitched shotgunners.

[d2wing]

It depends some on how you shoot. If you want a fast pointing shotgun, it's hard to beat a nice double. The cheap doubles tend to be heavy and off balance, as just clunky. In a repeater the extra mass helps a smooth swing
and a cheap over under is on par with them. I shoot either depending on what I'm doing. But some guys stick with one gun for everything and do well.

[Mike U.]

I love learning new things. This forum seldom disappoints.
I had no clue an O/U was as complicated as it is and as much hand tuning and building was required.
I was like the OP as I look at O/U and SxS at the gun stores and ponder their high expense.