S&W S/S shotguns
 

Anyone have any experience with the S/S's that S&W is making?/selling or know anything about them? Am inquiring for a friend who is considering one.

I’ve heard nothing bad from the couple people I know who own one, and they seem like a pretty good value. The exact same gun is/was? sold by Cabelas under the name Dickinson. They’re Turkish built and whatever company that wants can just slap their name on them. They were sold for a while as Webley and Scott too.

They are AKUS guns from Turkey, one of the better outfits over there!

As Kirk and Rick have said, the S&W Gold Elite was made by Akus in Turkey, Cabela's and a few others are now marketing them under the Dickinson Estate name. I often dreamt of owning a Parker Bros. DHE .410, but it wasn't in the budget for a gun that was going to see limited usage, so instead I bought a Dickinson Estate in .410 from Cabela's and am happy as a clam with my purchase. The Dickinson Estate and the S&W Gold Elite are made in the same factory to the same specs and are virtually identical with only a slight variation in the engraving pattern. To reuse some overused terminology -- they are a lot of gun for the money. Where else can you buy a gun that has a true trigger plate rounded action, platform lump barrels, brazed ribs, chrome lined bores, Southgate ejectors, true bone & charcoal case coloring, Turkish walnut wood, 24 lpi hand checkering, hand engraved (their description-not mine) and a lifetime warranty for under $1700 when new?

Having said the above, there have been several reports of heavy trigger pulls with the early guns, but more recently they have been lightened from the factory to a more acceptable ~ 5lb. pull weight. Also the early renditions had a high gloss finish applied to the wood that was highly susceptible in showing scratches, Cabela's recent offerings are oil finished to alleviate the issue.

Dickinson Estate .410

So Turkey is our new Crescent Fire Arms Co.

The Turkish gun industry is an interesting case study. Lots to debate. They have some of the best walnut for gunstocks in the world and a motivated low cost work force that can produce guns at lower price point using some of the latest gun making technology and machinery.

Handled a few S&W and they are nice guns and I think they are the base for Dickinson guns. However buying a S&W one of them would be like buying a Ruger Gold Label SxS. If you have issues with the gun just try and call S&W or Ruger. You will get a polite AMF-YOYO statement. BTW AMFYOYO stands for "Adios Mutha ------ Your On Your Own"

Several years ago an American startup of Hatfield had a high quality boxlock sxs made at Huglu where Dehaan, CZ, Kimber and some others had guns made that came from same factory. It was about a $2k gun. Remember seeing a video test of gun on their website showing gun broken down before, during and after them shooting that gun some 20,000 times straight in a 24 hour period. Gun would get so hot after about every few hundred rounds when swapping shooters they would drop gun in a barrel of water to cool it off. Then keep on shooting. After all that they then tore down gun and compared everything and looked closely at all the components including stock, fore-end, latches, actions, firing pins, safety, and most importantly the chrome lined barrels and found little noticeable wear. They put it back together and then did the same thing again firing almost 40k rounds in two days with no reported issues. I thought it pretty gutsy demonstration and thought about getting one until company went belly up, but it did give me confidence in Dehaan and CZ guns. I know Kimber had some issues at first with their venture but understood they got it worked out with guns but they just never took off.

I have been shooting a Mark DeHaan Custom .410 for thirteen years now. These guns were built in the Huglu custom shop, and the wood is screaming good, and with a SSBP! I put about four flats a year through it, and it has never missed a beat!

Here she is after doin her job one day last fall!

sounds like a good gun for the money a nice gun too...charlie

It would appear so, too bad it isnt cost effective to do something like they do here in the states!