Since my renewed interest in Savage hammerless single shots began, I've been looking for similar guns just to see how popular this kind of gun was in the past. Obviously it was popular enough for Savage to jump into the competition with existing guns like the "Lefever Long Range" made by Ithaca, although Savage's coming out with BOTH rifles and shotguns in this format was a bold, wise move.
I recently found another hammerless American shotgun that would have been for roughly the same market as the 220 later occupied, the "A.J. Aubrey Hammerless Single Shot" advertised in a 1908 Sears catalog. It was a nice-looking gun that would have been fairly close in dimensions and features to the 12 guage 220 that Savage introduced later. It was apparently only offered in 12 guage with a 30 or 32" barrel, and you could get a "Liege" Belgian Damascus barrel for slightly higher than the basic steel barrel.
As many of you know, Damascus barrels were considered by many around the turn of the century (the 20th, not the 21st!) to be of superior strength to fluid steel barrels. The best were probably pretty strong.
Almost all Damascus barrels were "knitted" as they called it, in Belgium, even the highest grade American and British guns were often made from Belgian blanks finished in the makers country.
As noted in other threads, a hammerless single shot SHOTGUN has some advantages over a hammer gun, a rifle less so IMO. And there were a number of predecessors to the Savage hammerless series.
I'd be interested to know if these A.J. Aubrey (later J.C. Higgins became the "house" brand for Sears) hammerless singles show up in other turn of the century Sears catalogs (I just have the one). And does anybody know who actually manufactured them? Made in USA?
