As others have stated these hardworking gentlemen in India are building firearms under similar conditions to our
colonial era backwoods gunsmiths days & are doing a great job for what they sell for..
Were fortunate that our forum has numerous senior members with varied backgrounds in collecting, building & shooting who openly help those newer to our history rich sport.
My experience based personal opinions & choices may draw some kickback but there is no benefit for me to mislead anyone.
During the past 60 years I've operated muzzleloading businesses were I repaired customers guns, custom built, collected, restored & shot & competed with mostly original European built firearms as I personally preferred their generally larger bores & style of rifling.
After working on hundreds of replicas & originals the quality & workmanship varied greatly by when & where they were built.
Naturally early firearms built in England & Europe generally exhibit much higher quality metallurgy, workmanship locks & barrels than those built much later by blacksmiths in our much newer American colonies. Cannot expect frontier blacksmiths/gun builders to equal England & Europe's master gunsmiths & metallurgy skills.
As skilled English & European gunmakers settled in our Colonies they started building some very fine firearms & spread their gun building knowledge & we acquired some noted & artistic firearm builders.
Overall it's been my experience that the barrels on the India mfg firearms are much safer than many of our early colonial era forged barrels where I've often found small forging voids in the bores.
With some colonial era American firearms that I intended to shoot extensively in competition I had the barrels relined.
Forged barrels that have been relined tend to produce tighter groups as they generally don't drift due to heat through continued shots.
Locks built in India remind me of some early American colonial era locks. They are somewhat functional but require considerable reworking of internal parts geometry & springs to make them functional unless your happy with a 20 Lb. trigger pull.
Bottom line, it's great that in most parts of America we still have firearm choices & opportunities to purchase what we want & can afford !
