G is for Gun Line

Keeping with the theme of follow-ups, this harks back to the flurry of AWI and Innovative posts a year or two ago but which also included several sets of cake decorations &etc. This time we're looking at the heavy-hardware!

The three guns together with a close up of the Britains piece which is lacking it's side tools but I seem to recall a post on a bag of bits from a show a while back in which the tools were to be found . . . all I have to do is find the bag again!

The darker of the two Hong Kong copies (both of which have the tool hooks but never had separate tools) is the one seen previously from the second (carded) issue on Innovative's, while the other may be from the earlier Shell issue, or be another copy altogether, I don't know?

Comparison doesn't help date the two Hong Kong copies as the smaller and less detailed oxide brown one actually has the better barrel, with the 'US' clearly reproduced while it is no more than a smudge on the Innovative Promotions piece. It also has more realistic plating on the barrel than the gold-chrome Innovative went with.

Because I am new'ish to this large-scale malarkey, I don't know how many generations of these there are, I suspect someone like Rado Industries or Hing Fat might be responsible for one, but given the differences we've already seen between the two issues of Innovative's (Shell's premiums first and then the Men of '76 anniversary set) I'm tempted to think the smaller one may be the Shell issue, knowing the other is from a MO'76 card, however, before TJF and the minions of the PSTSM climb up on their high-horse of idiocy, I'm musing rather than carving anything in stone!

The ironwork and wood-grain are nicer on the larger gun, but the wheels (particularly the hubs) are better-rendered on the smaller-piece, and with the differences in barrel already mentioned, it's anyone's call as to which is the copy or came first? Unless you happen to have the smaller one - in mint packaging?

I shot this (TV mini-series, press-release image) from a recent newspaper (Times I think?) a few days ago, purely to use 'one day' (imagining sometime in the middle-distance) in the future, but realising it would be ideal here with regard to the plastic colours of the carriages; I thought the colours of the wood of these two, otherwise identical [Polish?] rifles perfectly illustrates how all figure-painters are correct in their choice of woodwork colour!

One being a dark mahogany, looking like a hardwood, the other hinting at pine or softwood? Now I realise they may both be dense-rubber film-props, but I've seen the same differences in older (pre plastic-furniture) SLR's and the many shades of AK woodwork, again - before Plastic became the norm, also if they were prop's they'd be more likely to be painted alike.

The point being both HK guns can sit together 'on the line', happily!

The guns crewed! Britains get their issued crew, the question-mark gets a Shell lady and later US figure, the Men of '76 gun get a British crew, with the mounted officer put on standing-firers legs and given the Britains ram-rod.