Didnt sears sell Ted Williams ?

I have a pretty old Western Field 16 gauge pump that looks like a Browning...dunno how old it is but it is a Western..


Upon further review it says....Western Field by Montgomery Ward. Its a Model 30 built on a Browning Patent. Actually a good shooter.

Don't understand the confusion. The major retailers would contract with companies to produce products, including firearms for their private label. Sears sold guns by Winchester, FN, High Standard, Mossberg, and others, all marked with the Sears label. Wards, Penneys, and Western Auto did the same. They also did it with ammunition....Federal produced a lot of ammo for western Auto, for example.
Easy to look at the cross reference at Numrich arms and see who produced what for who.

In these days of Wal-Mart's cheapest-possible approach to everything, it's hard to believe that at one point, stores were proud of their merchandise's quality, and sold some upscale items. Some of those "department store" guns are pretty remarkable.

I came across an old Western Field .30-06 bolt action made in West Germany. After doing some research, I learned that those rifles were made by Heym using Mauser patents. (By comparison, a modern Heym rifle will run you somewhere around $2000.)

Ward's saved some money by using less-fancy walnut stocks, but the rifle's action and barrel are truly high-quality German components.

Sears has some old rifles that are made on Belgian FN mauser actions (with American barrels). They're currently selling for about $600 or so.

There's a small collector market for these rifles. If the one you saw was in good shape and priced right, you might get a real bargain.

Is their any particular site that has info on Western field guns? I'll go home tonight and get the serial number. Also ill take a pic of it and post it.

Thanks!
Melissa

Here is a cross reference site to find out who made what for who.
http://e-gunparts.com/crossref.asp

Ruger Redhawk

Ok, then Ward's sold Western Field and Western Auto sold Western Auto. Just shows that 40 year old memories ain't worth much. [:@]

Just as a note, the e-gunparts.com list is helpful but incomplete; the model rifle I found isn't on there (one reason why I had to do a fair amount of research to find out about it).

I don't understand all the confusion, either. I done told y'all ta git in the NRA.