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Noble Manufacturing

7K views 15 replies 11 participants last post by  Sav22 
#1 ·
I am looking for information on the Noble Manufacturing Company of Haydenville, MA

I would like to know who owned the company, where their original (pre-1965) factory was and any thing else regarding how they got into the gun making business.

Anyone have any info? An old advertisement, Owner's manual...anything

Thanks!
 
#2 ·
The address I see is Noble Mfg. Co., Inc. S. Main St., Haydenville, MA 01039. It was apparently located in the brassworks building of the old Haydenville Manufacturing Co, a series of buildings built in 1875, after a flood wiped out their old buildings.

The company made farm equipment as well. They made (in my opinion) poorly designed rifles and shotguns for the lower end market. Lots of store brand guns for Montgomery Wards and JC Penney. I took a pump shotgun that Noble made apart to clean it for a friend who inherited it and had a sentimental attachment to it. The thing was ridiculously complicated.

from page 7 of a Haydenville history found at: http://nec-sia.org/pdf/2015-09-26 handouts.pdf

Noble Manufacturing first manufactured chicken feeders and brooders, then added the line of firearms at which the Davidsons enjoyed some success and notation. During the Korean War they put out parts for the military Browning Automatic Rifle. In 1965, Noble Manufactur-ing bought and moved to the old Haydenville Brassworks, in the same village. The Old Hayden Brassworks had recently been vacated, and was a newer and more accommodating building. With growing pressure from big business, to fix the price of the arms, Noble Manufacturing went under about 1973.
 

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#5 ·
I once owned a Nobel pump shotgun. It had been left in a closet of my rent-house when the renter moved out. It was in rough shape with multiple parts missing. Parts were unobtainable so I painted it flat black and put a coat of tru-oil on the stock then placed it in the glassfronted gun cabinet (along with some air guns and cheap .22's) for displays. The good stuff was always locked up in the safe.

Eventually it disappeared. It did it's job as a decoy and the thief was probably not happy.
 
#7 ·
The Sig P238 .380 pistol is an almost direct copy of the Colt Mustang Pistol. Both look like mini 1911 pistols. There are minor internal differences but the outsides look identical. I've placed a Colt Mustang slide and barrel on a Sig P238 lower and it functioned.

My understanding is that Colt stopped making the Mustang around 1998 (and possibly dropped the patents, or the patents expired), so Sig started making a version using the same specs. Sales took off, Colt recognized their mistake, and now Colt is making the Mustang again. Other manufacturers have jumped on the bandwagon and are also making a version of the Mustang, notably Kimber and Springfield Armory
 
#8 ·
The Sig P238 .380 pistol is an almost direct copy of the Colt Mustang Pistol. Both look like mini 1911 pistols. There are minor internal differences but the outsides look identical. I've placed a Colt Mustang slide and barrel on a Sig P238 lower and it functioned.
I'd swear that I've seen a Llama .380 that looked the same and predated the Mustang. When I saw the Mustang, I thought Colt was rebranding the Llama pistols.
 
#11 ·
I had a Nobel 410 shotgun for one of my first hunting guns, I miss it much more than the 20 gauge my father traded it for. I have many fond memories of hunting squirrels and never once had a problem.

I was not until I started looking to replace It I found out they did not have a great reputation. Mine was flawless and as a fan of Ruger, Ithaca, Mossberg and savage I am used to "working mans guns".
 
#13 ·
TINCANBANDIT, Congratulations on your informative and well written article, complete with pictures. My story, I first became interested in guns in the early 1960's. I wanted an inexpensive pump shotgun, and I found an old fella that would buy guns that had damaged stocks and he would make a new stock and resell them. My first purchase was a Remington pump shotgun that was wore out so he let me trade it back to him for a Noble shotgun. Well, the Noble shotgun wasn't worn out, but that was about all of the good that I could say about it. I quickly sold it and bought a Mossberg pump shotgun which was a much better inexpensive shotgun, IMO.
 
#15 ·
I believe the company was formed by the former President and chief engineer from Savage Arms. While I haven’t been able to corroborate details on it, the story was these two suddenly left Savage, taking with them several examples of various Savage models to be used as design samples for their new company. I am researching the origin of an Enfield Mk4 that appears to be a display piece with a finely figured walnut stock, an old world niter blue finish with Savage “S” markings on every component. The people associated with this rifle have mostly passed on and their offspring have offered little information on the gun. It appears to have been an example removed from the Savage inventory by the two characters referenced above.
 
#16 ·
What is your source for this? It doesn't sound correct to me; I've researched Savage Arms and none of this has come up. You might be thinking about Page-Lewis, formed in 1922 by two former Stevens Arms executives who left (or were told to go) after Savage Arms bought Stevens in 1920. There is a lot of information online that covers this. Savage and Stevens are often used interchangeably, they are not the same, Savage bought Stevens and the Stevens branded guns after that were not the same as the Savage models using the same actions, there was always a difference.
 
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