I'm looking at the book "Les Fusils de Chasse de Regis Darne" (Huting Guns of Regis Darne) by Jean-Claude Mournetas,319 dense pages of detailed information of R. Darne's 17 patents. The earliest patent listed is no. 133,575 from November 1879 for a rotary-breech gun with exposed hammers. All the guns described fall into one of three classes: rotary breech (five patents 1879-1908), ascending breech block hinged at the rear (4 patents 1887-1909), and the familiar rearward-sliding breechblock (10 patents 1893-1928). None are pinfires, none have side-mounted hammers, none have forward-sliding barrels, and none have front underlever locking mechanisms. In short the most comprehensive source available on Darne guns doesn't show anything remotely similar to this gun. So no Darne marks and no Darne design features.
Last edited by billwolfe; 01/01/18 07:42 PM.
