doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Darne's age

Larry has put his toes in the water several times before. But this particular gun is nice enough he will come out of the " closet" for. Avery nice example, and you have no idea how happy I am he likes the triggers. The engraving is really first rate.

This is my 3rd time with a toe in the Darne pool. I was fascinated when I first saw Darnes on my first trip to France, back in 1976. Nearly bought a Charlin 16--plain gun, but very nice condition--when the wife and I were touring France 20 years later. The first Darne I owned had been restocked in very nice wood by a guy who did mostly trap stocks. Misfit on a lightweight bird gun. Second one had an odd grip angle that made it difficult for me to reach the front trigger, even though the LOP was on target.

This one is a 16ga, weighs just under 5 3/4# with barrels just shy of 27". Chokes are a very reasonable .008/.014. Straight grip, swivels, and very nice wood with fine double-bordered checkering that looks as if it might have been recut at some point. I do photos via email, but I've avoided trying to post them on BB's.

Can't see any unusual marks on this one, other than Nantes and the word ending in -het on the water table. I do see "epreuve surchargee" next to the double St. Etienne proofmarks on the underside of the barrels. Don't know whether one typically sees "epreuve surchargee" on Darnes, but an overcharged proof is what you have with the two proofmarks, so that's logical.

Larry,
Gunfit, is all important. For some reason, people decide to buy a Darne, often the lowest condition and grade gun (think Viet Nam bringback) discover it doesn't fit them, sell it to someone else it doesn't likely fit, either, and then pronounce them all the same. We also get people who believe them to be "rare", uncommon, and some sort of mystery, when, counting all the clones that were produced out the back door of the Darne factory, the number produced approaches very closely a million. There are also people who believe they simply don't or can't work well.
Well, if a Darne fits, it works about as well as anything else. And, there are a LOT of them out there, maybe not in Podunk, but, there is a whole world out there beyond podunk, Abner.

I make friends as the range all the time when I am out there with mine.

I'm glad you are enjoying the gun. When I was the importer, I met people who bought a Darne from me, and simply sold everything else. I will note that I don't fall into that catagory, but, I do love my Darnes, and my go-to hunting gun is still the R10 I got from Steve Bodio and had restocked to fit me at the factory in St. Etienne. For reasons I do not understand, policemen, firemen, and architects, in that order, were over represented in my customer base. By a lot.

Use the gun in good health Larry.


Best,
Ted

Ted, I seem to recall seeing production figures on the Manufrance Robust, which I've always thought of as the French equivalent of a Stevens 311 in terms of sales, but obviously a much better gun. I believe that number was in the vicinity of 800,000. A Darne brochure I picked up in Rouen (would've been the summer I taught in France, 1977) which states the following:

"It has been more than 90 years since Darne first brought out its side by side with fixed barrels, now famous worldwide where more than 300,000 of them are in service . . . "

Clearly kinky, but certainly not rare.

The only thing that might keep me from using it a lot when bird hunting is the safety. I'm guessing that it will be like hammerguns: I wait for the dog to go on point, take safety off, and flush the bird. But I'm having fun playing around with it. Glad I finally got one that both fits and does not have godawful triggers. I think Dustin may remember a fellow Flatwater attendee who had a Darne with what I think were the heaviest pulls I'd ever experienced on any double. But I've found that even break-action French guns often have fairly heavy pulls.

As you can probably imagine, the logistics of cross border gunsmith work is daunting to say the least (Mainly due to return paperwork on the Canadian side). So, I'm going to undertake re-finishing the stock myself. I've had a good look at disassembly and I should be able to separate the wooden component myself and do it properly. One thing that I'd like help with is repairing the lever for releasing the breech assembly from the receiver plate so it can be pulled to the back of the receiver track and out. Normally, this release lever is visible, projecting about 1/4" proud of the breech undercarriage at its rear end. Recently, this little lever has become barely visible and you have to feel for it with a homemade plastic tool to engage and depress it. This is a nuisance and I'd like to fix it, rather than live with it. Can anybody speculate as to what is causing the lever to "hide" and does it indicate a worn out pin, a bent cam, or worse.
Any ideas will be much appreciated.
Tim

I'll post this chart again. Ted points out errors in the chart.



I will say that when we discussed this on Dating Early French Shotguns....a couple of things came out:
https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=484199&page=4

1. The chart notes 26,000 guns made by Darne between 1910 and 1925 - using the numbers Axxx, Bxxx, Cxxx....Zxxx. Take out the war years...26,000 guns in 11 years = about 2350 guns a year.

2. By using dated Didier Drevet barrels we established that the chamber measures on Saint-�tienne guns changed in mid 1912 from cm to mm. It was later refined to after June 11, 1912.

3. We found two Darnes which actually make the chart look pretty good:

-- A Darne type 18 12 guage with Darne made barrels SN C692 on the barrels and 692 on the gun and chambered for 6.5 cm (pre June 1912)
http://www.gunbroker.com/item/670294785



-- a Darne type 10 20 gauge with Darne made barrels SN C643 on a gun with the number 643 and chambered for 70 mm (post June 1912).
http://www.gunbroker.com/item/671021768



-- C692 would = 2,692 gun on the "alphabet series" from sometime in 1910....It could put it into summer 1912 (with some shoe-horning, a allowances for expanding production post WWII, etc). Just saying.
-- C643 - ditto

Given this analysis....Larry's gun SN F579 would be 5,579th gun produced after the alphabet series started sometime in 1910. It could make it late 1913, early 1914? If Darne started off in 1910 producing fewer guns but gradually ramped up production, it could put F579 after 1918, but this might stress the curve a bit. (Presuming of course that Darne produced no domestic shotguns during the war, something that might not be true). (And remember Skeetz has a Didier Drevet gun with barrel dated 1918).

Defer of course to the expert. -- and photos would be much appreciated. If Larry will send them to me, I'll post them; he has my email someplace. Gene

Gene,
I am relatively certain that Larry�s gun went down the road some time ago. There were issues.
Even when there are not issues, he really doesn�t seem to hang onto guns.

Best,
Ted

Ahhhh, an astute psychological assessment of the situation. But but, now we need to know "why?" Is this a certain promiscuous tendency brought on by too much association with Paris early on in life? Oh well, the dating analysis of the Darne goes with the gun not Larry. Now if I were to date Larry, I'd have to ask questions.....
-- did he wear bell-bottoms?
-- have side-burns?
-- does he know about "Blue Suede Shoes"?
-- can he do the "Twist"?
-- What was a "hootenanny?"
-- did he ever aspire to be a surfer?
-- Does he know about making "Jack" "Hit the Road"
-- What does "The Man With No Name" refer to?
-- Explain "Paladin"
-- what goes on "around the clock?"
-- Did he ever encounter "The Wild Bunch?"
-- What was "Mo-Town"
-- Did he ever think about Zen while fixing a motorcycle?
-- And what smells great in the morning?

(Oh man...now I understand....I didn't even look at the date of this resurrected post....foot in mouth disease).

Maybe you could ask him "What was it like when Grover Clevland was president?" or "Which unit did you serve in in The Big One, you know WWI?"