doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com C. Masquelier, Paul Jaeger O/U Information?

ChiefShotguns,
Thank you...about the trigger...that selector is usually the indicator of a Deforney trigger...I was trying to figure out if Deforney supplied them to Masquelier or if in fact the gun was made by Deforney. If you would like to see another Deforney with a single trigger, Thad Scott has a Deforney sidelock O/U for sale right now that has the same barrel selector.
Miller single triggers usually have the selector built into the safety slide. I don't have a copy of the patent to show you but, Gerbruder Merkel Suhler Waffenwerk opened a facility (1920's) in Belgium primarily to supply the gun trade with O/U actions... with their patented Kirsten lock up...now somebody had to buy them...you just don't see Belgian Merkels floating around...post 1930 Merkel began selling patented ejector actions to the Belgian gun trade...so I guess if your gun has a Merkel ejector system, that would offer more evidence one way or the other. I do have a copy of the Belgian Merkel patent ejector system if you would like to see it.

I hate the fact that my records don't match exacly with everyone elses, but I can't just twist them...I certainly can't change the patent records..

Later, I'll review the 10+ Miller trigger designs to see if any of the Miller clan had ever used a barrel selector that looks like Deforney's patented design...

The absence of any Masquelier proprietary touchmarks coupled to the obvious Deforney single trigger is starting to look like perhaps you were given weak information about your gun. The crowned D doesn't auger well for Masquelier being the maker either.

There is a link to the littlegun site in my initial posting. The photo of O/U is apparently the same gun that I recently purchased.

The shape of the receiver and the breech block matches up to several other early Charles Daly O/U's that I have seen for sale on other sites.

Robert, the trigger is plainly marked "Miller." Charles Daly literature of the period mentions they often fitted Miller triggers at customer request after receipt of the gun into the USA. Yea, your records do seem to be at odds with lots of others, that is strange. Other sources indicate the Crowned D mark indicates Delcour, the barrel maker. At any rate, you asked me how the gun was marked, and I answered you. I am happy with the provenance I have for the gun. Thanks very much for your input and interest.

Referring to the Masquelier/Daly tie-in, Zutz wrote:

"Some of the Masquelier guns, both side by side and over and unders, were handled by various American importers during the pre-WWII era. One of these was the well-known Charles Daly, who, roughly between 1933 and 1939, handled an over and under made by Masquelier and sold Stateside as the "Commander" style . . . The Commander vertical doubles had a rather mongrelized assembly. Their barrels were made by Neumann, which was another smaller Belgian house. When they were sold with single triggers, the triggers were generally installed in the U.S. by Miller." Not that Zutz couldn't be wrong, but the Neumann barrels may explain the absence of the Masquelier proprietary trademark.

As for the Merkel tie-in, both Chief's photos and the photo accompanying the above-referenced Zutz article show a system which is clearly NOT Kersten. Quite different from what's seen on Merkels. The Kersten barrel extensions can be seen when you look down on the receiver from the top, with the gun closed. The barrel extensions shown in the Zutz article on Masquelier, and in Chief's photo above, are clearly "hidden" when the gun is closed. Also, Kersten barrel extensions are pierced to accept a crossbolt. On the guns in both photos--Chief's and Zutz's--the crossbolt lies across the top of the barrel extensions rather than going through them. An excellent photo of a Kersten, clearly illustrating its differences from the guns in Chief's and Zutz's photos, can be found on p. 78 of Zutz's book, "The Double Shotgun". Or for that matter, you can just look at any Merkel OU.

ChiefShotguns,
Oh yeah ...Elmer Miller did have a selector like that in his model 11, which I thought that model was a SxS design...I looked at the 1929 O/U trigger because it fit with your date code of 1933...there's probably several plausable explanations as to why a post 1939 trigger would be found in a 1933 proved gun...I'll keep checking and let you know what turns up. The more I learn about the history of single triggers, the more I realize the importance of Millers role over the decades.

I'd note that on the issue of Belgian OU's, I've owned a couple Francotte OU's. One had a 3-piece forend, like a Merkel; the other a one-piece forend. Both bore strong resemblance to Merkels in that they had the deep receiver, bolsters where the barrels meet the receiver, etc. One of them was marked Francotte. The other was not (although imported by Abercrombie & Fitch), but it did have the Francotte AF/crown proprietary trademark. Both had the same type bolting system as Chief's Daly rather than the standard Kersten found on Merkels.