I think I’ve posted this photo before, but, this gun nicely illustrates a few related notions on early Darne sliding breech guns, while being a bit of an enigma from where we stand today.
This is a 2 1/2’ 12, that would have been built prior to the overhaul of the French proof laws in 1923. The push button safety was patented in 1923, but, the barrels were proofed with the 6.5 mark, which, supposedly, fell out of use around 1912. Sculpted detonation, that styled curve on the breech balls, seemed to go away in the early 1920s. I’d guess we have a 20 year window, when it could have been produced, but, there is still one great, big, horsefly in the yogurt.
Most of the serial numbers on the old gun, do not match. Further, the gun was very nearly unused when I got it. The 2 1/2” chambers might explain some of that, but, I believe the horrible trigger pulls were just as much a reason. A guess I have is that the gun was a cleanup of parts from an era when the designs were evolving, and wasn’t ordered for anyone in particular. The safety button is a tortured little piece of round stock, ground to fit in a tight spot between the breech, the springs for the strikers, and the sears.
I worked the triggers down to tolerable, and would use it more if 2 1/2” ammunition weren’t so scarce. It is choked about IC and IM, and throws nice patterns right where I look, out of both tubes. I have been shooting it right handed, and still have a ways to go to perfect my mount and my sight picture (I sometimes close the wrong eye, after doing it that way for 50 seasons), but, it is a work in progress. It is not a heavy gun, but, it is heavier than average for a Darne:
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That rib on the barrels, was the standard raised rib, in this case with an under rib. The “plume” or swamped rib cost a few more bucks. Very stout barrels, no less than .050 anywhere, and often a bunch more. The barrels are 27 3/4” long, that is a factory length.This one was single proofed with powder T, fairly standard proof of a French hunting implement, and stout. The front swivel is mounted to the under rib, in this case, but, a customer could specify no under rib, with swivels, in which case a steel block was soldered between the barrels, to mount the swivel. You could get anything you wanted when it came to slings. Leather strap with swivels, bretelle Darne (the good one, if you ask me) or the retractable. The straight stock was the cheapest version as well. This has a horn butt plate, and course checkering. it weighs just under 6 1/2lbs, wearing the sling I bought for it. Sometimes I do take the sling off, I don’t always need it, and, as a fixed sling it is a bit more cumbersome than the bretelle Darne.I think swivels on hunting implements were so common on the continent that makers just put them there, and customers just accepted they would be there. Here in the states, guys actually seem distraught at the notion of a shotgun wearing swivels, and literally believe they have to remove them. You see guns that have had them amputated, all the time, here, but, that doesn’t happen in Continental Europe.
I don’t think it was intended to be a closet queen. It would have been about the least expensive way into a sliding breech gun, in it’s era. But, closet queen it was, until the guy who served with the Big Red One, a guy I never knew, passed away, and his granddaughter wanted it out of the house. It had very little use in the two decades or so it was in France before our guy ended up with it. It lived in a bedroom closet, in White Bear Lake, MN, for 70 years.
I sold it once. Then, it came back. I enjoy it enough that I’ll keep it around as long as I can get ammunition for it.
Best,
Ted