doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Frenchie Ideal thing....odd firing pin placement..

Miller,
You are dreaming a fantastic dream if you believe there are 3000 people reading a double gun board, let alone 3 million. But, I digress.
Good to see that you finally got around to using the correct term, "Service Load", as used at the proof house. It would seem to show that ignorance is correctable.
Kennet has pretty much blown your theory that "anything goes" with proof powder, as long as it makes X amount of pressure, out of the water, at least when talking French proof, but, hey, I'm open to the idea that you could prove this happened somewhere else.
So, prove it.
As to the French "catching on", to use your words, every single new French gun I ever ordered had that neat little stamp, PT, under a crown.
So, when did they "catch on" and stop marking their guns with the powder used?
I'm curious to know.

Best,
Ted

Ted, in case you missed it, Wild Cattle's post #17802 this thread has a foto of the flats of the Cabella's 20 ga. which someone, Sliver? Le Fusil? purchased a few wks ago and the "shiskabobs" or skewers are present on that one. The "knuckle duster" Ideal at GunBroker is gone.

jack

JC,
It's possible that the F might be a proxy for "fini" in "Fusil fini" i.e not the barrels only. However there is no way to be sure until the proper "decret ministeriel" is unearthed, which would be no small feat.
It is interesting to observe the immediate adoption by the Manufacture of the St Etienne proofing.
At that very time, other makers (such as Bernard) were using a legal loophole to avoid proofing entirely, but the Manufacture was a very early adopter of the early nitro powders and of the corresponding proofs. The first R model (1897) appears at the same time of the first PX stamp (1896). Certainly, the geographical proximity had to be useful in establishing such a close collaboration.
On a slightly different subject, Mournetas states that the first
Hercule steel barrels show up in 1900, which means that everything before that was in Damas Eclair, even on the R models.
Oh and by the way, Geno's gun would be from 1903, not 1899.
Best regards,
WC-

According to Baron Engelhardt's article on French proof, the crown over F was the normal St Etienne black powder proof, with "poudre forte", for arms in the finished state (1897 on)--so F for either forte or finie would make sense. (Paris proofhouse equivalent was the Paris coat of arms--sailing ship in a shield--under a crown.) Superior black powder proof: crown over S, St Etienne; normal proofmark repeated twice, Paris. According to JC's text, either of those were replaced by the PT/PJ etc mark if proof was with a smokeless powder.

General Journee has some scathing remarks concerning the loophole left by the French government for gunmakers to avoid official proof.

Bonjour Larry,

Riffling through some Mournetas books I have been lent, it is mentioned in all of
them, as you say, that a crown over F is: "épreuve ordinaire des armes finies à la
poudre noire", i.e. normal St. Etienne black powder proof for finished guns. Also
mentioned: Poudre noire dit "Forte", black powder called "Forte", thus the "F".

Proof Charges for 12 bore by decree of July 10, 1897:
10 grams of black powder "Forte" and 70 grams of shot.

Also mentions, as you say, that a crown over "S" is "épreuve superieur des armes finies à la
poudre noire" not to be confused by a crown over PS that denotes proof using
powder pyroxylée "S". This leads be to believe that the "P" does stand for Pyroxylée.

JC

P.S.: Here is an old Gastinne Renette with the black powder & Paris? proof:

If Im not wrong again this is a 1901 black powder damascus Ideal.



Martin

Hola Martin,

You are right.
16 bore finished barrels proofed with 9 grams of black powder "Forte" and
60 grams of Nº8 shot for a pressure of 893 kgs per square centimeter or
12,701.44 psi

JC

JC--I can't make out a Paris proof in your photo. I see what appears to be a proprietary Gastinne Renette mark (GR) on each barrel. I don't think the mark between the name and 65 is a Paris proofmark, which looks like a shield with a sailing ship coat of arms, surmounted by a crown. Perhaps a proprietary barrelmaker's proof?

I don't have a photo of the barrel flats to post right now, but I have an 1898 20 bore with 3 palm Hercule steel. It has the lunette trigger guard and I've alway thought that it was proofed for nitro.