doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Darne?

65 is a designation of chamber length. Change the order to RST to 2.5" before they ship the wrong size. 70 mm is 2 3/4. 65 mm is 2.5". While the longer shell may not catastrophically raise pressures, you might as well shoot the shell length the gun was designed.

Mfft!I can't seem to post photos. Sorry and frustrated, thanks! I have read much of the info online about Darne guns.



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Thank you for this thread George, I had not seen it. Interesting to see the difference between the article's barrel markings and the ones on mine. It would be nice to know what the M*M signifies on mine, perhaps the maker?

Thank you for your info, GLS! I am probably too late to stop shipment, but perhaps I can try those shells in the Bayard 12 gauge side by side I also inherited with this gun, after I ensure(by asking a local smith) it is safe to use.

Thank you all for your help, it's always reassuring and a pleasure to meet friendly and generous folks. Best holiday season wishes!

Your gun is an 1894 patent Darne model R action, built after 1900, by someone other than the Darne company. Regis Darne changed his actions in the early 1900s, selling the older patent alongside the new ones for a time, before he discontinued his use of the older guns. These same early actions were then sold to other makers in the white, barreled, and proofed, but never marked with the Darne name.
Your gun looks to be a nicely finished 12 gauge, with 65mm chambers, and single proof out of the St. Etienne proofhouse. French single proof is nothing to sneer at, plenty of margin for safety. If the RST 2 3/4" ammunition is fairly low pressure, I wouldn't worry about using it in your Darne to at least try the gun a bit. If the ends become ripped off the fired rounds, save them for a different gun, and use a 2 1/2" load from RST, next time. Generally speaking, a 2 3/4" load in a 2 1/2" chamber won't cause any trouble if it is within about the same pressure as the 2 1/2" load the gun was designed for.
If you just cleaned the gun up recently, your Dad did a great job of storing it all those years. It looks to be in good shape.
I confess to having never seen the M*M stamp before, and do not know what it represents. The good news is any clay pigeons or birds you use the gun to pursue won't know, either, and it won't make a difference in shooting.
Any further questions you might have, post them here and we will do our best to answer them.
It looks to be a fairly nice shooter. Do enjoy.

Best,
Ted

Thank you profoundly,Ted, especially regarding your kind words towards my dad, who passed last year, a week before his 95th birthday.
I would like to relate, given as a token of appreciation, and hopefully not so long winded that it will be received otherwise, the history my dad related concerning this gun, the Bayard, and a 1913 9mm DWM P08 Luger that he brought back from Austria in 1946.

He was the armorer for his company, which was part of the Army Corps of Engineers. They shipped over to Normandy in October or November of 44, and saw action only for a few days during the Battle of the Bulge, before eventually ending up in Vienna at war's end.

Called to confront a sniper in a church steeple, my dad found the sniper to be an old lady who lived with her husband in a nearby village.

My dad told me that he had two opportunities to kill during the war. The first subject being a lamed horse, killed eventually without a second thought by a passing infantryman, as my dad and his squad passed a firearm between them, trying to avoid the task.
The second was this old lady. I never asked my dad what she was using to snipe with, but he related that after taking the lady into custody, he searched her house, confiscating the three arms I now am the guardian for.

On reflection, the serial number on the action is marked with the spacing 10 4 05, which may signify April 4, 1905?

Best wishes and thanks again!

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I doubt the serial number has anything to do with a date. Serial numbers simply didn't mean much in the era prior to WWII, and I expect that should the gun be dismantled, only the last two or three numbers of the total serial number would appear on the action parts, screws, etc.
Do let us know how it works out for you. It seems a pity your Father never pressed it into service after dragging all the way home, but, perhaps hunting and killing were not his fort�.
I'm sorry for the loss of your Father. My Father's passing taught me how few hunting partners I really had, and how few I needed when he was with me.

Best,
Ted

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Once again Ted, thanks for your kind, reflective, and knowledgable thoughts. Funny, that complete number is on all parts

Azure, if you want a good sling befitting of the gun, take a look at www.jeffsoutfitters.com There was a recent thread on slings for Darne and these are nice, leather slings. You'll have to measure the width of your sling mounts to determine width of sling which come in two widths. Many of us here are sons of WWII vets. Dad's infantry experience moving out of France into Germany gave him the dreads on seeing a distant church steeple in a village. These were not just sniper hides, but also often vantage points for German artillery forward observers. Driving from Holland to Paris a few years ago, I saw these same steeples and villages scattered throughout the horizon in the agrarian countryside of Belgium and Northern France. Gil