doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Fabrique National SXS

Yes I got it ...and your shotgun is in there...Also I found another FN SxS brochure (in English also) that shows exploded drawings and component parts with several pictures of the guns being produced by women and assembled and tested by men...It says 12 and 16ga only and that they were produced with chopper lump barrels, some with the Greener cross bolts and some with the Purdy bolts, which is what yours looks like...yours is the "Standard Grade"...Then something else different, it says that the frames are hardened and blued!!!...It goes on to say that they can also had with "Holland type" ejectors, but when you look at the component parts, there is that sliding tongue on the forend that I associate with the Holland/Deforney ejector system...theres alot of interesting stuff...I loaned my digital camera for the weekend or you would have recieved my digital responce by now...hopefully this evening... there is something else...it says the guns innards of of the highest grade production standards, material selection, and heat treating...I didn't have these catalogs when last I owned a FN SxS or probably would not have sold it...

Forgot to ask...does yours have ejectors or chopper lump (demi-bloc) barrels? Does your forend iron have that distinctive sliding tongue above the hinge radius? Perhaps you could send, or better yet, post pictures of the proof and touch marks for an accurate assessment of when your gun was produced.

In the 1911 "Alfa" catalog there is one FN shotgun listed. Description as follows;
"" Ejector gun made by machinery in the Fabrique Nationale, system Anson & Deeley, prime Coquerill steel barrels, polished deep black, patent fore-end, horn cap, English insertion, nitro tested, independent English ejectors.""
The picture shows an unengraved action body with a single scallop on rear wall, some sculpting at forward end of bar as opposed to the "Square box" of many A&D actions. Also shown is; double under bolts, cross bolt & side clips. Listed in 12 & 16 ga's @ 275 Mark.
I suspect these guns were well made of good quality materials, but not in the class we consider "Best"

I like that littlegun site. He is warning Belgians not to vote for the socialists because they are promoting "stupid and dangerous " gun laws! Fight the good fight, men!

David

OK ..I'll be sending a couple of pics in a few minutes...just a note to 2-piper...the catalog says Cockerill or Krupp...I can find no dates on either...let me know if there is other flavors of Belgian doubles your interested in...

Robert, I'm sorry I didn't respond sooner, my power has been out all day.
My gun does not have ejectors,it does have the greener crossbolt.
Although I know what a chopper lump barrel is, I don't know how to recognise it.
Thanks very much for the information. I'll send youy some more pictures. I would post them here but I don't know how.
Pete

Robert;
The catalog I was quoting from is the Adolf frank Export catalog known as "Alfa" dated 1911, a gun digest reprint. I did a little further looking & discovered I had skipped another page containg 3 models of FNs. All seem to be the same design & are stated to be quadruple bolted, though I see only the double underbolts & a crossbolt, don't know what they are calling the 4th one. All do have side clips & are extractor guns. first one is unengraved @ 156 Mark, next has "Arabesque" engraving @ 204 mark & the last has "Artistic Dragon" engraving @ 228 Mark. All available in 12 or 16 ga. In "This" catalog the only bbl steel mentioned on the FNs is Coquerill. According to an exchange table in front of catalog, subject to slight fluctuations, the 1911 US Dollar was equal to 4,20 Marks (4 Reichsmark, 20 pfennig). I am certain this was not the entire FN line of the day, but only what Alfa listed. One would certainly think they would have offered engraved versions of thier ejector model as well as the extractor gun.

Sorry your email bounced...I'll clean out my mailbox and let you know so that you can re-send the photos...I will save your photos for anyone else seeking the same data in the future, if that's alright with you?...There's a new email on it's way to you with 5 pics of the chopperlump system plus 4 other pages...It seems strange that FN would refer to the chopper lump system as a demi-block...perhaps it is both...please do not re-send your pics until I send you the next 5 jpegs...were the first pictures the info you've been lookin' for?

Miller...that exchange table is not in my original Alfa catalog (1903?)...I'm gonna pencil that 4.2 to 1 in my catalog for future drooling purposes...unfortunately mine is in German text

Robert, I would like to hear your thoughts on the definition of "Demi-Block". I have read that it was simply another term for the chopper-lump, also that it applied to the "Dovetail Chopper-Lump". I also recall seeing a picture of an older set of bbls marked Demi-block which appeared to have a joint much like a Mono-Block. I believe they were of either Pieper or Bayard "brand". This tended to cause me to wonder if the original meaning was a block built seperate from the tubes but of two pieces joined together, rather than from a single block, as in the "Mono". Then again maybe none of these are correct. Thanks for any input you may have on this.