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

Everyone is a student, including me. I�m not good with independent barrel suppliers of the era, the Darne company went to producing their own tubes early in the game.

The gold medal was awarded in 1904 for the guns they were building.

Best,
Ted

CMR: canon champaley meillier et riou (CMR)

Thought I'd seen that before:
https://doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=518976

The safety is in the fire position, look closely above the switch and you can see (F) and (S) in gold lettering.
The through bolt was a nightmare for my stocker. It does have a nut on the end of the through bolt and with the wood twisting as it did, it was a real problem to remove it. When all was said and done, the cast off was reduced from 1 3/16" to 3/8"
Tell me what you want photographed and I will do it.
Also, on the trigger guard on the bottom, it reads " Favereaux Vitre" in gold. What does that mean? The recessed leather strap is spring loaded and fully functional.
One other note, the barrels both have a stylized "F Darne" done in such a way as to imitate his signature.
By the way, this is not a pitch, this is a statement of fact. My stocker is suburb. He has stocked another Darne for me and since I was born and raised in Hawaii...before it became a state, I chose to have it stocked in Koa. So Nice. Thanks for all your comments and statements and a huge thanks to Ted.

"Favereaux" is a surname in France. Vitre is a village near Brittany. Obviously marketed by a hardware dealer in Vitre. Amouriers getting guns in the white from Saint Etienne put their own (retailer) names on the guns.

Useful to recal some retail prices from 1970, when Darne shotguns first came to Britain.

A new R10 was 110 pounds
A Webley and Scott 156
A baikal IZ27 78
A Remington 1100 90.
All the above new at Whaley's Gun Shop in Hornsey road (not far from Diggory Hadoakes later residence)

At the same time at Praed Street Paddington there was a used Dickson Round Action at 150 pounds.

Did not buy any of the above. I opted for a used Franchi Al48 at 75 opunds, which I hunted twice, it jammed solid after few shots. I sold it at the Praed St shop but the Dickson was long gone by then.

Ah, yes, I see the F and S for the safety. That seems much more ergonomic than the standard R10 safety.

I wonder what the story was behind the original stock. I suppose a dominant left eye, but it wouldn't seem to be quite enough for that either, relative to the rifles I've seen stocked that way.

Did you try to shoot it before you restocked?

What a cool gun.

A couple more:



Look at the rails that breech slides on.

Inside view of side lock, with a broken spring:



Carl, I have to apologize for the random order these appeared in the post. My electronic communication is slow and disorderly due to my entire family going to work or school on the information superhighway, and messages are no longer sorted, newest to oldest in my email. I stumble over a picture from you and post it.
Sorry. Very cool gun.


Best,
Ted

A Francisque Darne catalog, from the Jallas e Cie era:



The art deco era was in full swing.

First page:




I do not believe this version is Carl�s gun. Some of the features are similar, note the rails and the safety, but the front wood appears to be different in shape where it mounts to the action:



I have two F. Darne catalogs, this one and a post WWII version, when the company was part of SIFARM. Neither has anything that looks exactly like Carl�s gun.



Best,
Ted

A ridiculously unique and interesting gun. It�s like F. Darne was trying to figure out how to take the virtues that make a Darne a Darne and do away with them. Like swapping out the coil springs for v-Springs.
The stock work looks really nice, btw. Who might your stocker be?

Anyone got a picture of the sliding breech repeater? The one with the internal magazine that held 2 additional rounds?

I have a photocopy of that article, from �The Rifleman� written in 1977 by Roger Barlow. I have tried to put a photo from the article up, but, the photocopy is too poor to get a good picture of.
The Levi 4 shot sliding breech gun appears pregnant, in the same way a small bore Parker does. You nailed it, take the virtues out, light, quick handling, well balanced, and make it something else.

Best,
Ted