My point is...I just assumed that Caunier had a business relationship with Charlin...why would anyone sell a Darne based gun while touting the prime competitors name on the same page?
Given how little we actually know about the Darne/Charlin evolution, I still say Charlin played a hand in the making of some of the one piece stocked guns...until someone show definitive proof otherwise...
Robert, the above shows clearly where your difficulty lies, both when it comes to understanding gun dealers and in the search for "proof".
I'm looking at Stoeger's 1961 "Shooter's Bible"--back in the days when the Stoeger people dealt in a wide variety of guns, both foreign and American-made. I turn to the section featuring sxs, and I find Spanish (Sarasqueta-made) Zephyrs, Sauers made in West Germany, the SKB Royal, and V. Bernardellis. Stoeger had a relationship with all those firms, all of which made break-action guns, all of which more or less competed with each other. Some (like the lower grade Zephyrs) were less expensive than many of the others. So why is it any less logical that Caunier would offer a Regina, likely a less-expensive sliding breech gun, as well as the more expensive Charlins? Why wouldn't a French dealer do business in the same manner as an American dealer--offering a variety of options to their customers?
And as to your sentence about proof . . . well, you've got it 100% bass-ackwards. You can't prove a negative. Impossible to prove that Charlin DIDN'T make one-piece guns using an expired Darne patent. But it is very possible--simply by showing us an example of said production--that Charlin DID make the guns you "still say" they made. As M. Gournet said, just show us a Darne-patent gun made by Charlin. The ball is most definitely in your court on that one.
As for Beagle's gun, what he does with it is up to him. You've given him some advice, assuming he wants to make his own stock. Ted has given him some advice. Ted has already pointed out to you that "clone" does not mean "cheap". In the case of a "Darne clone", it simply means a gun not built by Regis Darne, but built on his patent. That'd be like a Helice gun not built by Verney-Carron--of which there are lots in France, many of which carry no name at all, but which may still be solid "shooters". It's just that they're not Verney-Carrons, even though they copied the V-C patent action. So I'm not commenting on how good a gun Beagle has, but rather on what it is--and what it is not.
But, since you continue to say that Charlin "played a hand in the making of some of the one piece stocked guns", I'd say that you have your research cut out for you. All you have to do to prove that point is . . . find such a gun. And show it to us. Preferably without the misleading French cropping you tossed our way the first time around. Until you do, seems to me we've wasted enough of our time on this subject. When you catch the wild goose, let us know. Then we'll have something interesting to discuss, other than unsupported conjecture.
