doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com One of my favorite things about doubles .........

.............is the people you get to know when you get deep in them.

One of those people is named Jim Kelly. He is the owner, and master gunsmith, at Darlington Gun Works in Darlington, SC. It has rained here for the last three days, hindering our farm work, and I have been waiting for just such an opportunity to make the almost three hour drive to Mr. Jim's shop. Jim Kelly is one of the most interesting people I have ever met due to messing with doubleguns. He was enthralled with working on guns from a teenager, and read everything he could get his hands on about it, and the guns he works on. He said he currently has a gun library of around two thousand volumes.

Jim had quadruple bypass heart surgery, and a heart valve replacement, about a year ago and has been convalescing ever since. He only comes in to the shop for the afternoon, right now, but is still the man for doubleguns. He always captures my attention with stories from the past ......... in France, and back in the States. Today he told me of going back to France in the early 70s, I believe but don't quote me on that, and visiting the Darne manufacturing facility, which he described as being housed in "an old three-story schoolhouse". He had heard that they might cease production and wanted to order two guns before they closed. He said he figured since they made hardly any of them, that a 28 and a .410 would be worth a lot someday, so he asked Darne to build the two for him. He said they refused, so his plans were thwarted.

We talked of skeet shooting with .410s, duck hunting in Argentina, regulation of S x Ss, dove shooting, sleeving (mono blocking, as he refers to it), and Kirk Merrington, among other things. I always leave Jim's presence feeling blessed to have been there. I took four S x Ss to him today for some of his "healing powers", and we visited for about 45 minutes before I bid him adieu. Jim retreated to the workbench and lit his pipe, as I browsed guns for sale. As I left, his helper told me she would contact me as soon as the guns were finished, and that it may possibly be before Christmas. I was flabbergasted at that, but would not be upset at all if it takes a good bit longer than that.

So, who is someone that you have met through your years of double gunning that made a big impression on you, or that you admire greatly? Tell us about them, please.

SRH

Stan, that sounds like a great way to spend a rainy day. The last doublegun I sent to him he got it back to me fast. The gun was repaired and even if it should go without saying, I'll say it anyway, the screws were still perfect and there wasn't a clue that he had gone inside it. Gil

Paul Bruchet. The man who single handly rescued the Darne gun. I had the pleasure of being his company rep on the western side of planet earth for a decade. Richard Levi. Owns a company named G. Granger. If the stereotypical image of a hell raising, fun loving guy with the soul of an artist, from the south of France rings true in any human, it is him. Kirk Merrington. Every phone call is an hour, even when we are trying to keep it short. Dewey Vicknair. A guy with more gun talent in his little finger than I have in my whole body.
The guy who kicked it all off for me, however, was my Dad. He only owned one double, and never took the shine to it that I did. But, he saw to it that I had my chances to hunt and shoot, and spent 22 years of active USMC duty, and 8 years as a reservist, ready to come home in a body bag. He was the most squared up troop I ever met.
I didn't realize how few hunting partners I had until he was gone.
I still have his Beretta.


Best,
Ted

Stan, Mr. Kelly sounds like the type of person that most people would like to have work on their doubles.

The person that comes to my mind and made a lasting impression on me was a gentlemen by the name of Bernie Liberati. He was not a gun smith but rather a collector of large bore guns, from 4 gauge down to 10 gauge. I got to meet him through a phone call, he said that such and such gave him my phone number and he wanted to know if I would make him some 4 bore choke gauges. I said I would be willing but he had no idea of what the gauges should be in size increments as to choke. He had some crude measurements and I started out by making him some aluminum plugs of different sizes that he could put on the end of a rod to put into the bores. This proved futile, so I told him I would come to his house and measure the bores of his 4 bore guns. He owned 10 of them, some single barrel and some double barrel from A. McComas to W & C Scott and Son, with a Holland and Holland, Roda and a T. Mullin 48" single barrel.
The bore sizes were from .910 of a Benjamin double to .948 of the McComas 48" barrel. We settled on Full at .875, Imp.Mod.,.890, Mod.,.905, Imp.Cyl.,.920. These would take care of most. He asked if I thought that this would be good and I said to him "you own more of these than probably anyone else, who is going to argue".
He wanted the gauges made out of brass, and I told him that they would be too heavy, he said they would look nice as he wanted to give them to friends that had 4 bores. My wife made holsters to hold them on your belt if you had the need to carry one.

He started developing some health issues and spent time in the hospital, came home and was doing so so, got worse and had to go back and was sent home as there was nothing they could do. He passed on but I will always remember him as a good friend and I hope he felt the same.
It was a nice relationship and he also belonged to the L.C. Smith Collectors Association and went to some of our shoots and the Vintagers Shoots. He also owned 13, 8 gauge L.C. Smiths and of these two were consecutive serial numbers Grade 4's of which there were only two made. He also owned quite a few Parkers.
He wanted me to shoot one some day and I doubt if I could hold one up.
A great person and I hope that he is up there shooting one of them.

Here is link to a site he and a few others formed. In the one picture he is second from the left, the first was his very good friend Jim Stahl. His son Bernie is next to him.

http://www.10gauge.com/photos.html

Stan,
Mr. Kelly sounds like an invaluable resource for double gun knowledge. What brings me joy in double gunning is the friends I've met going to the sxs shoots to enjoy my doubles. Hunting with those same friends in the fall tops it off.
Karl

Stan,
When I was in France, the Darne works occupied a small corner of the original factory. The factory is about two city blocks long, and has been cut up into condomiums, lofts and studios.
There is a sculptured arch, with the word "Darne" cast into it, over a concrete staircase that leads one from street level on Rue de la Convention, to the second floor on the back side of the building.
It would be hard to confuse it with an old schoolhouse.
This is a photo of just the arch, from the reverse of a French language Darne catalog. My catalogs had The Drumming Stump bird image, that I lifted from the DGJ, with permission from Joanna Cot�:



I offered 410s and sold 28s when I was importing them, not many of either, but, nobody ever told me no. I also own a 28, and they turn up for sale here and there. If your friend was told no, I wonder if it was because they realized the end was near, which, would put the date in the late 1970s, 1979 to be specific.

Not many of them out there, but, here is a 28, that my kid has his eye on:



RE Darne .410s-if you like the original Winchester model 21 .410, you will love a Darne .410.

Best,
Ted

My love for a SxS double was more by accident than influence. My father nor either of his brothers were hunters, though all owned a gun of "Some Type". My fathers was an ancient Hopkins
& Allen 16 gauge single, only gun he owned until after I was grown & he began to rabbit hunt with me. He bought me a single shot .22 when I was about 12. I began to want a shotgun capable of firing more than one shot when I was about 15 & he thought a double would be safer for me than either a pump or semi auto, so that's what I ended up with, a pre-WW1 J Stevens Arms & Tool Co 12 gauge, 30" M & F chokes. 2 or 3 years later I bought an 870 Rem 20 gauge pump with 28" mod barrel. Tried hard for 2 or 3 seasons to learn to like it , but shot the old Steavens so much better in spite of its un-suitability for my hunting purposes I traded it into a Parker Trojan 12 with 28" mod & full barrels & never looked back. Have had no desire for anything but a SxS double to this day.

Co-incidently I had a grand uncle, brother to my father's mom, Grandmother to me, named Jim Kelly. He migrated to California many, many years ago died & was buried there. Their father was named Joseph Kelly. As I understand it in his younger days he was a rather renowned Prize Fighter up around New York. He later came south to TN & took a job as a railroad detective. He went to arrest a hobo outside a station in Memphis
TN who pulled a pistol & shot & killed him when my grandmother was still quite young so she never new him a lot.

I just talked to such a person tonight who is deeply knowledgable and has always been generous of his time with me. That's what I like about him the most; he is very willing to share his knowledge and even say when he doesn't know something but hey, call this guy because he knows more than I do. That's humility, which can be a little scarce around gun guys sometimes as we know. I consider him to be a friend who I can trust, who won't steer me wrong around info or potential purchases.

He also has a lot of truly good vintage guns. At one point, he owned THE Selous rifle...lots of howdah pistols, best quality guns, etc. I will never forget the first time he walked me through some of his collection and seeing best quality and rare items coming out of the woodwork (literally). I think my jaw was just hanging open. Makes me smile thinking about it.

My papaw had a gunsmith in that area but I never got a chance to meet him. My papaw's name is George Pinson. I need to call Arlington to see if they are the ones that did all of his work

My Father loved doubles and infected me. Although he had money (and then some) he stuck to shooting three doubles and stopped (German Guild 16 BLNE-Hodgson 12 SLNE hammergun-Browning Superposed). He talked about Best Guns, had all the books and magazines like DGJ, but having grown up in the depression he could not bring himself to spend the money on a Best gun.

I brought and tried giving him a Best gun, but he would not take it, though he would shoot it with me. He would have gagged at my spending on my retirement Best Guns lately, but he did infect me.