doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Define "Best," Royal," etc. Guns - How To

"The Purdey, on the other hand, just seems to feel better in an unidentifiable way. The balance and weight just seem to put the gun to the shoulder of its own accord and, when mounted properly, all you have to do is look at the bird and think about shooting it and the trigger seems to pull itself."

Yep, that's a Purdey alright, no doubt about it.

I , for one would like to see close up pics of the Francotte guns,
Like both sides of the action,above n below...we could tell you where they fell in the line up from this maker, as you might see, I'm a fan of nice older Francottes..though I prefer the older VL&D Guns.Post pics of the bbl flats , & we can tell you the age of them.There is usually a letter with a * above, this is the proof viewers mark, above this should be a letter like e f, or E F,thats the date code...e was 1926 or 29 (i forget)....E will be later.
Describe the style of the letter if you can't post a pic,
seems you got some good gear, you lucky man
cheers
franc

Don, if you're trying to arrive at a value for guns based on your OQ scale, I think you have the SLNE too high. Certainly so on the British market. I bought an Army & Navy SLNE in England in 1996, imported it. Ran about $1600, including a Brady case, shipping, etc. $1600 would not have got me a C grade SLE back then, or even close. Nor a 1st quality BLE. Looked at several of both. Brits think SLNE's are decidedly strange. If it's a SL, then it ought to have ejectors--which is why you don't see many SLNE's over there, and why they're relative bargains, if you don't want ejectors. You can't shoot driven game with a nonejector, which is probably the big hit on SLNE's on the vintage Brit gun market. Who would've wanted to spend that kind of $ for a strictly rough shooting gun??

Larry, most SLNE's fall in the OQ5-6 level. One very rarely sees a OQ4 grade SLNE. I admit to a shortage of data on the "A" and "B" level SLNE's. I'll keep and eye out. Thanks for the input, appreciate it. Any other suggestions?

DDA

That was the one that jumped out at me, Don. I think you're right on the higher end. You won't find very many really high quality SLNE's, for the reasons I suggested in my previous post. Maybe a pigeon gun or a wildfowler, but otherwise why spend that much on a gun with which you can't shoot driven birds? That would have been the thinking back when those guns were made.

And, I think, Larry, that a fair number of the SLNE fine guns originally produced before ejectors became "standard" fare were converted to ejectors. Really, it made a lot of sense to have a gun upgraded rather than having to buy a whole new gun; probably a fair number were converted on the pre-owned market to make them more salable.

DDA

That could well have happened, Don. And the period during which hammerless sidelocks were produced before ejectors were perfected was fairly short.