doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com St. Hubert BLE in 16

What some sleuthing & it isn't even 5 o'clock pm(Zulu). I was confused on the matter & thought we were looking @ the origin of the term Hubert(Bishop).....


Cheers,

Raimey
rse

I think the topic split three ways:
1) Saint Hubert BLE 16 ga French retailed gun, clearly Belgian-made
2) A nicely made over under from Belgium. The barrels are marked "A Saint Hubert Paris" and where that might come from.
2) And the patron saint of Hunters...witness the Saint Hubert club in Paris the morphed into the French political party of hunters and fishers.

Keep up Raimey....have another coffee...it's already 4:00 PM here.

I'm ramping up Argo, but with mate as coffee seems to develop kidney stones stresses my plumbing. My hope is that Sankt Nic stops by your Zulu + 1 position.


na zdravje,

Raimey
rse

Larry,, the over/under has the 1935 date code of "N". I noticed, too, that the A Saint Hubert-------- and Belgique were applied or engraved after the barrels were blued.

Belgian barrels being marketed in Paris on a Paris gun? Say it isn't so. Reminds me of the Didier Drevet article he wrote for Saint Etienne newspaper in 1878 on his visit to the Parisian Universal Exposition (translated in the Dating Early French Shotgun line):

Without wanting to diminish the merits of the house of Leopold Bernard, one must recognize that he is operating at an advantage because of his location.

For a long time his manufactures were encourgesd and supported by the Parisian gunmakers, who needed to have a prestigious barrel from Paris in order to have the rest of the gun which was made abroad accepted.

It�s true that the beautiful movement of egos was close to being extinguished because most of the long guns which I was given to look at in the display cases of the Parisian exposition were mounted with Belgian barrels and even barrels that were decidedly mediocre.

I visited in detail two of the display cases. I will abstain from citing the name of the two exhibiters, but I picked up ours and the brand names of the barrels and I could, if necessary, justify what i�m going to say in advance.

In spite of the long guns which were in the two display cases, I only found one barrel legally proof-marked and it was from Liege.

All the others were without a brand name, and of such of those I figure that six of the barrels were Belgian made.

It�s true to say that there is not a proof house in Paris. The government has not judged it necessary to establish one because there is not a single maker of barrels in Paris. It is this state of affairs which facilitates fraud and which I brought to the attention of the Paris Exposition. One can bring in barrels from Liege which have not been proofed; One can decorate them with a proper mark/name and one can then babtise them as Paris barrels. I know very well that M. Leopold Bernard, who is careful about his reputation and who, decidedly sells very expensive products, but without submitting his barrels to a serious proof test.

But as for the gun makers who buy these barrels without a proof mark abroad why would they do it differently?

In any case it�s not legal neither for one method or another. There cannot be two laws in France, one for Paris, the other for St-Etienne.

Good stuff, Argo, thanks.

Has anyone taken one of these Belgium shotguns apart to see if there is a mark, a stamp, or initials someplace inside the action that would at least steer us in the direction of a builder's name?

The retailer had to have an invoice or mailed a check to somebody.

Daryl, I doubt that your gun is a Frenchie with Belgian barrels. I've seen too many Belgian OU's that looked pretty much like twins to that one. Plenty of Belgian-made guns (from the ground up) sold by gun shops in Paris.

Larry, of course not a French made gun . It has full Belgian proofs from 1935 and the only French marks are put on the gun after the final finishes have been applied. Really a nicely finished gun with an unusual, to me, flat {narrow] receiver , not much wider than the breech.

Narrow but deep. More or less the Merkel design with some changes, but incorporating the 3 piece forend. Seems OU's these days have gone the other direction: shallow but wide.