doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 1900 Manufrance - Are the Case Colors Original?

You're right Ted. The Gerest-Berthon with 1906 Didier-Drevet barrels had "7" (cm) chambers....I won't let Dau-in-law shoot anything but 2 1/2" RST low pressure shells from it. What I am looking for is an affordable 16 gauge, turn of the century Saint-Etienne gun with 28"-30" barrels with enough style to make me feel good about carrying it but not a renaissance art piece. Most of those seem to be associated with black powder or with the longer chambers. I've plenty of time so no hurry.

Gene,
There are plenty of French boxlocks out there, usually 16s, often with short chambers, and even more often for short money. "Out there" in this case refers to guns that are already in the states, that have had the owner "age out" of, for lack of a better term.
You don't have to import anything. The gun buying/selling dynamic has changed completely since I was last in France, but, in the mid 1990s, guns I could get perhaps $500-$800 for, here in the states, routinely sold for $1200-$2000 in France. Rich people hunt in France. A lot of times, a son or daughter inherited a mid grade French gun, and simply sold it to recover the windfall, rather than screwing around to find/pay for a place to bird hunt.
The gunmakers I was working with would go years between hunting trips.
It was a different story with pigs, which, seemed to be considered a tasty pest, from what I could tell. Farmers were happy to be rid of them.
I truly believe you will do better, here.

Best,
Ted

Case colors original?

Almost certainly not. Look like cyanide colors, not charcoal.

Thanks Ted. I've been watching for several months and not seen anything appealing. No pressure; I have seen a couple of guns on naturabuy.fr. I'll let you all know what I find and how I get it back. I guess I'm sort of looking for a 16 ga version of that 1887 browned 12 bore black powder hammer gun posted above. Here's a Helima (no idea what it means except its early 20th century Saint-Etienne), which is sort of up my alley except for the 26.5" barrels. I'd prefer hammers and Damascus but a version of this would be shootable
https://www.naturabuy.fr/juxtapose-cal-16-platines-item-4448807.html

From the photos is looks like an early type with no barrel flats and concave action bar. In these older doubles there is no radius between action face and flats. Instead there is a sharp corner, presumably because the action was milled vertically with a flat end cutter. The sharp corner is faintly visible in one of the photos.

The lack of radius worries me more than the case colours.

Argo, you would have liked the sideplated Drevet 16 I owned several years ago. Very nice gun. Put that one close to the top of the list of guns I should not have sold.

Now you tell me Larry. Got any pics? By the way, a couple of months ago reading about Pierre Didier-Drevet (pic below), I ran across a claim that he didn't make more than 300 barrels a year to insure quality. This explains why Darne and others went to other barrel makers. This pretty well is confirmed by our graph of his production based on the barrel serial numbers from the previous line.

Gene,
Everyone has their own tastes, but, all that gold, weirdly applied to the gun you posted, above, made me vomit in my mouth a little.

I really never cared for gold on guns. I've seen a gold washed lock or two, but, haven't seen any non gold washed locks that suffered the corrosion the wash was supposed to prevent.

It will be your gun, however, so, do as you please....


Best,
Ted

. Not my gun....still looking. But I like the lines and look. It's not the gold, it's the simplicity and elegance.