I've just gone through 500 ads on Naturabuy.fr. and have come up with some more food for thought. For the few interested in French guns, I'll make three posts on findings (and it's probably already common knowledge somewhere):

1). Didier-Drevet continued to date his barrels at least through 1924 - probably much later (and this was after DD combined with others including Darne to create SIFARM). (example to be posted)

2). Not all French guns were chambered for 65 cm during this period. I've found a lot of French guns chambered for 70, 75, 80 mm (7, 7.5, 8 cm) from 1890-1930. and it looks like 1870-1890 more than a few of the guns I've looked at were chambered for 7.5 cm or 75mm. (examples to be posted)

3). Saint-Etienne guns up to about 1890 appear to be chambered in mm.. So they changed to cm about 1890 and back to mm about 1912. This 1890? change is very possibly the visible evidence of the change-over from the CGS system (centimeter, gram, second) to MKS system (meter, kilogram, second) in 1889 referred to by Wildcattle. This 1889 date is as clear a date-marker as the 1912 date.

and an observation:

4) I can find no evidence that Parisian or Belgian guns ever used cm for chamber measurements - if it's in cm - it's likely Stephanois.

Last edited by Argo44; 07/27/17 10:57 PM.
Baluch are not Brahui, Brahui are Baluch