PJ,
I'm not sure why anyone would specify they want a post 1964 Darne. Since a bunch of the production that ended up here, or, in Canada, was built and numbered out of sequence with production for Europe, I'm not sure one can nail down a production time frame on guns they find here in the states prior to Paul Bruchet's ownership of the company.
Sometime prior to the second world war, the Darne company just started having everything, from R10s to the highest grades, triple proofed. There was a clarification to the laws of proof in 1964, but, it didn't really change anything Darne had been doing for a long time. Guns with 75mm chambers are proofed to the same level as 2 3/4" guns.
1964 was right at the beginning of an economic downturn in the French economy, and 1965 saw a bunch of companies drop out, merge, or discontinue products-the Charlin disappeared in 1965. Run of the mill guns weren't finished as nice as they might have been 10 years or so prior. Gil's R10 20 gauge that I sold him is a late 1940s guns, and I have never seen an example built in the 1960s that could compare to the gun, in quality of wood or finish.
Where did you get the notion that you would want something built after 1964?
As to the mountain clown who posted about the superiority of a Browning over a Beretta, and offered up no evidence that matters as to why that might be, I'd like to point out that any number of little 16-18 year old girls who participate in our local high school trap and skeet leagues could beat his fat ugly ass seven ways from sunday, any day of the week, with any gun he showed up with. And, look good doing it.
WIth their Mossberg pumps.
Best,
Ted
