doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Manufrance Simplex

There seems to be a lot of info available on the internet if you are willing to buy old catalogs in bad shape and printed in French, paying $150-200 Euros plus shipping from Europe per book. I wish Cornell would invest in a couple for reproduction, but sales may not be brisk for it.

I managed to copy a couple of pages from the web that are a little informative if you enlarge them.





The first is from a 1935 catalog. By then, the gun had been redesigned into a rather homely style with a thin long action (much like a US hammer gun of the period in profile) with some sort of ejector/breechblock? that sticks up like a piece of plate steel.
The second is from a 1919 catalog and shows one similar to the one I bought. To my mind, it is a much more elegant looking gun (for a single shot), and may have been more robust since many were supposedly chambered for some pretty heavy rifle cartridges. If you enlarge the second picture, you can see a cutaway of the hammer and hammerless models along with a parts list. I suspect the depression in the between years affected their design, marketing and pricing.

I notice that, at least on the pages available, there are no model numbers shown in 1919 but they are in 1935. The 1935 shows models from 50 through 86 and 86S. They almost all appear to have "automatic ejectors" in 1935. I suspect the ejection function was essentially built into the modified action design. I also noted that the Simplex was available in only 12 and 16 and the Junior was in three smaller gauges. No mention of rifles of the period.

As to the listing, you may not have seen the listing because it didn't mention Manufrance. I don't think the seller had a clue about it and simply titled it with the stamping on the barrel. I have seen this several times on some pretty desireable guns I have purchased. I was simply looking for 16 gauge single shot guns when I found it. It had been listed through several cycles with no bids. I have several really classic single shots and was looking for a 16 and 28 to round out the set.