Some time back, I described the dismantling and cleaning of this old gun, an early Halifax Darne 12:
My intention was to clean it up a bit, reduce the awful trigger pulls, service it, and send it down the road to a new home. I have a different Darne that I'd like to restock. My work adjusting the triggers required me to bring it to the range, and check it with both barrels loaded, to see if there were any problems with doubling, or, partial hanging of the sears. I did manage to reduce the pulls from double digit numbers (my gauge only goes to ten pounds, and it was more than that) down to about the weight of the gun (as far as I was comfortable going on this example) with an extremely clean break. I shot by myself, since, I was loading two rounds in the gun. I alternated barrels, and really didn't pay that much attention to shooting, just operating. When it was over, I missed the number 2 bird, and ran the next 23 straight. I had hit number 1, for a score of 24.
Now what?
The gun features a perfect right handed safety button, while I am a lefty, a bit of right cast, and is a bit short for me. It is hard to argue with results, and I loath moving guns I shoot really well. A pad would correct the short LOP, the chambers could be lengthened to 2 3/4, or, left alone, and it would make a decent pheasant gun, my actual goal with the R10 restocking project.
Worse, too, Stan. Form follows function. Thing is, there is some right handed guy out there, who could shoot lights out with this gun. Hell, a left handed guy came close, today. A truly right handed Darne, stock, safety, the whole shebang, is a rare item. As Argo has been digging up info on age of French guns, this one isn't exactly new, either-pre 1912. Really great condition, considering all the festivities in the first half of the last century in Europe. I think it is a good looking gun, others do as well. As of right now, every comment on the topic is from a Darne believer, save, the one you put up. The sculpted detonators disappeared in the 1920s, I've always thought they look cool. I'm partial to thin and pretty brunettes, too, but, not everyone feels the same, I'm sure.
Beautiful Darne Ted. You have a Darne that you had restocked in France that you shoot really well also because I remember you describing that high crossing fastball you crushed a few years back with it, but I take it this isn't that gun.
Dare I say it could be the dreaded honeymoon? Shoot some more clays with it and see what happens. "Let me sleep on it and I'LL GIVE YOU AN ANSWER IN THE MORNIN'."
didn't pay that much attention to shooting, just operating.
I believe this is the key phrase. I also believe, if you could repeat the "just operating" part, you would shoot the same percentage with just about any other gun.
Worse, too, Stan. Form follows function. Thing is, there is some right handed guy out there, who could shoot lights out with this gun. Hell, a left handed guy came close, today. A truly right handed Darne, stock, safety, the whole shebang, is a rare item. As Argo has been digging up info on age of French guns, this one isn't exactly new, either-pre 1912. Really great condition, considering all the festivities in the first half of the last century in Europe. I think it is a good looking gun, others do as well. As of right now, every comment on the topic is from a Darne believer, save, the one you put up. The sculptured detonators disappeared in the 1920s, I've always thought they look cool. I'm partial to thin and pretty brunettes, too, but, not everyone feels the same, I'm sure.
Best, Ted
All in fun, Ted. I know there are those who really like the looks of a Darne, but as far as function goes, if you can shoot the thing that well ............ it doesn't matter how it looks to anybody else. Pretty is as pretty does.
I imagine I could get to liking one just fine if I never missed with it.
Put the pad on, Ted . . . and you probably won't shoot it for crap!
I stumbled across a like new Miroku 20ga sxs years ago, brought back from Japan by a Navy vet who'd served there. Don't think I paid $500 for it. PG/DT/splinter. 28" barrels. M/F. Shot a straight with it, first round of skeet I shot. Immediately had the chokes opened because I didn't want birds reduced to the equivalent of the puffs of smoke hits I got on those clay birds. After which I never shot it anywhere near as well again.
Treb, No, that is a different 12, a Darne R10 that Steve Bodio traded to me when he ordered his Darne R11 slug. I'm up to 5 Darnes at the moment, 3 are 12s:
When I got it from Mr. Bodio, the pistol grip stock had about 4" cut off of it, and the barrels had been backbored. It also has two pimple bulges, but, the wall thickness is about .060 where they are, and the makers said don't worry about it.
I haven't.
I shoot it well, but, it is choked Cylinder and IC, with 25" tubes, and is more useful for grouse than pheasant, although, I have used it for that.
When I get a bird at 40 yards, only the bird is more surprised than me. I have a few shooting handicaps, and try not to push my luck real hard.
The "Honeymoon" and "Operating" comments, above, are likely way more true than false.
I'll ponder this a bit. And, shoot some more. It is WAY cheaper to just shoot the Halifax, than to send an Darne R10 back to France for a new buttstock.
Larry, I didn't mention it, above, but, I ran it with a leather slip on pad. I used the Winchester low noise 2 3/4" load, even though the gun has tight, 2 1/2" chambers.
I crushed most of the targets. I have to work hard for good scores. This isn't my normal shooting.
The gun features a perfect right handed safety button, while I am a lefty, a bit of right cast,
and is a bit short for me. It is hard to argue with results,
and I loath moving guns I shoot really well. A pad would correct the short LOP, the chambers could be lengthened to 2 3/4, or, left alone, and it would make a decent pheasant gun, my actual goal with the R10 restocking project. Dang. The best laid plans.... Best, Ted
For reasons unknown to me, cosmically baffling, many people shoot ridiculously long LOP. Many years ago I fitted a gun with an adjusto for LOP buttplate. I found that I could sorta manage the thing all the way out to 16.5" but every gun I shoot well is pretty much at 14". You may want to consider some experimenting of your own. The gun is only better manageable in every imaginable way with a shorter LOP
The gun features a perfect right handed safety button, while I am a lefty, a bit of right cast,
and is a bit short for me. It is hard to argue with results,
and I loath moving guns I shoot really well. A pad would correct the short LOP, the chambers could be lengthened to 2 3/4, or, left alone, and it would make a decent pheasant gun, my actual goal with the R10 restocking project. Dang. The best laid plans.... Best, Ted
For reasons unknown to me, cosmically baffling, many people shoot ridiculously long LOP. Many years ago I fitted a gun with an adjusto for LOP buttplate. I found that I could sorta manage the thing all the way out to 16.5" but every gun I shoot well is pretty much at 14". You may want to consider some experimenting of your own. The gun is only better manageable in every imaginable way with a shorter LOP
just a thot
Dr. Sane, And a good thought it is. However, long LOP guns usually don't live in these parts, although, you could easily be forgiven for not knowing about that, based on your location.
You see, the ice cometh. We typically hunt in it, as well.
If you lived here, you would likely be like everyone else, and be trying to figure a way out for about 3 of the 12 months. Native and long term residents typically come to understand a gun that fits exceptionally well in a T-shirt, can't even be mounted in T-shirt, Filson, Woolrich, and Carhart. The older one gets, the more pronounced the problem becomes.
Ask Larry Brown, if he is still with us. Old joints protest moving, and, moving in cold even more.
The school (factory) solution on a Darne is typically ad one cm of LOP over your regular measurement with a conventional double. Thus, although 14 1/2 seems about right, most will find they need a bit more on a Darne.
But, because winter is always coming, here, measure three times, and cut once.
Ted, it's nice having a shotgun that the owner (custodian) will wear out long before the shotgun. That's a nice piece of wood you put on Steve's old gun. Gil
There are several perfectly rational possible explanations.
1. The gun has mystical powers and should be worshiped as a god.
2. Ted was abducted by aliens and the good score is all they allowed him to remember.
3. It's 'Nugunitis'.
I once agreed to sell a very clean 20 gauge Rem 31 to a friend. Never having shot the thing well, I agreed to meet the guy at a local club to do the deal. He wanted it for his son who was just getting old enough to start shooting. Worthy cause.
Naturally, I had to shoot a last line of trap with it. Scored 25, what else.
Being a man of my word, off it went anyway.
Kid turned out to not have the ability to focus on anything for more than 6 seconds that wasn't a video game. My friend did offer to sell it back.
Hope the orphan shotgun Gods don't find out you declined.
You will hit nothing, ever again, if they do.
Gil, That chunk of wood was worth more than the gun. It took Hervé less than two hours to fit it to the action, and then we ran it to the checkering studio.
It's a very cool looking old Halifax, Ted. I find those push-through safety buttons a pain regardless of which side they're on. Someone who really knows his Darnes once shared a safety work around involving the action key. I'm trying to remember what it was.... Good luck working through this dilemma! Do let us know what you decide.
Bill, You can use the opening lever as a safety, if you keep it up to the point that there is just a bit of daylight between the breech and the barrels. The gun can't fire in that position. Some people find it easier to simply close the action at the flush, as opposed to manipulating the safety.
I sold this gun to a guy I consider a friend, although I have never met him in person. He used it a few years, along with several others, a V21 and an R15. He has moved across country, and for many reasons doesnât need the spread of guns he had before. He kindly contacted me first, and offered me first right of refusal.
I didnât refuse.
This gun was built around the time the Titanic sank. It is a short chamber 12, choked about IC and IM. The barrel walls measure .056 thick at a point 9â from the breech, they are monsters, the guys at the factory loved thick barrels. 27 3/4â in length. Being newly right handed, I was very happy to get it back. Iâd guess it has about 3/8ths of an inch of cast, and it comes up as well as anything else I am playing with at the moment, in my fidgety gun mount that needs work. It is so cold at the moment, practicing my mount is about all I can do. Still thinking about a pad, but, that would ruin any cold weather use of the gun, as it would be too long with my wool coat on. Cold weather screams 12 gauge.
Free âcause I work there. It ainât East Lansing, but, what is?
Best, Ted
_________________________________________________________________ You should really try it. Not school, or, work, but, pulling your head out of your ass.
___________________________ Are you taking any finance electives?
Does your âfinance guyâ still think oil is going to $200 by summer?
I graduate when I finish. Tough concept for you to wrap your head around, I know.
RIG is up 20%.
Best, Ted
_______________________________________________________________________ Chatter on the internet is big oil is better than CSMC. Mom and Dad can agree on that.
I sold this gun to a guy I consider a friend, although I have never met him in person. He used it a few years, along with several others, a V21 and an R15. He has moved across country, and for many reasons doesnât need the spread of guns he had before. He kindly contacted me first, and offered me first right of refusal.
I didnât refuse.
This gun was built around the time the Titanic sank. It is a short chamber 12, choked about IC and IM. The barrel walls measure .056 thick at a point 9â from the breech, they are monsters, the guys at the factory loved thick barrels. 27 3/4â in length. Being newly right handed, I was very happy to get it back. Iâd guess it has about 3/8ths of an inch of cast, and it comes up as well as anything else I am playing with at the moment, in my fidgety gun mount that needs work. It is so cold at the moment, practicing my mount is about all I can do. Still thinking about a pad, but, that would ruin any cold weather use of the gun, as it would be too long with my wool coat on. Cold weather screams 12 gauge.
Hello, Fab! Thank you for the information. An interesting thing about this Halifax is many of the serial numbers on the gun do not match, as if it was built from parts. The trigger pull was almost impossible to use, and I have improved them, greatly. Do take a moment to look at my other post âI love it when this happensâ to see the photos of the Darne try gun.
Argo, This Halifax is clearly marked with 6.5 for the chambers, which, would tend to indicate construction prior to 1912 or so, based on what we guess about the use of that mark. The proof level, at single proof, would be my guess where Fab is taking his stab at the age, as the laws changed in 1924. See if you can clarify how he is drawing that conclusion on the date of the guns manufacture.
My French sucks. It comes back, a bit, when I use it, but I miss things in reading.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Ted here is a translation of FAB's comment:
"The Halifax appeared for the first time in 1914. There were two models, a Nr 5 and a Nr 6. These two guns were equipped with a one-piece stock (type 93). Later the stocks were mounted in two parts without separation like the gun in the photo.
(comment: Don't understand the "without separation" business but this might be a Darne characteristic implying the relative location of the fore-end and stock proper...donno)
The push safety on your rifle is a Darne 1921 patent The gun was proofed before 1924. I dated its fabrication between 1918 and 1923.
I can't explain the 6.5 chamber marking and the projected 1918-1923 manufacture date. We dated the changeover from cm to mm definitively to summer 1912 per the only dated gun parts made in Saint-Etienne that I know of Didier-Drevet barrels. I'm wondering if some old barrels were sitting around and after WWI were reused or reproofed?
Gene, I can get through most of Fabs French. I can usually write most of my own answer to him as well. What Iâm trying to grasp is the discrepancies in the dating. I canât grasp exactly where and why he gets the dates he uses, outside of the changes of proof house markings, and those were infrequent enough to be of limited use to dating the guns. They are also well documented. The knowledge of the start and stop usage of the 6.5 marking would be a huge tool for dating the damn guns, but, we canât nail it down, exactly, which, is something I have chased on these guns for decades. I think we are going to find that the First World War disturbed and interrupted production in ways to confound accurate dating via the proof marks on the gun.
Newer Darne guns have a curved metal area between the two pieces of wood on the gun. This Halifax has a two piece stock, with the wood, front and back, meeting each other, with a thin decorative line cut into the wood where they meet. Guns older than this Halifax have a one piece stock. Fab refers to those one piece stock guns as a type 93, which, is a new one on me.Then, as now, getting a single piece of wood long enough and of high enough quality was more difficult.
Best, Ted
_______________________________________________________________________________ Hindi, Hell, when Lonnie gets out of inner city Detroit nobody can understand his English.
(Hi Fab, could we ask how you came to this conclusion? - "I dated its fabrication to between 1918 and 1923." We are particularly interested in the effect that the war had on proof-marks. Is there a way to differentiate between pre-war and post-war proof marks?)
FAB and I discussed the conundrum about the cm/mm changeover date. We are trying to do this by analysis when surely there is a record of this somewhere in Saint-Etienne. He wrote to the proof-house and never received a reply. I may have to ask in-laws to go up there and do some research.
Gene, Good start. I get prior to 1924, as the marks changed, along with the laws.
Iâve been in the proof house in St. Etienne. It is a busy little hive. The proof master answered a few of my questions, translation provided by Herveâ Bruchet, and explained the place would have been off limits to me, if they had been proofing military guns that day (they werenât). Then he went back to work.
Racks and racks of barrels for Verney Carron semi autos were lined up.
Best, Ted
_______________________________________________________________ Not exactly Prince you are bragging on there, Lugnutt.
Ted, I think the answer will lie someplace else other than the proof house. Let's see who we can tap amongst the historical Stephanois researchers. Let me work on it. It's worth it.
Seeing the âMats, in Mankato, would beat seeing the White Stripes in East Lansing, hands down.
The only puke in either case would be you.
Best, Ted
_____________________________________________________________ You could learn a lot from JR. But, selling that RBL is going to be tough. Word got out, you know?
(Hi Fab, could we ask how you came to this conclusion? - "I dated its fabrication to between 1918 and 1923." We are particularly interested in the effect that the war had on proof-marks. Is there a way to differentiate between pre-war and post-war proof marks?)
FAB and I discussed the conundrum about the cm/mm changeover date. We are trying to do this by analysis when surely there is a record of this somewhere in Saint-Etienne. He wrote to the proof-house and never received a reply. I may have to ask in-laws to go up there and do some research.
Hi Argo, I set this date of 1918 by deduction. No particular brand is able to confirm this. As I said above, the Halifax model appeared in 1914. This rifle was mounted with a one piece stock. During the 1914/1918 conflict, in France, the production of civilian weapons ceased. And it is very likely that at the resumption of the activity 1918 / 1919, this butt was utilized in 2 pieces without steel separator.
The second post from Fab notes the steel divider appeared between 1931 and 1936.
That ends Fabâs input.
I have long looked for hard and fast rules to date the manufacture of French guns, but, each becomes a guess using clues that really only get us close.