I've been looking for a 28 gauge Darne for some time and made a deal on this one on gunbroker after looking at it for months. This is a model R12 as it has two Darne Stamps on the bottom of the barrels. This particular gun sports 27 1/2" barrels choked almost cylinder and modified. The gun came with the original factory butt plate but has a leather covered pad installed that brings the LOP out to 15". The gun weights in at 5lbs 15oz. I'm guessing the gun came out of the factory originally with 65mm chambers and then was lengthened out to 70mm chambers as indicated by the stamps on the barrels. The gun was imported by Firearms Center Inc, Victoria, TX which I think would date at least the import of this gun to the 70's. I would guess the gun was manufactured earlier with the shorter chambers, but may be short 28's were still more common in Europe at that time. I have included some pictures for your viewing interest.


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Do you use the wrench on the gun? Just kidding.

James Wayne brought in a group of those guns, graded, case hardened 28s. You do have to watch the chamber lengths, 2 1/2” was the common 28 gauge length on the continent, long after 2 3/4” was standard on everything else. R12 seems to be the common number, it was likely a cleanup of parts shorty before the end of the road. The company suffered an embezzlement toward the end of the 1970s, and closed the doors for a few years.

I walked into a local gun shop on my lunch break at work, and they had a leather cased pair of those guns, 29” tubes, 28 gauge, for stupid cheap $2500. I told the guy I didn’t have the money on me, but, would be back in an hour or so.

When I got back, they were gone. Those guns haunt me, to this day.

Good hunting, in the coming new year.

Best,
Ted

Question for you Ted. There is a small crack behind the frame where they typically crack. If I want to remove the butt stock to work on this it appears to me I need to take the forearm piece of wood off first, knock out the pin on the main spring and remove that so I can then get at the screws to remove the trigger guard and go from there. Is this correct?

Happy New Year
Matt

Yup. Should be two screws on the front wood, with two pins at the back, that locate it on the metal frame. A couple light taps with a mallet, from the bottom, might be necessary to loosen it up.

PM me if you get stuck. But, I doubt you will.

Best,
Ted

Do all Darnes have short barrels and were any ever made in a trap/pigeon configuration? That missed pair of 28s with 29” barrels would haunt me too.

They could be produced how ever you wanted them.

What most of the critics do, is examine a single sample, often retrieved after one of the wars, often a very low grade gun, perhaps even a copy of a Darne, and then proceed to make blanket statements about guns that were in production during parts of three centuries. A lot of the sub gauges produced for James Wayne and Stoeger were built with 25” tubes, because that is what most of the writers were telling people that is what they wanted. They didn’t, (but, they didn’t know that, either) and, as a rule bought what was on the shelf at either importer.

The guys at the bench in France loved the guns with longer, and heavy wall barrels. I was offered a turn of the century custom R grade, a 12 with a wide, flat, file cut rib, and 30” tubes, but, it was the end of the trip there, and I was out of money.

Best,
Ted

Ted, I have Darne's with and without Obturator discs, do they really make a difference in recoil, or is there another purpose for them besides charging more money?

I think the ”reduced recoil” bit was advertising hooey, and told people that the entire time I imported them. The discs were originally a high grade gun feature, but, after the design of the R model Darne became simpler and more modular, the discs could be fitted to anything, grade wise. Mr. Customer just had to tell them he wanted it, and pay for it, and his new R10 would have a set of obturator discs put right where the flat plate would otherwise be. I’ve seen a couple. But, few people ever did that. V guns typically have the discs, but, I suppose if someone didn’t want them, they could be done away with. I’ve just never seen that example. I believe you can see one of the screws that retain the face plate in the OPs photo of the inverted breech block of his R12.

The older R models had a plate that was dovetailed into the face, and retained with a single screw in the face. The newer R models have two screws from the bottom retaining it, with no dovetail. The older way is better, because if a guy snaps the triggers with the barrels off the gun on the new version, he will often bend the screws as the springs that drive the strikers are quite stout. That won’t happen, ever, with the dovetailed plate guns.

The hot tip is not to dry fire your newer Darne without the barrels in place on the gun. Other than being a nice piece of machine work, I see no good reason for discs on a Darne, and I use both types, with no noticeable difference in performance that I can detect.

But, nice machine work is a plus, anyway.

Best,
Ted

I wondered what happened to this gun. I had it in my watch list a long time.