doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Lindner Daly Restoration

Just beautiful James. Fitting wrap-up for a great story.

As one of the guys in the pic I can attest to the quality and detail on this Lindner Daly. I am pretty sure I shouldered it about 40 times in the evening while enjoying libations and discussing the days hunt and fine guns. What a great thread. As a car lover and a lover of restorations of beautiful worthy antique guns I really enjoyed reading this and seeing the process. I have also been lucky enough to spend time with Claudio in his shop. James is one of the best guys out there and always willing to share his knowledge. He is 90% to blame for introducing me to this world of double guns and we are all lucky to have someone share this process in such detail with us. Claudio is a true master and a gentleman. Not to mention a great shot. Awesome thread. Cant wait for the next one!

Claudio is a stand up guy and a man of his word. I ran into him the second time at the Rhode Island Vintage Cup (the later one) and he had a gun with wood "to die for". He recognized me and we got to talking and I explained I had ordered a gun from CSMC and Lou was going to choose the wood for me. A picture of the wood on his gun would be very helpful. We all had flip phones at the time so no camera. Two weeks later I received the pics from him via email. I really did not expect him to remember nor bother. I sent the pics to Lou. The gun is gorgeous thanks to Claudio.

What gun did you order from CSMC? Thanks, your friend from MD, Murphy

I ordered a 20g Inverness with 30" barrels and received it in March of 2014. I love it and shoot it well. It was an introductory price plus $800 more for exhibition wood. The picture of the stock from Claudio was from a CSMC $100,000 gun. Lou said the wood cost almost as much as the gun I ordered so forget it. He picked the perfect one for me. I could not be happier with the wood and the gun.

I miss talking with you Murphy. It has been a long time.

I'm back....with more tales of Daly restorations.

I know that I teased you all with the 20 Gauge Lindner-made Daly Diamond last May but that one continues to languish while Claudio and I get our ducks in a row. In the mean time, we have another, somewhat simpler but hopefully similarly interesting Charles Daly Diamond restoration to talk about.

This one will be a little shorter and quicker as there were fewer problems. But I hope it will tide us over until the 20 gauge takes centre stage.

The subject of the current discussion is a Prussian Charles Daly Diamond Quality Model 275 12 gauge circa 1925. Astute followers of Charles Daly guns will immediately recognize this as a non H A Lindner gun. At the moment, we are speculating the gun was made by Robert Schuler but that's not definitive. While I must admit to an automatic bias in favour of Lindner-made guns, this one eventually won me over.

It starts with the size and weight of the gun. As it sits now, almost completed, it is a 6 pound 7 ounce 28" barreled gun choked mod and full. My favorite upland hunting guns, regardless of gauge, have always been between 6 1/4 and 6 3/4 pounds. So this one is in the dead centre of that sweet spot. And while the bulk of the restoration was taking place, Claudio was fitting the gun to his personal measurements. It just happens that my fit is almost identical to Claudio's fit, so when I finally picked up the assembled gun, rather than just one component or another, it fit like a glove. Whatever resistance I had to a non-Lindner gun just melted away.

With a friend like Claudio, I would be stupid not to listen carefully to his assessments of guns that come into our orbit. Last fall, when this one first surfaced, I must admit I was a bit of a skeptic regarding quality of a non Lindner gun. Surely the quality had to have slipped. But every time I was over to Claudio's shop, or was on the phone with him, I'd hear a growing admiration for the build quality of this gun. I think the final assessment came down to that it was every bit the equal to the Lindner guns we have looked at. The areas of exception are the engraving and the barrels. The game scene portions of the engraving are fantastic, as well done as my Lindners. However the other engraving is of a simpler, less time consuming style. But still extremely well done. And it's Claudio's opinion that a key benefit to a post WWI gun is noticeably better steel in the barrels.

The gun is still with Claudio, getting a final adjustment to the ejectors (damn all ejectors!) and I still have to pry the progress photos out of him but they will come. In the mean time, here's a pic to whet your appetite.

wow, an double wow!

thank you...

Beautiful gun, James.
Is there an easy way to tell that it is a Lindner---does he uses initials, or such?

Thanks Bill.

Yes there is a relatively easy way to tell a Lindner gun.

First, they were all made prior to 1914. Lindner had a trade mark.......prior to 1891 it was a pair of crossed pistols with a crown above. When Prussia created a proof house in 1891, they reserved the use of a crown mark for the proof house. So Lindner had to change his mark. Which he did....he kept the crossed pistols but replaced the crown with his own initials......HAL.

This Daly Diamond first crossed paths with Claudio in the fall of 2019. As often happens, Claudio was asked to give the gun a once over and assess condition. The gun was for sale but at a price Claudio thought was a little high. He made an offer, it was rejected and that was that. The gun disappeared back to wherever good project guns go.

Fast forward to the Fall of 2021, Claudio got a call from a friend letting him know the gun had turned up in a gunshop that is local to both of us. In Ontario there aren't a whole lot of gunshops where vintage SxS regularly hang out so it's not surprising word got back to Claudio quickly. There was a big difference this time. The gun was priced appropriately, in Claudio's opinion, and he wasted no time in making a deal for it.