doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com NEED HELP - proof marks on a French 16x16 Cape Gun

Shot gun as a spreader, IIRC.

I should have looked here first
https://doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=407364&page=all

Courtesy of SGL
Ideal barrels are dovetailed and cross pinned, the genuine Demibloc system as invented by Henri Pieper.

Robust Barrels are monobloc, with the barrels inserted and fretted into the monobloc (cannons en frette) ie held by friction as well as solder.

ROBUST_IDEAL is a kind of hybrid between the Robust and the Ideal, having monobloc barrels, but not the "T" top extension. The top extension is from the Robust, flat with a flat bite.

The stepped monobloc was abandoned in later production in the Robust in favor of faired barrels.

The Ideal in the late catalogs, just before 1982, is shown in two models, the Deluxe and Prestige with monobloc barrels, though I have never seen one yet. Even though I have seen and handled hundreds of them I have yet to see two identical Ideals or any with monobloc barrels. The custom capacity of the workshop must have been staggering.

That isn’t a Cape gun. It is a Becassier, or Woodcock special. Raye barrels are not intended for slugs.
Cape guns are pretty rare finds anyway, but, most are 12s.

Best,
Ted

If it had been intended to be a "cape gun" it would have had a rear sight; but it does not.
Mike

buckstix:
there are two quite different types of rifling seen on manufrance guns...the previously mentioned RAYE which is similar to the english type of rifled bore (paradox, etc.)....it is a section of rifling that is smaller than the bore diameter ("choked"), and about three inches in length from the muzzle...it was intended to swirl the shot as it leaves the muzzle, to provide a wider pattern than a cylinder bore.

the other is what you have purchased, which MF called SUPRA (hence the S in the model designation)...it is an unchoked bore with shallow rifling that is the full length of the barrel...it was built to allow both shot and solid projectiles to be used...my example (12 gauge) has about .716 diameter lands and about .727 grooves, and rotates about 1/2 to 5/8 twist in the length of the barrel...it's not easy to exactly measure these barrels.

here's a link to a thread with some useful references;

https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=492115&page=6

i suspect the gun you have bought may be the one i mentioned in this thread...these little french guns are neat and not easy to research...this site is head & shoulders the best place i know of to learn about them.

best regards,
tom

Couple of comments:

1) Canvasback must be right that the arrows through targets are a Manufrance thing. Here is another Manufrance robust with the arrows. I'm going to assume that somehow Manufrance was permitted to proof its own guns and those are the proof marks - double proofed (rather than having the traditional Saint Etienne crossed fronds with a crown). I've seen this speculated before.
https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=544373


And when you look at the crossed canon and arrow logo of Manufrance, it seems pretty clear that the above arrow proof mark comes right out of the MF logo.



This conclusion is reinforced by the crossed fronds on the OP gun...without the crown.


I think we can safely conclude that in the 1920's Manufrance proofed their own guns and thus the arrow through target logo. Since they were manufacturing 500 guns a week - or even more - it would make sense....until proven otherwise. (Conclusion is another first for this site).

2). Here is an English site with an identical 16 gauge gun to the OP. And he's firing slugs out of it.
https://www.thestalkingdirectory.co.uk/threads/16-bore-french-cape-gun.15636/

Hello Ted Schefelbein & Der Ami,

Thanks for the replys


Hello graybeardtmm3,
Thanks for the reply.

I see there are two different opinions above about this being a "Cape Gun". The Analytical Engineer in me brings me to this conclusion; I agree with you, I think the rifled barrel would do well with both Shot & Ball. Both Paradox Guns, and Shot & Ball Guns, typically have identical side-by-side barrels. So perhaps this gun would be best described as a "Combination Gun", or a true "Ball & Shot Gun". It would be interesting to locate an original 1930s advertisement for this Combination Gun to see how it was described to the Sporting World. But I don't think I'm off base calling it a Cape Gun.

I did a cast of 1 inch of the muzzle, and it measured .662 groove, and .652 bore, with 6 lands and grooves. Lands measure .140" wide, and grooves measure .200" wide. Rotation of the rifling appears to be slight over 1/2 rotation over the 27-1/2" length of the barrel. Seems it would be perfect for a patched ball of .662 dia.

I would guess that the lack of a rear sight would indicate the right barrel, when loaded with a ball, would be used at fairly close range. I will be testing to find out, and post the results here.

Might as well repost this. Last February Gil asked me to take a look at this article on "Raye" barrels - see last paragraph.



Here was my response:

Gil, about the best I can do for the moment. I thought I had all the French gun terms down...fat chance. I could not get the impression that a barrel insert could be put into a smooth bore from this article. My impression is the two pages dealt with:
1) traditional Greener type choke boring
2) artificial choke boring by casting a rifled ring at the muzzle of the gun
3) rifling the length of the choke which seemed to increase the range of the shot but gave problems with fouling using black powder.
4) rifling the full length of a bore, meant for shooting shot and ball
5) rifling about 8 cm of the part of an unchoked bore directly in front of the chamber which allowed a ball to rotate but allowed normal "spreader" use of 4-9 shot.

Wildcattle probably could give a better translation but I think this is the gist:

That will be the chokes. These came directly from a English discovery which consisted of modifying the profile of the end of the bore of the barrel. These were a form of constricting the diameter of the bore achieved artificially by laying a (small) tube of rifled steel in the interior of the barrel (at the muzzle) naturally leaving a supression at the moment of the casting of the barrel

In the case of l�IDEAL, is was thus developed barrels naturally choke-bored and those artifically choke-bored. It is quite easy to detect with the eye which type of choke an IDEAL is equiped with in the first models. In effect the black powder, by its corrosiveness, left a tiny circular streak in the bore of the barrel at the point of the junction with the monobloc.

There exists yet another combination of choke systems which consists of putting fine stripes on the tapering of the choke on the rounded edges. This gives to the interior of the mouth of the barrel the aspect in miniature of a crinkled tapered tube. This process, also of English origin, is called rifling. It gives surprising results in the the long range of the pellets.

Nevertheless, it is very rare to find an IDEAL so equipped because on one part the fabrication was complicated and thus onerous and, on the other part, the fouling by black powder posed a problem. This led them rapidly to abandon the concept. To my knowledge no long gun of this type has been made by the Manufacturer since the beginning of the century. But, before closing this paragraph, it�s worth noting that certain barrels, meant for firing ball, were rifled from the exit of the chamber, along the entire length of the barrel. What happiness for a collecter to come upon such a rarity.

The choke initially seen on the barrel of the IDEAL corresponded to a constriction equivalent to that of one caliber. As it is evident that shooting during a hunt doesn�t take place at a constant distance, it was necessary to adapt the chokes according to the ground and thus also was born the half-choke (constriction by a half caliber)

Before the great war, the IDEAL generally carried an open smoothbore barrel on the right and a choke-bored one on the left for barrels 74 cm in length. Bores with half choke on right and full choke on the left on barrels from 65-70 cm. Except for special orders of course. For pigeon shooting models, full choke on both sides was the norm.

Thereafter, that excelent compromise, half-choke on the right and full-choke on the left were kept on all the classic series IDEALs. (see the tables on page 34).

There is another particularity which we are going to find on the barrels of the IDEAL. The (shallow) rifling. For the dispersion of shot when firing at a short distance and for the shooting of ball, a number of IDEAL came, on special order, with the right barrel (unchoked) rifled �SUPRA� beginning in the 1920�s. Previously, on certain models such as the COLONIAL IDEAL, only one length of some 8 cm was striated (rifled) at the beginning of the barrel. This assured the rotation of the ball without perturbing in the slightest the smaller shot. The compromise was a good one and it made its mark abroad to the point that certain of the classic series can be seen with the right barrel provided with such rifling. Such a rarity.

Hello Agro44,
Thanks for the reply.

I guess that settles it. The shallow rifling was intended for shooting Ball, ... AND ... for the dispersion of shot at close distances.

So ... a Cape Gun ... or Combination Gun ? ? ?

Thank you for this information.

In theory, yes. In practice, well, you will soon see.

Europeans often suffer restrictions on what kind and how many guns they can own, along with similar restrictions on ammunition forms. Other opinions differ, but, combination guns, to me, always seem to be the worst kind of compromise. Firing a 16 gauge slug out of that gun wouldn�t be a pleasant experience, and the straight stock, light weight, and single bead sight aren�t going to help matters, with regard to accuracy.

I�d be very interested in seeing your results, on paper, with your gun. Unstabilized
round balls have never impressed me as far as accuracy was concerned (they do, in normal shotgun bore sizing, hit like a ton of bricks, however) but, I�d be willing to bet that the non rifled barrel actually is more accurate with rifled slugs, then the rifled barrel is with pumpkin ball slugs. Ditto the results with bird shot in the rifled barrel. It would be pleasant, in this case, to be proven wrong.

Love to see those results as well.

Let us know.

Best,
Ted