doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Damon-St. Étienne

I’ve mentioned this to Dustin already, when I was in St. Etienne, every gunmaker I met had nothing but praise for the Petrik O/U. Every, single one of them. At that moment in my life I was trying to gather every scrap of information I could about Darne guns and history, and the Petrik wasn’t something I was terribly interested in. Toward the end of the road for Establishment Darne, under Bruchet ownership, they were producing the Petrik O/U, alongside their own O/Us, which, were about like French Winchester 101s with double triggers, from what I could see.
At the end of the road, the catalog had a single, very stout looking O/U that I did not recognize. I doubt it was built in house.

Then, they were gone.

The Petrik guns I handled in Europe were hunting implements, typically older guns with short tubes. They handled better than the Remington model 32s I had seen, that all seemed to be robust, target guns. The Tikka is the same idea, but, seem crude by comparison. At least the ones I’ve seen.
About two weeks before Dustin pulled the trigger, so to speak, on adding a Petrik O/U to his safe, I bought an O/U as well.
Weird.
I’m sure Dustin will make his work very well, me, I’m just trying things to see what works.

Best,
Ted

Years ago Mark Larson sold a Petrik 16ga. o/u. It was listed on this site. It was a tempting gun at sub 6 lbs. Gil

Argo: Nice French lesson . . . but a minor point (at least to speakers of English): the subjunctive is a mode rather than a tense, although it can appear in tenses other than the present. (May God save us from the pluperfect subjunctive!) "Manquer" is also tricky, as you point out. Sometimes it works better to think of it as "to lack" rather than to miss, because the subject and the direct object (for an English speaker) are reversed. Tu me manque is an excellent example.

There are several top quality Damon-Petrik "Le Super Francais" for sale on Naiurabuy - how to get them to the USA is problematic:
https://www.naturabuy.fr/Occasion-F...is-Calibre-12-70-71cm-item-11409898.html
https://www.naturabuy.fr/Magnifique-Fusil-Le-Super-Francais-12-70-item-10887658.html
https://www.naturabuy.fr/Damon-Petrick-item-11347860.html

On the bottom barrel of my 20 bore Petrik, there is a stamp, anyone seen this before??

"Super P???ton" - top arc
Suspect this is a barrel model: Possibly with a barrel made by Jean Breuil.
https://www.poussecornet.com/en/lot/107777/13080813-handmade-saintetienne-rifle-mo
Handmade SAINT-ETIENNE rifle model SUPER JAY. Caliber 16/75. Superimposed barrels of 72,5 cm by Jean BREUIL. . .

"Pierre" - across the middle:
Likely this is a short form of the French word "le pierrage" which refers to the finish of the inside of the barrels using abrasive stones (pierres abrasives). (comment: the first name Pierre (Peter) in French does not use an accent grave over the first "e" because of the double "r." There is a noun "pièrre" meaning "stone/rock" - same origin as the name - which some sites use accent grave in spite of the double "r," which appears to be an error. However, the "pierrè" on this gun appears to have an accent grave over the last "è" which would be pronounced "Pi-er-rrer" which doesn't make much sense).

"P.Terrier" - on the lower arc:
Paul Terrier, barrel finisher associated with Jean Breuil and Damon. It looks like per below that Terrier may have worked out of the Damon shop on rue de Francs-Maçon.
https://www.naturabuy.fr/FUSIL-A-PL...ETIENNE-CALIBRE-12-70-item-10002412.html

Here is a post that might help:
https://www.doublegunshop.com/forum...rd=1&Number=626516&what=showflat

The name Pierre Dechelle has appeared here before:
https://doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=497422&page=5

Here is what I wrote at that time:

Pierre Dechelle. There are several guns with barrels with his name from the late 40's-60's on www.naturabuy.fr. Can't find a lot of history. There is some backing and forthing on Passionlachasse.com with mention of his name. Here is a little clip from an article I can't get total access to:

Rough translation: in the 40's the Barrel maker Jean Breuil (see connection to Damon) took on the services of a well known barrel maker Francois Pierre Deschelles, who had begun with the Manufacture National d'Armes. In 1946 Deschelles took over the barrel maker at rue des Francs-Maçon in Saint Etienne. (Comment: only gun maker in 1951 on rue des Francs-Maçon that I can find was Damon: Damon, 7 rue des Francs-Maçon) ; With his partner Paul Terrier he developed the honing of barrels in 1951 and adopted the stamp Pierre Dechelle and not Deschelle, which creates confusion.

Paul Terrier apparently in the 1970's opened a gun repair shop in Saint Etienne (same shop referred to on passionlachass.fr..).
www.canonnerie-stephanoise.fr/

Here is a Fanget barrel with "Pierrage Dechelle".
https://www.chassepassion.net/forums-chasse/topic/information-sur-un-fusil-de-famille/
According to Passion La chaise poster, "Le pierrage" was the internal finishing of the barrel. The fact that the name of the finisher was placed on the gun was an indication of the quality of the work. (edit: word turned out to already be in our Fr-Eng, Eng-Fr dictionary).

Gene, to my eyes, looking at the stamp under magnification, it appears that the word jumble on the top of the stamp is “Super Finnton”
I dunno if that is exactly what it says, but that’s what it looks like to my eyes. It’s very hard to read.

Thanks for the other info you posted. Great stuff.

Dustin

I really think that "pierrè" (accent grave) is a mistake for "pierré" (accent aigu) which means finished:



The obscured word on the top arc probably is "super finition" = super finishing

Awesome. Thanks, Gene.

Dustin

I definitely agree with Ted's comments above. While the Remington 32s and their Kreighoff successors were/are basically made with target shooters in mind, the Petriks I've handled are lighter guns obviously made for hunting. I bought a nice sideplated 16ga from New England Arms back when Jim Austin was still in business and Jack Dudley was working for him. My last few attempts trying to shoot OUs that seem to fit me having been failures, it appears that my brain is now firmly locked into sxs mode only.