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While watching an episode of "Midsomer Murders," I saw a shotgun like this for the first time:


Looks expensive.
 
While watching an episode of "Midsomer Murders," I saw a shotgun like this for the first time:


Looks expensive.
Looks awesome.
 
I've just read the reason for the sliding breech design. These shotguns were designed for duck hunting in a boat or canoe. Top break shotguns might get their muzzles dipped in the water when opening the action. With the sliding breech, the barrel doesn't move. Besides Darne, the other maker of these was Charlin. also in France.
 
While watching an episode of "Midsomer Murders," I saw a shotgun like this for the first time:


Looks expensive.
I watch that show on PBS and sometimes online.

Beautiful shotgun!

Cate
 
These shotguns were designed for duck hunting in a boat or canoe. Top break shotguns might get their muzzles dipped in the water when opening the action.
That "Czech my guns" video I posted rebuffs this claim as "just a story" @ 1:40m in. Who knows? I'm not fully discounting it. Just saying..

I just heard the other day that the Titanic was never officially claimed to be unsinkable but that rumor came from a article about one of the sister ships.

Kinda funny how facts and meaning get skewed when relayed from person to person. Who knows which is true (I doubt there's factual evidence st this point) but I try to keep information as accurate and transparent as possible even if I don't (can't) always present it in the clearest manner.
 
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Darne shotguns are about $1500 on the low end and go up as condition and fanciness goes up. Some of them are quite fancy. A nice condition not too fancy one is about $2500-$2700ish.
 
Sounded like you tried a little to avoid the "Darne nice" pun, it was there just ripe for pickin'! ;)
Missed it, good one! Imo this is one of the most elegant and functional designed guns out there. But I've never shot one, I just appreciate the design.

I've followed prices for about 4 years off and on and never found one cheap enough to make it worthwhile for me to buy. All the less expensive ones I've seen are bad rusted bad stock or whatever. I appreciate the design just not worth the cost to me. That's mainly because you can by some amazing quality and craftsmanship double barrel shotguns for 1/3 the price or less. I do like the german three barrel drilling's too for about the same cost as Darne shotguns or maybe slightly less (nice drillings are about $2000).
 
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That "Czech my guns" video I posted rebuffs this claim as "just a story" @ 1:40m in. Who knows? I'm not fully discounting it. Just saying..
It's a theory, hard to know for sure what the sales pitch was all these years later.

Here's another theory:


In this 1971 article, the author states the justification for the design is the strength of the action for loading the shells. Meaning, in an age when paper hulls were the norm, in tropical climates, the paper might become distorted. And therefore, harder to chamber. The mechanical advantage of the sliding breech design overcame this difficulty.

Here's an interesting article dated 2011:


Read the part about barrel alignment in double barrel shotguns.
 

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