Very light 16 very nice wood. In good shape very light firing rings around the pins..

Maker Picard Fayolle?

Anyone familiar?

Try posting this question on Doublegunshop.com or the Notssmbbs.com discussion boards. There are several French shotgun experts on those two boards.

Apparently they don't like Gmail addresses over there so I can't join

I'm going to assume the chokes have been opened and the chambers lengthened, as I can't imagine it came cyl/imp-cyl and 2-3/4 from the factory.

Damn thing locks up like a bank vault with no play what so ever

I used to be a member of a site for Darne shotguns and they had sections for other French guns. I did a quick search, but I'm not seeing right now. Did you try shotgun world?

Here is a article I found on the gun maker.

http://www.translatetheweb.com/?ref=SERP&br=ro&mkt=en-US&dl=en&lp=FR_EN&a=http%3a%2f%2ftoepoint.com%2ffusil-picard-fayolle%2f

The shotgun mentioned could be one marked by him and made by someone else as Browning had shotguns made by Mirikou but marked Browning. It was quite a common practice in Europe. I have very old French 16 sxs that came off of a French Ocean liner it was nickel or chrome plated to protect it from salt spray, it has no makers name at all.

Clues to after market changes, are the barrels still in metric length, on the barrel flats do you see a 16-65 or just a 65 anywhere then it was originally a 2 1/2" chamber, a 2 /34 will have a 16-70 or just 70 on the flats. If there is no chamber designation on it, it was a 2 1/2" as it was built before it was needed.

If you can get pictures of the action and barrel flats it would be worthwhile to get on Doublegun even if you have to do it from someone elses computer at least you could monitor the responses on yours. They shape of the action, lever and location of the pins could pin down the maker if it was just retailed by Fayolle or more info on Fayolle might be forthcoming.

The sight mentioned above was the Geoffrey Gounet site and has shut down, I was a member there. I have a few French sxs's, Manufrance and Darne to shoot but I'm not a collector.

O passed on it . Just too many unknowns.

It could have been a Belgian gun. There were Many small firms making double guns in Belgium. Most were good shotguns, and some were superior.

French guns I've seen were all well made and trim.

I stumbled upon a well used but still rock solid Manufrance 16ga Robust No. 4 for a giveaway price years ago and have dispatched many grouse and quail with it. It was Ms. Scarlet's favorite gun.








Molly-B died far too young. She was just getting used to it.




Cookie and Rocky guard it between seasons.

Here's a last year production MF Robust 12ga, it was found with the bottom half of the stock broken off so I replaced it with the bottom half of a old rifle stock I had laying around. I didn't feel like inletting the retractable sling into the stock so sold it for more than I paid for the whole shotgun.



Nice little Robust L2S, I'll swap you Robusts

LOL...erich,

Mine's a 20-footer. At 20 feet it looks great. Up close it looks like I used it to club everything I killed with it.

You did a good job on that 12ga.

I pass on anything and everything French except Brittany's!

Too bad. They make very nice doubles.

Yes they do! Many of them will rival high end British guns. My Darne is a 12ga all steel and walnut and weighs in at 5 lb 15 oz and the action is strong enough that they built large bore double rifles on the same action. The Manufrance Ideal is beautiful and high end Robusts very nice and there are guns from smaller makers that would make your mouth drool.