I used to have an itch for hammerguns, and over the years I scratched it by buying a bunch of them. The breechloading hammergun period lasted around twenty years — about 1865 to 1885 — so most of the hammerguns I picked up were real old.

But every now and then I would come across something special like the 12 gauge Francotte hammergun you see here. This hammergun is from the 20th century. Hammerguns were well out of fashion then, so whoever ordered this one wanted something special. Judging by how nice it is, they were willing to spend a lot of money to get just what they wanted.

It’s on Gunbroker.com now and the listing ends Sunday, 5/21/2017, @ 10:00 PM.

Rare Francotte Pre-war “Best Quality” SxS hammer gun: 12 gauge with 30″ Chopper Lump steel barrels & 2 3/4″ chambers. Ribs are tight.Up for auction is a hard to come by Francotte Nitro proof hammer gun. This is a top notch pre-war VL&D import gun with all of the marquee features of a true“Best gun”: Chopper Lump barrels, hidden Greener-type 3’rd fastener, double Purdey under bites, side clips, removable hinge pin, rebounding hammers, matted concave rib, articulated front trigger and nice partial coverage foliate scroll. Was restocked (fore end appears original to gun) way back when to a straight grip with a nice piece of French walnut & modern stock dimensions: 14 ¼” over original horn butt plate, 1 5/8” x 1 7/8” at heel. Excellent, un-touched “Chopper lump” 30 inch Bores @ .727 diameter per side with optimal Vintage “clays” chokes @ R .014. L. .022. Min walls .037. Weighs in right at 7 lbs. even. These are seldom seen, much less with all of these features. Hard to find a classier, well made Hammer gun than this Francotte built during their hey-day.