Who can rifle a 32 ga. shotgun barrel?

[Blackwater]

I have an old 32 ga. shotgun that is such a delight to handle and shoot that I bought it. Problem is, the left barrel is wide open cylinder, and a quail could fly through the pattern at only 15 yds. due to the light 1/2 oz. shot charge. The right barrel is a bird killer out to maybe 25 or so. The 32 ga. is essentially just barely over a .50 caliber, with bore measuring @ .510". Its performance was disappointing, but it's such a lively gun, and fits me so well, I just want to shoot it SOMEHOW. I've thought about getting some of Mag Tech's brass hulls and having the barrel rifled, and making it into a black powder (or smokeless) double rifle for deer. I have a friend who got an old Stevens 311 12 ga, and being a hog hunter, wanted to shoot slugs. He tried it and it cross-fired. He was disappointed because that slim receiver let him literally run through the palmettos and other swamp brush with the gun in his hand at the balance point. This was no small thing to him. As he sat there in his disappointment after his tests. He noted how the barrels converged toward the muzzle. "Hmmm," he thought to himself. "I wonder." Willing to sacrifice the gun for the experiment, he went home and sawed off 2" of barrel. He wasn't concerned about losing the choke because he wasn't loading shot, but slugs, and it was those "I've just got to see what happens" things. He leveled off the muzzles by eye (he's got a good eye for such), and took it back and shot it again. Sure enough, the POI was significantly closer together at 50 yds. - about the maximum range he usually encounters his hogs at. "O.K." he thought, If 2" moved them THIS much closer together X" ought to bring them in line. Being cautious, because he'd never done anything like this before, he trimmed another inch off the barrels and tried it again. Closer still, but no brass ring. So, he took it back and cut another inch off. Yep. Closer still. He wound up with 22.5" barrels, and it's accurate enough to keep most shots on a coke can at nearly 75 yds. - much better than he'd ever hoped. This was with regular Foster type factory loads, and IIRC, they were Rem. brand. He then mounted a rear sight to the rib solidly by hook and crook (I forget just how he did this part, but it's not a simple parts replacement), and a globe front with big white bead, and he's now a holy terror to the hogs in the Savannah River swamp. He absolutely adores this gun, and he's killed a lot of hogeaux with it.

I'd like to do something similar, or at least try, with this little 32 ga. I figure a .50 cal. round ball would be just dandy because it weighs just about the same as most shot charges for this gun, and the Lee 50 cal. R.E.A.L. bullet (the lighter version) is another likely candidate for a projectile. The difference in wt. would likely require different loads to get them to shoot together at any distance, but that's no biggie. My only real hangup is that I can't find anyone who can rifle the barrels, or is willing to give it a whirl.

Do any of you know anyone who could do this for me? Having a .50 cal. black powder double rifle to hunt deer with holds real appeal and potential, IF I can get the barrels rifled at reasonable cost. I'm thinking something like a 1:32" twist, or maybe a 1:48 would be likely to stabilize the round ball and the short Lee slug. If you can help, or point me in the right direction, I'd really appreciate it. BTW, it's a hammer gun, too, so should fit right in with the black powder ethic as well.

[Kilroy08]

How about a rifled .50 caliber barrel liner? You would have to have the barrel bored out to fit it, but it would be less fiddly than having to rifle it. I'm sure a smith who can do a good re line job will be easier to locate than one who could cut rifling. Plus, less time involved means less shop rate to have to pay.

[Blackwater]

Hmmmm. Your suggestion is one that I've never thought about. Thanks! Those shotgun barrels are pretty thin, though, and I'd have to get a "can do" from someone who's done something at least similar to have faith in it. Have you ever heard of this being done? And can liners be had that are THAT thin???? Very interesting proposition. I need to do some thinking on that one. Thanks again. This is treading in pretty uncharted territory for me, so I'm taking it painfully slowly. It's far from a common thing to want to do, of course, so that makes it a specialists' job, or for a tinkerer like myself. I've even considered making a rifling fixture like the old Ky. rifle 'smiths used to do, but I'm not sure enough that I could pull it off well enough to do it.

These odd jobs sure do present a lot of difficulties, but this one just won't go away from my mind and consciousness. It's not my first tango with such arcane matters, but if nothing else, it helps me appreciate the simpler things for sure! Sometimes I wish the temptation would just go away, but it won't.

Thanks again for the intelligent suggestion.

[Mk42gunner]

Is the breech end of the barrels large enough that you could use it as a mono block to screw two new rifled barrels into?

Might end up costing more money; but less body parts...

Robert

[Blackwater]

Another good question, but the sad thing is, I don't know how large it needs to be, so ..... I'm guessing it'd be marginal at best. This gun is scaled down the the little 32 ga's size, so it's pretty small. I'd have to let a real pro look at it and tell me if it'd be feasible. To tell the truth, putting new barrels or liners in would complicate an already complicated situation, or at least it seems that way to me. Don't want to get into re-regulating the barrels, and that would likely have to be done with the monoblock, wouldn't it? This thing wouldn't have to be regulated quite as precisely as a fine English doulbegun, but it can't be terribly UN-regulated either. As I said, it's kind'a a crapshoot with these type projects, and not all of them work out quite as planned or originally envisioned. You guys alone have thought of things I never had, or at least never seriously considered. I appreciate that. Don't want to put TOO much $$$ in the gun, but if I could find someone who'd rifle the barrels, or a reasonable way to achieve same, I think it would make a delightful little gun to play with. It's quick, fits me perfectly, and comes up dead on every time. Not a lot of guns do that. Thus the reason I fell in love with it. Kinda' like taking in an abandoned puppy, really.

Thanks for all the suggestions. This ain't your every day kind of project, and any ideas are cheerfully entertained.

[Chev. William]

A Barrel liner is a Good Idea. Another thought is to Thread the Breech end of the barrel liner and then Bore/trim the Shotgun barrel so you can thread the liner end into the remainder, using the 'unsupported' liner as the outer end of the Barrel(s), possibly making a center rib to hold them in alignment. This would give you two 'thin wall' barrels that should be OK for black powder slug loads.

Think about it and consult a Good Gunsmith for the practicality of it.

Also, "T&J's" (859)635-5560 lists a .50 Cal liner bore=.500"/Groove=.510"/Twist=1:20/6 lands/O.D.=11/16"(.6875"). A Special Extra Fine Thread should be used to allow for wall to chamber the liner after installation.

Best Regards,
Chev. William

[nagantguy]

Keep me posted on this project, it sounds like a great no me. Wish you the best. I also have a cut down 311 12 sxs that is a great walking around all purpose hog deer bird anything else gun.

[oldfart1956]

Blackwater this is more a question than a suggestion but here goes. Have you tried loading and shooting the gun with conicals/balls as is yet? The reason I ask is none of my hunting flintlocks have rifling. I've never found the need for it at the yardages I hunt at. I limit my range (deer) to 50yds. with 2 of the guns and 75yds. with one of them. No rifling and no rear sights on any of them. Another plus is I can use the smoothbore in any of the "shotgun only" areas here in Pa. which would be illiggle if any vestige of rifling was present. Of course I can (and do) use them with fine shot for small game. Before you make any permanent changes set up a paper plate and shoot it off a bench. When you can't hit the paper plate...that's your max yardage. A temporary rear sight might be an asset. Where it hits isn't important at this time, only that it groups consistently. Audie...the Oldfart..

[John Taylor]

I had an old Knickerbocker 12 gauge shotgun that had the barrels cut at 20". It would shoot .715" round ball good enough to hit pop cans at 50 yards. The problem with making a shotgun into a rifle is the pressure for most rifle cartridges. The shotguns are usually loaded to around 12,000 psi and a lot of cartridges are much higher. In most cases a 45-70 can be put on a 12 gauge action because the breach thrust is very close but if you put a 45-70 on a 410 action it might come apart. Your 32 gauge most likely will have a breach thrust around 2,550. A 38-55 is closer to 3,750 so it would probably be a bit much for your little shotgun but a 44-40 should work fine. The only 50 caliber cartridge that would even come close would be the 50 designed for the rolling block pistol. The 44-40 liner can be bought with a 9/16" OD. 50 caliber liners are 11/16". It is best to bore the barrel out to the liner diameter because turning the liner down may cause the bore to be uneven.

[Blackwater]

Audie, now THAT is a thought I hadn't given much time to, and it just MIGHT save me a whole lot of tinkering, finagaling and frustration, too. Thanks, and I'll give 'er a try as is.

And John, I'll be using regular 32 ga. plastic cases and/or the Mag Tech brass shotshells with loads from the shotgun manuals. That ought to be aplenty for deer at the ranges I anticipate. It's normally loaded with 1/2 oz. of shot at about 1200 or so fps., which is not too far from .44 mag. pistol stats, and will certainly kill any deer we have here IF I can just place the slug right. 1/2 oz is @ 220 gr., and there are loads listed up to 5/8 oz., or 274 gr., so there shouldn't be any problem there. Don't want to convert it to another caliber. Those 32 ga./.50 cal. brass cases hold a lot more black powder than I'd ever need or want to try in that diminutive little gun, but filler wads are available and easily used.

Audie, I'm wondering now what a .50 cal. round ball would do. I could probably get up to 1400 or so fps. with it, which would be plenty, with smokeless and plastic cases, and certain plastic wads.

This is just one of those projects where the options are too numerous to get a really good bead on just what I want to do with it. I've also thought about loading some #4 buck for the right (choked) barrel and a round ball or other slug in the left (cylinder) barrel. It'd surely be enough for 25-30 yd. deer, which is what I anticipate to be most likely. It's nice when you have a deer that close to be able to ease the hammer back, and pull the trigger so there's no "click" as you draw it to full cock, and then let the trigger down softly, and without even a hint of noise. Most modern hunters don't realize how good those old hammer guns really can be. And it's really appealing to do the same old thing (hunting) a little different way, or with a different type tool.

I've had this gun for years now, and have shot it little, but if I could get it percolating, it'd be a really sweet treat to shoot - kind'a like the cherry on top of an old fashioned ice cream soda.

Thanks, guys. Good suggestions all. Now if I can just make up my dang mind!

[lefty o]

i dont think what you want to do is feasable. however, you may want to contact briley, and see if they can put a set of chokes in what you have. then it could at least be used as intended.

[nekshot]

been watching this thread with interest as I also do some rearranging of the original intend of firearms. My first thought was don't do any thing till you have exhausted all possibilities with original gun. First I would try slugs, roundballs, paper patching, grease in grooves, and then I bet this would work. Harvester 50 cal sabots for the 44 diam boolits. They might tumble but at that distance who cares if they give 5 inch groubs. A hacksaw would be far down the road with a sweet little gun like that because the reciever was never meant to handle those higher pressures, of course I pondered gluing a thin stainless plate on one reciever making a new firing pin and taking some metal off back of barrels so it closes and locks up but that was a feeling like exercising- if you sit down it eventually goes away!

[Blackwater]

Quoting neckshot: "... but that was a feeling like exercising- if you sit down it eventually goes away!" Yeah, I know what you mean. I wish this one WOULD go away, but it's been way over 5 years now, and it just won't. It's tough being a gun nut sometimes, ain't it?

And Lefty, you have a point, and I've considered the possibility. I live near Charlie Boswell's Comp-N-Choke facility, and may well take it over there and see what he says. Rifled tubes would probably give conicals enough spin to stabilize them, and there's always a chance with these things that they'll work out better than planned - certainly not a probability, of course, but having done some odd things in the past, you just never know and "the proof's always in the pudding."

Having thought about this, and this neat little gun, I've concluded that I really don't want to try the monoblock/barrel liner things. Just above my pay grade and expertise to have confidence in the end result, given my hands and limitations. I've about concluded that the screw in chokes would give me the bestest for the mostest at something closer to reasonable cost. I could still shoot birdshot for leisurely days on a dove field (limits are small and it'd make for more interesting shooting), and then switch to rifled tubes and go deer or hog hunting. It'd be a tossup how those rifled tubes would fit and how that would affect POI on any given day, but I guess you can't have everything all the time, and it has the broadest appeal, I think - at least for now. I've vascilated over these matters for years now, and still haven't pulled the trigger on it, but that little gun has stolen my heart like an abandoned puppy that looks up at you with big, brown, loving, desperate eyes, and you take it home knowing you shouldn't. Like I said, it's tough being a gun nut sometimes, but ..... it's never boring, at least, and I can stand most anything but being bored.

[John Taylor]

You might try it as a smooth bore with .50" round ball. At the range you are talking about you don't need rifling and the velocity would be as high or higher than a muzzle loader of the same caliber. Plenty of power for deer.

[Outpost75]

FWIW here is a 25-yard group firing .44-40 Game Getter roundball loads from a cylinder bore .410 shotgun at 25 yards, just aiming with the bead sight. I would have to adjust sight picture so as not to see ANY barrel to hit the bull, but accuracy is good enough.Attachment 121140
The .410 Ball Mk.1 cartridge used by police in India and Pakistan gives similar results, and higher velocities around 1700 fps, if you can find any surplus.

A similar load could be assembled in .50 cal. using a .495" round ball, suitable wad column and about 14 grains of Unique, an estimate based on experience using a .600 ball in the .577 Snider carbine in 24-ga. Magtech cases cut to 2 inches, with fiber wad column and 18 grains of Unique for 1600 fps.

Attachment 121141

[W.R.Buchanan]

First: Exactly what make and model is this gun? Pics would be nice,,,,I got from the above posts that it is a 32 ga SXS with hammers. When was it made? 32 ga. shotguns are not that common. 36 ga is. (.410) I have Federal Factory Slugs that are 125 gr and leave at 1775fps! That is in excess of .357 mag Ballistics! and makes my M6 Scout a really viable Survival Gun.

My recommendation is NOT altering the gun in any way that is not reversible. I'm just that way.

Second; a .50 cal round ball weighs @175 gr. Making loads using Brass hulls that ran these balls at 1200 fps would do what you want with no alteration to the gun as long as the balls would slip thru the chokes. If the chokes are smaller then doing smaller round balls would be the answer. Ball moulds down to about .485 are readily available.

I would talk to the guys at Ballistic Products about this. I just bet that they could fix you up with everything you need to make this happen with a minimum of fuss and muss.

Randy

[Blackwater]

Randy, I think you're right. I really want to keep this little gun as intact as possible. It's made by Dumoulin, and seems to be a "trade gun" because the engraving is a bit crude, and the overall appearance is that of a simple working gun for the European market. I have absolutely no history of the gun, but the barrels appear to be made of at least decent quality steel. The bluing is good, and 95% plus still there. The wood is light colored and not figured. The checkering is a bit coarse and has some runovers, and has flat tops like many continental guns. It's just a simple, working man's gun, and that's all I can tell you about it. It's very light, being scaled down to the little 32 ga. size, and near floats in your hands like a puff of smoke, comes up very quickly and points like a dream. Barrels are some 27.5" long and appear longer because of the small diameter. It's missing the left side hammer, though I've got a makeshift on there that functions and fires, but is a loose fit, and I haven't even replaced that yet. May send it to Dixie Gun Works to get another soon. Like I said, this little gun is like a lost puppy you take in just because you can't resist it, and it's been a frustration trying to decide what to do with it. The double rifle for BP idea seems to be the best of all possible conversions for it. It could be very useful in BP season, or for that matter any time I'm in close cover, and that's where the big ones often lurk. Like anyone who's read the tales of the old white hunters in Africa back before WWII, I've always secretly wanted a double rifle, and this might be a way to realize that dream, even if I couldn't actually hunt elephant with it. Deer are OK by me, though, and I can't get that particular conversion and application out of my mind. It's as if the little tyke is speaking to me. I just don't know how to achieve that end.

I can't help but wonder if there's an old maker of KY/PA rifles that could handle the job for an affordable price? If anyone knows someone who might do this, please let me know. This idea just will NOT go away, and knowing what my friend did with his Savage 12 ga., it's very appealing, and possibly the best of all possible applications, IF I coud just find a way to get the barrels rifled. I have Dillin's book from the NRA Classics Library, and it shows some rifling "machines" made of wood that they used long ago, and I've even thought about trying to make one and rifle it myself, but health problems and recent back surgery with lingering related issues make that a bit far-fetched right now, so .... my search continues. Thanks to all for your input though. This has been going on for years now, and your input just strains my thoughts out a little more finely, which IS a help, I assure you. I guess I'll keep on searching for a way to get the barrels rifled, or shoot them as is with RB's until I can find someone who'll tackle it. Thanks to all. Misery really DOES love company - and conversation.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

32ga. is almost entirely a continental European chambering, and the Dumoulins were a large and complex Belgian gunmaking family. The first thing is, they were often made of rather soft steel, good for their purpose, but it is likely that the cartridges used produced far less than 12,000 psi, and I would be very cautious about trying to translate that into a rifle chambering. I would aim at a small fame rifle rather than one for deer. But then, rabbits are closer and faster. When you hear of people converting modern shotguns into 45-70 or similar, they usually have receivers of modern investment cast alloy steel.

I have looked long and hard at my my 24ga. hammer gun by the Anciens Etablissements Pieper, but it has copious Belgian proofmarks with such useful detail as the barrel weight down to fractions of a gramme, and the Belgian proof year letter for 1923. Also it is an antique in the UK, as freely ownable as a walking stick. Mine is very strongly made, with chopper lumps which are almost invisibly dovetailed together, and the Greener crossbolt. It came from Australia, and is close to mint. My theory is that some Australian took it home expecting 20ga. shells to fit.

The strength of the standing breech behind the barrel is not the limiting factor. If a shotgun action is going to fracture, it will begin at the angle between standing breech and table, and go vertically downwards. So the Greener crossbolt, through an extension from the rear of the barrels, is a great advantage.

Are there, by any chance, little garlands of engraving around the barrels, just in front of the hook which attaches it to the hinge pin? If so, it probably is of monobloc construction. I would far rather either reline or rebarrel it at the monobloc than rifle it. Don't forget, almost no shotgun has straight tapered barrels. It is a concave curve, and may make the barrel considerable thinner a third to half its length from the muzzle, than it is at the muzzle. It could do its job there if it was thin enough to cut with scissors, but you can't afford to remove metal if it is. Any metal. Of course in a 32ga, they may have thought there was no reason to keep the weight really low.

Here is a website which on a cursory look doesn't have Dumoulin shotguns, but shows plenty of others for comparison, with information on proof etc.

http://www.littlegun.be/

Here is the Track of the Wolf page on liner tubes. Since you can't line a Colt SAA with a 7/8in. liner, some of them are really just barrels. You couldn't get by with 1/2in. The .375 groove liner for .38-55, at 17/32in. should be about ideal. But my choice would be something larger in OD, turned down on a lathe to bore diameter, and leaving enough metal to turn it to nearly fill the chamber.

But you really do need a gunsmith who understands and likes old shotguns, to advise you on the individual weapon in question. Some good general gunsmiths don't, and will cry "Impossible and lethal" when they needn't. Or once in a while, don't when they should.

http://www.trackofthewolf.com/List/Item.aspx/637/1

[Tackleberry41]

You really should try some brass shells loaded with RB before you do anything, might find they do the job nicely without all the work and expense, also the risk of screwing up the gun. The brass shells do load different with much thinner walls. Might even try some regular plastic shells. Probably could find a RB that will slide right down inside the shot cup of a regular shell. A .575 lee minie ball goes inside the shotcup of a 20ga, even flies fairly true, good enough I mounted rifle sights to the vent rib. Tons or people messing with things like this in the shotgun part of the forum.

[skeettx]

I load 32 gauge ammo to better use by cutting off the base wad and only leaving the shotcup.
In this way I can load 11/16 ounce of shot in the 2 1/2 inch Cheddite hull.

Might do better in the Magtech hull.

Mike