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Thread: Really poor man's double rifle

  1. #21
    Boolit Master scattershot's Avatar
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    I was thinking of that myself. Why not just shoot roundballs from the barrel that shoots them well, and load the other with shot? Similar to the old Cape Gun concept.
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  2. #22
    Boolit Master
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    Now why would a sphere pick up drag induced "spin". Even with an imperfect sphere it would rotate just enough to assume an orientation that produced the least drag and stay there. I suggest that what happens is that the ball begins to veer to one side or another and then because there is no spin to balance out the direction of the veering it begins to accumulate in the same direction just as do bird shot. Or are we to assume that bird shot patterns spread because they are spinning?

  3. #23
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    There is a lot of history of barrels being beveled to get them to shoot together even with shot. I have moved the point of impact on several. The cheaper old muzzleloading guns were just brazed together not regulated. It does not take much just a slight bevel with a sharp hard pen knife on the oppisite side of where you want the charge to go. Shoot patterns and work slow
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  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by BAGTIC View Post
    Now why would a sphere pick up drag induced "spin". Even with an imperfect sphere it would rotate just enough to assume an orientation that produced the least drag and stay there. I suggest that what happens is that the ball begins to veer to one side or another and then because there is no spin to balance out the direction of the veering it begins to accumulate in the same direction just as do bird shot. Or are we to assume that bird shot patterns spread because they are spinning?
    General Hatcher explains it as being like what is rather inelegantly termed the spit ball in baseball, bowled without spin. A cushion of higher-pressure air builds up in front of it, and at some unpredictable point along its path, the ball slips out from behind it. picking up a transverse spin. The resulting difference in airspeed on different sides of the ball produce different pressure, much like the upper and lower surfaces of an aircraft's wing. A spin picked up by rolling along the bore surface has the same effect, but has it right from the start, and is most often in the same direction, due to the roll being along the bottom of the bore.

    This does explain why a hundred-yard group can be much more than twice as wide as a fifty-yard one. I'm sure it does happen with birdshot, although it is impossible to distinguish from other causes of spread, such as choke, deformation of pellets, muzzle blast and penetration of gases past the wad.

    Yes, cheap guns, breech-loaders included, sometimes got no regulation at all, in the sense of pattern testing and resoldering. A few rifles had two notches in the rear sight. But that isn't to say the barrels were parallel to one another. It would require massive extra weight in the fore-part of shotgun barrels to do that deliberately. The barrels were shaped to give an amount of convergence that had been found to shoot not too far apart.

    Only a few Belgian guns were brazed all the way to the muzzles. It was a lot more trouble, and it was very easy to damage the steel by overheating. You wouldn't want that to be repeated in true barrel regulation. The better Belgian makers were among the first to want to avoid brazing altogether, hence the invention of monobloc construction, initially known as the Pieper breech, which made it possible to get by with soft soldering alone. Here is another way to the same end in my 1926 Pieper. You can barely see where chopper lumps (aka underlugs) like tiny axe-heads integral with the barrel, are almost invisibly dovetailed together. BSA did the same, making their rather good and inexpensive 12ga a little wider and heavier than it needed to be. But mine is a 24ga, and if I noticed, I could live with its feeling like a 20 and firing the load of a modern 28.


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    Chopper lumps were known as a concept, like video phones and self-driving cars, for a long time before they became practical. In the days of damascus barrels and for a little afterwards, they needed a harder steel for the lumps needed to be harder than they could make into good barrels. So three pieces, with the lumps brazed into the barrel assembly. As barrel steels and the forging of of them improved, makers of British best guns took to flat and brazed chopper lumps. They changed in the 1940s to silver solder for those few inches, which melts at lower temperatures than brazing, and soft solder the rest.
    Last edited by Ballistics in Scotland; 10-17-2017 at 07:07 AM.

  5. #25
    Boolit Buddy
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    Quote Originally Posted by longbow View Post
    I have been told that if you file very slight angles on the muzzles you can move groups around some to help regulate. I have not tried it myself but have been told and also read of it.

    With round ball that may initiate a spin by leaking a bit of gas on one side before the other but out to 50 yards or so shouldn't cause much trouble from spin and if it brings groups from each barrel together it would be good.

    Nothing to lose by trying and if it works you have a nice little slug gun. You can always use it with buckshot, double or tri-ball loads too if regulation is not good.

    I've often wondered why the doesn't seem to be any history of hollow base (Foster style) or Brenneke style slugs used in muzzleloaders... or at least I haven't seen much after early matchlock days. I guess the Nessler Ball would be close to that. Nessler Balls were used in Europe and some in the American Civil War. In any case, a hollow base slug with lube grooves or a lubed wad behind it might be okay in a smoothbore. It would be fun to try anyway.

    That should keep you busy for a while playing with the new gun.

    Longbow
    Baird, in Hawken Rifles, mentions and posts photos of precisely this method of regulation. Dunno, have never tried it, but the concept makes sense.

  6. #26
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    bikerbeans,

    IF it was my shotgun, I'd have one of the barrels rifled for a ML Cape Gun.

    yours, tex

  7. #27
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by dogrunner View Post
    Baird, in Hawken Rifles, mentions and posts photos of precisely this method of regulation. Dunno, have never tried it, but the concept makes sense.
    He also discusses it in a 3 Book series sold by Precision Shooting Magazine years ago, the books were called "the best of Black powder Cartridge magazine" I believe.

  8. #28
    In Remembrance bikerbeans's Avatar
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    Update. I finally sourced 40 pounds of extremely pure lead and made a bunch of 30:1 alloy. I am casing a +700g HB slug that drops about 0.735" and then sizing it to 0.722". This is a decent fit but not to tight. A 12ga over powder card will hold the slug in place when the other barrel is fired with 65g ffg. I was able to POI of both barrels by beveling the muzzle. Right barrel is decent left barrel is still impacting too far left of POA. Today I drilled one 1/8" hole at 9 0'clock on the left barrel about 2" back from the muzzle. Will try again next week and see what that does. If I keep trimming the barrels and can't regulate this gun maybe I just go all in an make a 12ga ml Howdah pistol.

    BB

  9. #29
    In Remembrance bikerbeans's Avatar
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    Well the 1/8" port in the left barrel moved the POI 4 to 5 inches to the right so that is close to POA, however the HB slug is now tumbling! Back to a roundballs i guess.

    BB

  10. #30
    Boolit Master
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    I heard good things about these molds,
    http://www.jt-bullet-moulds.co.uk/index.html

    they are brass, single cavity, and use the Lee handles

  11. #31
    Boolit Grand Master

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    Nothing wrong with a round ball! They are still my favourites.

    RB's may respond to muzzle beveling better than a slug which can tip and wobble if it gets uneven forces on the base.

    Longbow

  12. #32
    Boolit Buddy finstr's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kens View Post
    I heard good things about these molds,
    http://www.jt-bullet-moulds.co.uk/index.html

    they are brass, single cavity, and use the Lee handles
    Those molds look fantastic!
    I'm the gun totin, meat eatin', BIBLE readin', redneck conservative your mother always warned you about.

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  13. #33
    Boolit Grand Master

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    I don't have one but have read nothing but good things about them and he'll make them in any size you want.

    Longbow

  14. #34
    In Remembrance bikerbeans's Avatar
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    I will try patched .690" balls first because I have a mold. I may also try the HB slugs with a wad if I can find one that will fit down a .723" bore.

    BB

  15. #35
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by longbow View Post
    I don't have one but have read nothing but good things about them and he'll make them in any size you want.

    Longbow
    here is a youtube on these molds

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHo0qDU1b6U

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check