Gahendra ?

[Freightman]

I got one of the untouched Gahendra's from Sportsman's Guide and just got around to getting it apart, I figured I needed a chamber cast and made one.It has a very long throat .660 and the throat is .469 diameter the lands are .460 so the Question is should I load a .462 boolit? I have a LEE 405 HB that cast that size. Here is a picture. The bore is as new and the only thing is I am going to have to do a main spring and firing pin as Beekeeper has advised me Thanks.

[fouronesix]

Should you do it? Who knows and what's preventing you from doing it and reporting results? I'd just cast a few of soft 20:1 to 40:1 alloy, lube with soft lube, fill a case with FF BP and shoot it at a paper target at 25-50 yards from a rest, take pics of the target, report the load specifics and report back here with results.

[Freightman]

Going to take awhile to get the spring and firing pin fixed as I am the chief cook and bottle washer now my wife tore her hand up and they did reconstructive surgery on it Tuesday and will not be back in action for eight weeks. I will post results when finished.

[fouronesix]

The 577-450 is a big case! So much so that it was kind of a foolish design to begin with. Add to that.. some of early original cases were similar to a shotgun shell with a wrapped foil body!

One of the problems in loading it even with BP is trying to reduce the charge in that large bottleneck case. I don't know which Gehendra you have. If it is early Nepalese then it may have a wrapped/forged barrel. Later ones were a little better, while none were up to the standards of the better British examples. I think if in good mechanical condition there's no reason not to shoot it with the bullet you described over BP. After all, the Nepalese shot those things with all manner of ammo including regular British ammo. Some say to just go with a light charge of BP maybe 60-70 grs with a bunch of air space between powder and bullet. Not me! I would fill the case to the base of the neck then add a filler like traditional kapok or cotton and load the bullet on top of that with a little compression. As far as diameter of the bullet? I've measured a bunch of original 577-450 bullet diameters and your .462 in a soft alloy should be OK to try. The original bullets I've measured have ranged from about .450 to about .475. Some Martini "experts" say to use a bore diameter bullet. In your gun that would be .460. I doubt that a soft .462 bullet is going to make any difference especially with that large of a throat and likely a large groove diameter. If you have any concerns about the action or barrel strength then just put the rifle in a tire, lash it down with some cord and fire it with a string.

[MtGun44]

Conventional wisdom is to get best accy you need to fill the throat. If you are using
soft or near pure lead, I can't see that this would be a pressure issue. If it were me (not
a rifle cast boolit expert) I think I'd load about as big as would reliably chamber.

Ultimately, with BP it may make little or no difference with soft lead since it will probably
bump up to fit no matter where you start. However, less "freeform" changing of the
boolit would seem better.

Good luck, I hear these are real thumpers.

Bill

[fouronesix]

Sure, you can try a bullet up to whatever will chamber- the "fill the throat" theory . If I'm reading the numbers right on the Gahendra chamber cast the neck is .510. That will determine the largest bullet that can be loaded allowing for chambering and bullet release. I don't know what the neck wall thickness will be for for a particular case but for example if it is .015. The maximum size bullet that will, when loaded, chamber in that rifle can be determined. .015 x 2 = .030. Add .002-.004 for clearance for bullet release. So .510 minus .032-.034 = .478-.476. So, .478-.476, in this example, is the largest bullet possible in this neck chamber assuming the .015 neck wall thickness. That leaves plenty of leeway for using a .469 bullet equaling the throat diameter. Since these guns were designed to shoot BP, namely something equivalent to F powder, chances are pretty good such fouling would become a problem in chambering at some point. That is one reason many older BPCR type rifles have generous throats and the original bullets were somewhat smaller in diameter than full throat or even groove diameter. The other issue of course is finding a .469 bullet without getting a custom mold or paper patching some smaller diameter bullet. Also, shooting a max size bullet will increase pressure- if that is a concern.


If it were me, I'd start with the .462 bullet of a soft alloy with the base wad filler and let the large BP charge obturate the bullet (or attempt to do so). Sure won't hurt to try a few rounds loaded that way.