7/8ths 40 Cal to heavy for hunting?

[marcusb]

I am moving foward with my my build depite the humidity and have come to a fork in the road. After some good suggestions from board memebers, I have decided on a simple tenn style rifle from a routed walnut blank I have sitting around with a 7/8 ths channel. With some mods I can squeeze 40" barrel length out of it, Would 40" 7/8ths in 40 cal be to nose heavy to pack around? Would a 45 be a better compromise?  Anyone tried out this combo before?

I am going with a Rice barrel for this, and I see they offer standard and match barrels, will a diffrence in accuracy be noticed between the to by a novice shooter? Also they offer round bottom rifling, is it superior to standard?

 
Thanks

Marcus

[flehto]

My squirrel LR has a .45 cal. X 7/8" X 42" bbl  and it's a mite muzzle heavy but can still be carried all day. Have used it for deer hunting and found it to be very well suited....Fred

[Nate McKenzie]

I wouldn't use anything but a swamped barrel for myself.

[marcusb]

I am thinking along those lines myself Nate. My deer rifle has a 50 cal C weight I truly love the feel of and my last small game rifle was a 36 cal A weight. I am hoping I dont put alot of time into something to be dissapointed, but its already routed at 7/8ths and the RR channel and hole has been drilled, from what I undertand my only real choice is caliber and barrel length at this point

[whitebear]

I would go with a .45 cal.  My son is building a 7/8X.45 with a GM barrel and to me it is muzzle heavy.  It will also depend on your physical conditioning, if you are young and in vigorous health you can probably handle it but I am 60 and it would get heavy to me.

[Dave Faletti]

It would be too front heavy for my tastes.  Take the barrel out of you 50 cal and tape the 40 cal to the channel.  That will give you a reasonable idea of how it will balance.  Hopefully not how it will look though.  

[rsells]

I have built mountain rifles using a 7/8 across the flats from .40 to 50 cal and the smaller cal. rifles are nose heavy.  It depends upon what your are looking for.  I copy an original William Douglas rifle I own that has a 44 inch 7/8 across the flats .40 cal. barrel.  Customers order that combination because the original piece was made that way.  It is heavy, but actually holds well when shooting freehand.  However, I have built more hunting rifles over the years where the customer asked for a .50 cal. straight 7/8 across the flats barrel 38 inches in length.  This combination is light and balances out well.  You will hve to go with the flow with what your heart tells you.  Good luck with your rifle.
                                                                                     Roger Sells

[Daryl]

A straight octagonal 7/8" X .40 X 42" is about perfect for me, for offhand target shooting. Every inch taken off lightens the muzzle.  

As I already had a 7/8" X .45 X 42" on that rifle(switch barrels), I used the .40 on a finished 1/2 stock I had available and shortened it to 36".  I should have left it at 38" for a better hold. It's lighter weight but lacks the solid no-movement while squeezing off the shot feel it had before.

As to hunting, that 40" X .40 X 7/8" will make a perfect rifle for hunting small game - for a man. I would go square rifling as the deeper rounded rifling might require perhaps too thick a patch for a beginner to load, althogh my daughter and wife don't have a trouble with tight ball/patch combinations.  

[Ted Kramer]

Marcus,

I recently finished a rifle with a 38-1/2" x  7/8" x .40 on it and it's as easy to carry and shoot as any I've ever had. It weighs around 7 pounds and balances in my hand right at the entry pipe. It doesn't seem at all nose heavy yet holds great for shooting.

Ted K

[Dave Waters]

I agree with Nate McKenzie, Swamped makes all the difference.

I built a .50 X 7/8 X 42" poor boy. I really liked it.

[chapmans]

I have a 42" 7/8 .40 it weighs 9.3 lbs seems light to me, my  offhand gun has a 38" 1" .40 and weighs 13lbs, But I'm used to a heavy gun for target shooting, my deer hunting gun, 42" 1" .54 weighs around 10 lbs, but I hunt from a stand so I don't lug it around all day. I guess it's whatever you get used to!
 Regards, Steve C.

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Get a swamped barrel with bigger measurements and reinlet the stock..

[Dennis Glazener]

A "B" profile .45 or .50 caliber 38" Rice or Getz barrel would be what I would build for hunting. The gunbuilder flat bottom rifling shoots far better than I can hold! I wouldn't bother paying the extra for the "target" grade barrel. I seriously doubt, unless you are a seasoned offhand target shooter, you will never know the difference.
Dennis

[Daryl]

Marcus- that walnut did not go unnoticed.  Nice!

That must be the muzzle shoved in backwards due to the dovetail being so close the end.

[heinz]

Marcus, that is a very nice piece of walnut and as Roger Sells notes it would make an appropriate  and authentic small game rifle.  It would be a little heavy but not too heavy.  I have a 40 cal iron mounted rifle my dad and I made in that weight and barrel length.  It reminds me of him so I use it when I go hunting for things smaller than deer.  I also have an original Ohio half stock that came with a hunting bag and horn and was someone's grandfathers squirrel gun'  It has a 1 1/8 barrel and weighs about 12 pounds.  It just makes the Friendship max weight for legal rifles on the X  stick buffalo matches.  Those scrawny old guys liked heavy guns when you only get one shot.  I would build what you have and get more light weight on the next one.  The Bob Wolfe rifle that is posted on the Contemporary Makers Blog today will give you an idea how light you can go on a squirrel gun.

[bob in the woods]

I  had a 42 in .45 cal straight oct. 7/8 in barreled rifle and it was OK, but it was nothing compared to the B weight 42 or 38 in barrels I usually use. I have built more B weight .50 cal than anything else for hunting.
I believe that I would find a 42 in 7/8 th barrel in .40 cal, too heavy, ie not balanced to my liking.
If they haven't yet tried one, it is fun to watch  someone break into a smile when they pick up a swamped barreled rifle for the first time    My 42 in C weight .54 cal swamped Getz barreled rifle almost aims itself.

[R.W.D.]

I have a rifle that I built using a 42" 40 cal 7/8" G.M. barrel and it is a little heavy for my tastes.  I can say however that it shoots very good.  I built another rifle with a 13/16" 42" 40 cal barrel and it is much nicer to carry.  My son will probably end up with it.

Ross

[marcusb]

Thanks for all the inputs guys, going to call rice tommorow and see what they have for barrels.

I had been considering trying to open it up for a swamped but from what I gathered I would run into the ramrod channel at the breech and have not see any barrels with .875 or bigger waist.

Good eye on the barrel Daryl, the tube in the pic is an old rusty cva barrel I have laying around, its 40" and 50 cal. I tried to gauge what it would balance like but just to much wood on the blank to tell.

[bgf]

Marcus,  I may be missing something, but I don't see how a swamped barrel as big as 7/8" at the waist could possibly be any lighter than a straight 7/8" barrel, considering the breech and muzzle flares are much bigger.  An uncommon D-weight, I think, is the only standard one that is (close to?) that size and it will be heavier than the straight 7/8" barrel in the same caliber.  Use the 7/8" .40 and enjoy the muzzle weight; if you get used to it, lighter barrels will seem jumpy .

[Roger Fisher]

Light for hunting and some weight for line shooting. To a point of course;  You can go too far either way.  Been there and done that

[Dphariss]

My son's first ML is a 7/8 x45x36"
He could shoot this rifle fine at 12 years old and he STILL only weighs 136 pounds 12 years later.

The posts I see here about guns being too heavy speak to the fact that modern swamped barrels have such extreme contours compared to original guns.
I also think it speaks to the modern life style.
Dan

[t.caster]

My first build was with a 7/8" x .45 x 44" Douglass in a Lehigh pattern. Way too muzzle  heavy, and I was a big strong boy back then! I cut off 2" and shot for a while and went back and cut 2" more! Now 40" long....still didn't like it, so after about 10 yrs. I swapped in a 7/8" x .50 x 40" GM brrl. and it is just right! Some of the problem was the skinny curved shape of the butt stock and too much drop for me.

[satwel]

I built a 42 x 7/8 in .45. It's fine for line shooting but I wouldn't want to carry it all day afield. A .40 will be even heavier although you will be cutting off two inches. I believe GM makes a .50 in 7/8. That shouldn't be too heavy, especially in 40".

[stuart cee dub]

   I have tried for some years to get straight barrels to work in a long rifle .
Partly because that was what I could afford at the time .Parrtly because I like learning the hard way   
A 7/8'' at 50 cal at 42'' will work as a flinter only as the wall is too thin(IMHO) to support a drum and nipple .It does make a very workable rifle .
   .40 cal in a 13/16ths is ok for a line gun .A .45 in a 7/8th will work too but like the .40 it will be nose heavy but still OK for a line gun .I agree with Satwel on the 45 cal in this case .
You can shorten them but then the length never looks right under 40''.

   If it is a half stock straight barrels work fine for lengths 35'' or less.Which is what they figured out after the golden age. 

[M Tornichio]

my squirrel rifle has a 42" green mountain barrel in .36 cal. It is really muzzle heavy, but holds really nice for target shooting. I have grown used to the weight. I am guessing over 10lbs have not really weighed it though. Most people lift it up and say that thing is heavy. I have carried it on hunts were i hiked over 5 miles in a day. I don't really notice it much at all. I had considered going with a 40 cal barrel in the same rifle and taking the 36 cal barrel and shortening it 2" and building another rifle around it. I like 13/16" for a 36 cal rifle. Just built one of those and I think it might be perfect for that cal. especially for hunting.

on a side note, I was able to hold a 3 different bull rifles last month and I guarantee that my 7/8" rifle in 36 would feel like a pencil next to each of those rifles. I don't know what the width of the barrels are on any of the rifle, but they are pushing an 1" maybe slightly more and very heavy. And yet the architecture totally makes them look like long slender rifles.

If you are sensitive to weight I would go with 45 cal or 50. and keep the same barrel channel.
Marc