Big Bores

[smokinbuck]

Dan,
Luckily 5 gallon buckets and pie pans don't take 8-10 drams of powder to knock around. I have a feeling that would take the fun out of shooting it real quick.
Mark

[Dphariss]

All things considered I would not shoot heavy loads in it either. With an 8 to the pound ball recoil will get fierce.

These are cartridge 8 & 4 bore double rifles but check out the videos. It gives some idea of the recoil even in heavy weight firearms built for heavy game loads.

Dan

[smokinbuck]

Dan,
I would like to see the videos of the big guns but either I am overlooking the link or it didn't get posted.
Mark

[Daryl]

A 10 pound 8 bore is about 5 pounds too light for the heavy loads. One nice thing about all smoothies and some large rifles, is they gobble up WW balls. Pure lead can be saved for the 'normal' rifles.  I cast up some pure lead .722" the other day, and will be returning them to the pot - they are a waste of pure lead, when WW usualy cost nothing more than the fuel to go to a gas station or tire shop and pick them up. Sometimes they cost a box of beer. Fridays are the best days to visit tire-change shops.  Getting 150 pound to 300 pounds per 'pick-up' is worth a $25.00 box of beer.

For videos, you might try googling 8+bore+videos.  The first couple will give pretty good representations along with a list of others on the side or bottom.

[Feltwad]

Talking about big bore guns I have enclosed an image of a 2 bore bank gun in Flintlock from my collection .These guns are the largest to be shot from the shoulder and were tools of the trade.They were used by the Georgian and Victorian Fowler's  on the foreshore and were rested on  a sand dune or sea wall and when the incoming tide brought with it flocks of sea birds feeding along the waters edge and when with in range these guns were discharge into the flock.They could also be used as a small punt gun {market gunner}.Shooting this gun would surely have a high recoil although it weighs heavy and after a few shots would surely shake your brains
Feltwad

[bs2]

Now that is a MANLY sized gun.

That makes my 7 Bore small.

[northmn]

Kind of like the old wall guns.  Later on some were rifled and about 4 bore or better and designed to reach out a ways.   Looking through my old Lyman book I noticed that a 58 has the same 100 yard velocity at 100 yards with a 1500 fps MV as a 45 with a MV of 1700.  I think that that little factor is overlooked.  It's the velocity that hits the game that counts not the MV.  The Lyman book used the 562 RB not the 575 which is better.  The drop of the 45 was 9.6" the 58 11".  A 50 yard sight in puts them closer.  Granted a 45 can be loaded a little hotter than 1700, but the velocity loss starts canceling out any advantages.  Even loaded at recoil tolerable levels the bigger bores have the longer range striking advantage even if "lobbed".  I have always felt that if one feels the need to load a smaller caliber real hot that a bigger bore should be used.  Look at the modern shooters with their 50 cal in lines.  The 58 and 62 have about the same weight ball,  and will likely be far more effective, especially on deer and possibly elk.  Its interesting with the selection of 58 minies why they went to the 50 cal combinations.  Has to be marketing where you can charge $15 for 10 -20 bullets.

DP

[Daryl]

DP - at any range, those small bore pistol bullet slingers have nothing on a large bore and probably don't kill as well as a .50 RB out to 100yards either. I am talking of elk and moose here.  I felt well armed and protected when hunting around in the grizzly bush for moose.  I was armed with the 14 bore rifle laoded with RB's.  I would not feel well armed with a sabot-slinger. Any .54 or larger would be preferable. Give me bore size and a ball that penetrates for hunting.  While I didn't quite get the exits Keith did, I wasn't shooting a 600gr. RB, either. The little 480gr. RB still would break a shoulder, punch out 6" of rib and stop underneath the hide on the off side on a bull moose.

As Baker, i jsut had to try a slug, so made a mould casting a HB conical, with a hemispherical head.  The lightest the mould would cast was 580gr. and recoil with that wasn't too bad, but it gave nothing over a WW ball for penetration.  The HB's had to be cast of pure lead and flattened out badly on penetration tests. With a WW ball, I once blasted a couple solid 3"x12"x20" 'bricks' . The brick shot with the WW alloy RB disintegrated into pieces, the largest of which was about 3" angular chunk - the rest smaller pieces and dust. The one I shot with the 'minnie' merely broke in half, abeit grudingly. The minne was broken into pieces and left a large lead smear on the lead at impact - that was evident and I and I only found a few small pieces of lead, while the WW ball, completely flattened to about 3/8" thick and slightly cupped back with a stress crach running almost side to side, I still have in my re-claimed bullet box.  It was obvious which one hit harder. Both were shot with the same load 165gr. of 2F and both hit almost the same POaim at 50 yards. The recoil was slightly more with the slug and it dropped about 5" low.  I found this interesting due to the weights were only 100gr. different.  The mold allowed bullets to 1,200 gr.  I cast a few, but used them for decoy weights instead of firing them.  Further testing for a fast loading second shot led me to the development of accurate shooting paper ctgs. which could be loaded and fired in 8 seconds.

[Dave Faletti]

Daryl.
What are the barrel dimensions of the rifle in your picture?

[Daryl]

1-1/8"  X  30", .690" bore and .714" groove diameter - square cut rifling grooves just barely wider than lands & 66" twist.

[Leatherbelly]

 FW,
 Now that's Daryls' kinda gun! 8-10drams of 2f,8 ozzies of .50 cal shot,Yahoo! Loaded for bear!

[Daryl]

Here's a rifle Steve Zihn made for a fellow over on nitroexpress.com forum. It is a 2 bore. This rifle is to compliment the fellows 8 & 4 bores.  I seriously doubt it will get shot much.


"The natives of India have a proverb to the effect that", " When you go out to shoot a hare, be prepared to meet a tiger"  I think the 2 bore would probably suffice for tiger and kill a hare if you hit him right.

[northmn]

Well the lock is on the correct side.  I don't see the attachments for the wall mounts.  2 bore means roughly 3500 grain ball.  It would be an intersting experience to shoot.  Once.

DP

[bs2]

It took a 12-14 year old boy, too shame my brother in-law into shooting my 7 ga. smooth bore.

After a friends young son shot a 1000 grain round ball.............twice....................in front of all his hunting buddies, ...............he had too!

With 180FF it just gives a big PUSH............really.....................it's only slightly slower that a 22 long rifle, at 1100 fps.

[Daryl]

I'm surprised - that little charge got that 7 bore up to 1,100fps. Probably OK for little Eastern Whitetails or little weiner pigs - HA!  Load her up and come West, Young Man.  just yanking your tail, Bruce.  180gr. 2f and 1,100fps - imagine that would take some slowing down.  If 180gr. is just a push, how about 250gr. for another 150fps?

[bs2]

I'm surprised - that little charge got that 7 bore up to 1,100fps. Probably OK for little Eastern Whitetails or little weiner pigs - HA!  Load her up and come West, Young Man.  just yanking your tail, Bruce.  180gr. 2f and 1,100fps - imagine that would take some slowing down.  If 180gr. is just a push, how about 250gr. for another 150fps?

I loaded it up once, [250+] my spring loaded glasses nearly fell off my nose, [had to raise my head to catch them]........................but I hit the old stump, I was aiming at.....................really impressed the brother in law and his buddies.

[doug]

       Here are a couple more for those concerned about "the clean kill"  First one is .79 cal and rifled and has a single set trigger.  The second is a smooth rifle of .95 cal with double set triggers and rifle sights.  It takes a patched round ball (3 oz) and I shot it with 230 gr of 1F powder.  After a few shots you get used to the recoil but it does concentrate the attention.

cheers Doug

[Dphariss]

John Taylor killed 13 or so African Bull Elephant with a 10 ga  smooth bore that was probably something like the upper gun from his description, saying it was a good grade gun. This was in the 1930s and he used 6 drams of powder and a hardened ball for heart/lung shots. Said he never lost an animal he shot with it. Killed several rhino with it too. Did not mention shooting any twice. He was ambush hunting near water holes.
He ran out of balls and eventually the ammo for his modern rifles arrived. This is in his book "Pondoro".
Sir Samuel Baker had a 3 ounce rifle for a belted ball as I recall.
Smooth guns were used a great deal in Africa for heavy game like Elephant since the range was short in many places cases and the smooth bore would use very heavy powder charges. Selous told of loading the 4 bores with a handful of coarse powder carried in a bag.
The rifle would be a great brown bear rifle if it has slow enough twist to allow good velocity.

Great guns thanks for posting.
Dan

[Daryl]

TKS for posting those Doug - this is what it is all about. Forsyth spoke about bore rifles in India, where the maker put in too much twist ie: in the 30's and even faster, where the owners just loaded them up with heavy loads for tiger or elephant and put up with the guns shooting like "an imperfect smoothbore" as they preferred the smashing blow of a high velocity large ball to the wounding system of light charges designed for their rifles. 

Say - Doug - will you bring the belted ball rifle to Hefley this August? - I seem to recall you have one of those.

I used an H. Whall ball and shot gun cap-lock at Hefley a few years back for a smoothbore shoot. It had a .75" bore with a rather long barrel, about 32" length.  Best shooting was of course, with .715" WW balls and heavy denim patches. The .725" WW balls were a bit tight for the rough bore and thick denim I had cut for it.  Seem to recall I picked up a 2nd or 3rd with that gun.  It had a standard single pull trigger, quite nice too. The breach was very heavy - 1 1/4" wide, but only one sight at the front..

[doug]

Say - Doug - will you bring the belted ball rifle to Hefley this August? - I seem to recall you have one of those.

     I will try and remember to; it is a Charles Lancaster .60 cal with a .66 cal belt on it and fairly accurate.  Last year I shot one trail with a short light english sporting rifle in .63 cal.    This year I think I might bring along that cape gun that I posted a few weeks ago.

cheers Doug

[Daryl]

Looking forward toseening it, Doug - think I'll bring along that Whall for the smoothbore events.  It shot to 'the sights', with proper elevation given by the taper of the barrel against the heavy breech as all smoothies should.