Double rifle??

[Scota4570]

I have a rough hardware store s/s percussion shotgun.  The plates say Thos Parker.  The locks are good,  I don't have the barrels.  I do have another set of 16 ga barrels that are close,  I can salvage the ribs from those. 

I have three donor barrels.  The appear to be Numrich and are 15/16 AF 32".  They are 45 cal button rifled, but have rust rings from some genius storing them with a patch in the bore.  I could send the barrels to Mr. Hoyt and have them rebored to 50 or 54 caliber.  I would then turn two to reproduce the contour that matches the 16 ga barrels.  Make some breech plugs.  Fit the new barrels to the hooked breech. 

I have made a double before.  This seems easier because have a parts set to work from.  I'd probably make a new stock too. 

Would 54 cal be safe with the diameters anticipated ~ 0.940"@ the breech?

Any pitfalls I should be aware of? 



Moderator, I was not sure about putting this in the build section due to it not being a long rifle,  move it if appropriate. 

[Bob Roller]

That would leave a barrel wall thickness at the breech of .198.Who knows what Numrich made those barrels from and then what charge will regulate both of them.Maybe a .470 bore diameter would be better and a  lot of weight will be lost during the turning process.The late Tom Dawson was a specialist in double rifles and he said trying to regulate a two barrels using patched round balls was a hopeless case so you might want to see about flat base conicals that would friction fit the bores so recoil from the first shot can't move the other bullet off the powder.I owned a Holland&Holland double rifle that Tom Dawson regulated and it would put both barrels in a 4 inch circle @ 100 yards with ease and at the time of his sudden passing he was writing a book on double rifles both breech and muzzle loading. He was a driving force in the Hawken revival and made copies that had all the accidents and mistakes of the ones he copied and his picture and mine are on the first pages of the new Hawken book by Bob Woodfill.
Bob Roller

[bigsmoke]

The late Tom Dawson was a specialist in double rifles and he said trying to regulate a two barrels using patched round balls was a hopeless case

Not so sure about that.  Back in the day when we were producing big bore rifles (late 90's early 2000's), we made several 8 bores and a 4 bore or two.  Following in the advice of Forsythe, the rifling was 1:144.  There seemed to be no problem regulating them to  2 inches at 50 yards.  This was using .820 and .980 round ball in a .015" greased patch sat on top of a lubed cushion wad.  That was what worked for us.  And of course, noticeable powder charges.
We never made smaller bore double rifles, who knows, maybe they would work differently?  And as far as our single barreled rifles, our smallest was a 20 bore.  Never got around to making a double 20.  I would have really enjoyed one of them.  And a double 12 wouldn't have been bad either.  Just things that we never got around to.  Too bad.

John (Bigsmoke)

[Bsharp]

Have you checked the barrels for run out? Numrich made some very poor quality barrels.

Second choice could be a rifle smoothbore combination.

I have a Kodiak double 50 that needs real round ball barrels and I would be interested in seeing your build!

[Scota4570]

P. 171 Of the Muzzloading Caplock Rifle goes into some details about Billinghurst double rifles.  Sharpe wrote that they could be made for patched balls or bullets.  He was a fan of short patched picket bullets.  That would solve the problem of recoil jarring a naked lead bullet off the powder and ringing the barrel.  I like the concept of using patched balls.  That would also allow using non-lead balls should that be and issue at some point.

Any details on why regulating barrels shooting patched balls would be a problem?  I can understand that once the barrels  are regulated with a bullets,  balls would shoot cross eyed due to insufficient recoil. 

 I expect to set up fixtures and go back and forth to the range many times.  One thought here, has anyone used a laser bore slighter to get close and/or monitor adjustments? Once I shoot it and know where I was headed the laser could be used to  track adjustments.  The amount to move the dot on the wall could be easily calculated.   

I have no idea who made my junk barrels.  I speculate Numrich bases on being button barrels and the twist rate.  Those barrels may be only good for tomato stakes.  The idea was to save $200  between the rebore price and new barrels.  It would not be a project stopper.  I could look again and see if the rust rings are situated as to make a 45 cal double rifle with 26" barrels.  The would save me a bunch of money.  I don't care to hunt deer with 45 cal balls but, a picket ball mold could be made easily by boring the cavity in the mold bocks using a lathe. 

....lots of options, I enjoy planning almost as much as doing the work. 

[Hungry Horse]

 Billinghurst noticed enough of a customer base in early California, that he authorized guns of his design being built in Marysville California. Charles Slotterbeck built doubles (or more) in Lakeport, his business partner Villegas built double rifles in San Francisco, and a gunsmith in Red Bluff has recently been credited with a three barreled rifle recently found in parts at a local yard sale. So double rifles were very popular toward the end of the muzzleloading era, at least on the West coast.
 The majority of the doubles I have seen that are rifled are gain twist, and designed to shoot a bullet instead of a patched round ball. The bullet is usually shorter than is common today. So, there are a couple of work arounds. One is to make your gun .45 cal. And find an old replica brass mold from a revolver case set. They are supposed to be .451, but are almost always undersized a little, and shorter than a target rifle bullet. You should be able to size these bullets to fit. Another fix is to buy some steel dies for the proper caliber, and mill the rear of the blocks off and reinstall the sprue cutter.

  Hungry Horse

[Bob Roller]

A Pickett ball has no bearing surface to stabilize it and must be loaded with extreme care thru a false muzzle.I had a 40 caliber N.G.Whitmore Pickett bullet rifle and it was a booger to load even with a false muzzle so round balls were used and they worked well and a subsequent owner won matches with it.It had a Whitmore telescopic sight and no provision for anything else so I would assume the targets may not have been counted.This rifle was made by the same man that built the superb presentation rifle for General Grant and he tested it at 110 yards and said all 10 shots would have hit the lid of a percussion cap box with the tang sight and the pin head front sight.
Bob Roller