doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 20ga damascus? Has anyone tryed this?

I have a 20ga damascus gun that has been deemed safe to shoot vintage shells by a qualified smith. I also have a set of Savage 410ers and was wondering if it would be safe to use them in it. Has anyone tryed it?

I have a set of 410ers that are 12ga to 410. I have used them in a couple of damascus barreled guns. They work just fine. If the barrels are essentially safe to begin with, there should be no problem. They are no different than using the Briley product, chambermates, lil skeeters, etc.

Pete

Larry,

I beleive that when shooting damascus guns the Pressure issue is a high consideration and pressue tends to be greater the lower one goes down in shotshell size. If you have a recipe for a low pressure 410 load you should be fine, however I have been researching 16ga low pressure reloading data for sometime and it is not as avaible as I would wish. I would think 20ga and .410 maybe even more scarce. Unless of course your using black powder?

Kurt

Pressure testing showed significant decrease in pressure using 16 to 28g GaugeMates:

Quote:
We have commissioned independent pressure/velocity test with Winchester AA and Remington STS ammunition in 12 to 20, 12 to
28 and 16 to 28-gauge adapters.
Pressure testing was done at the forcing cone area. Because different test guns were used, the 12-g gun was measured at 3" and the 16-g at 3 5/16" from the breech face. There are no industry standards for pressure at that point.
Here is a sample of the data.

16 to 28 Winchester AA -- 5900 psi and 1252 fps
16 to 28-g Remington STS -- 5100 psi and 1215 fps

Nominal velocity for both brands is 1200 fps.
SAAMI pressure standard for 16-g at one inch from the breech face is 11,500 psi.

It seems the gauge mates and 410ers would be a wonderful way to shoot your 20ga damascus gun! Best to all,

Kurt

While it is true the .410 will run to higher pressures than the larger gauges, it is also true that upon firing this higher pressure is within the chamber area. At this point I would think the adapter itself is capable of holding the pressure. As soon as the adapter is cleared & the load enters the much larger bore area of the carrier gun pressures are going to drop significantly. The bore area of a .410 is only about 38% of even a 20ga. My 16ga Savage Four-Tenner is 12" long. By that point & coupled with the large increase of bore area, if the bbl won't hold it I would fear to stick a cork in the muzzle & blow hard on the breech.

2P, LOL!

JC(AL)

I gave it a go today and had a ball with no problems, a great alternative at the range. Thanks Larry