doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Briley tube sets on a SxS?

Can't say how well they work on ejector guns.

I use the gauge mates in my 10 to 12..I don't care for the 12 to 20's. I think it's too big a jump down in size.

I think the full length Brileys are the way to go on an old English SxS 12 ga. as most English guns are lightweight to start with.
The hammer gun I plan on having a set made for weighs in at about 6 lbs.

I recently bought a Colt 1878 grade 6, 12 gauge, that had 28 gauge Briley tubes. I am patiently waiting until Sept. 1 to try it out. I seem to have no trouble pointing it but nothing has hit the ground yet either.

I tried some of the Briley short tubes on my AYA and they did not work because the ejectors on the gun were too big and would not operate the ejectors on the chambermates. It might work with the newer style of ejectors that go all the way around. The ones from Florida might work.

I tried a set of Briley 28 ga. tubes in my Parker and did not like the extra weight. They might be more tolerable in a very light 12 ga. If you reload, you can make very light loads in the 12 ga. shells. I don't care for the tubes at all. Skeet shooters love them but the weight is an extra advantage. My shooting buddy uses .410 tubes(full length) in a Remington 3200 trap gun and loves it. 30" barrels and he's shooting skeet, not carrying it in the field. I also have a pair of Savage four-tenner tubes but much prefer to shoot a .410 gun.

I have a set of full length 28ga. in a Beretta SxS mdl 409 in 20ga. The initial wight is 6.25 lb. and the added is closer to 6.75 lb. It makes shooting a 28ga. very pleasant. It is weighted forward but for me it works and swings well. I actually shoot it better than when I use it as a 20ga. The extractors work well and are just slightly larger than the extractors in the barrels.
Best,
Ron

I talked with the people at Briley last week. I told them I had a AE fox 30" barrel and thought about putting in 20 & 28 guage tubes. They told me they could do it, But recomended the fitted ultra lights versus the drop in's.. Weight would be 10 oz. Hope this helps. Price for the 2 tube set was 1250.

I bought an old set of Kolar P1, full length tubes for $300.00 and cut them down to just over 20". Back-bored chokes back in them .005 in the first and .012-.015 in the second. I cut a groove in them to hold a O ring as some of my early doubles are larger bore than the tubes were. Chambers all seem fine for fit except the 20 and 28 which I did have to alter slightly to reduce the longer taper they used on the outside. Kolar use to make all the forcing cones very long on the host gun. I can change the thickness of O ring to help center and keep them in place and go from one gun to another. By shortening the tubes I saved almost half a pound and the balance is still between the hands. Powder all seems to burn well and only a minor carbon ring at the end of the tubes needs to be cleaned up after use.

Now I have a set of tubes that I can use in over a dozen different guns. Old Skeet tubes are not that hard to find. I bought mine off Ebay before they went so anti everything gun related. Most early Skeet tubes were either all Aluminum or had the heavier, stronger Briley or Kolar chambers from stainless steel. You need tubes with internal extractors and the Kolar and Briley both have these. Having a metal lathe made it a home project but any machine shop could do the job very easily.

I just got off the phone with Briley...I told them I had a 12 ga. damascus barreled hammer gun I wanted to get a set of 20 guage tubes made for.

He asked me "if it was a 2 & 1/2" chambered gun ?"

I answered yes all original...he told me they couldn't make a set for a 2 & 1/2" gun...unless I was willing to let them cut the chambers to 2 & 3/4".

Guess I won't be getting a set.

HomelessjOe

The problem with 20 gauge tubes in a 12 is that there is not enough metal to make a set of 2 3/4" 20 tubes in the shorter 2 1/2" 12 chamber. You kind of run out of chamber metal in the tube when you try to make the longer tube fit in the shorter chamber. Kolar use to elongate every chamber without asking to make tubes that were safe to shoot. Now maybe if you asked them to make a set of 20 tubes with 2 1/2" 20 ga. chambers they might be able to do the job. I do think that they can make a set of 28 tubes without any chamber alterations.

Jon,

It sounds like what you made was essentially a set of 'super tubes' like Browning used to sell. I think they were 16", not sure if that was because of the BTAF rules or because of some internal ballistic reason, but would suspect the former. One of the interesting things about short tubes is that the choke in the bbl's end is the one that does the constricting .. that applies to short chamber reducers, and short tubes both.

I suspect there is probably some magic number for the minimal distance for that to take effect for each sub gauge in a 12 bore or said another way, if there is insufficeint space from a tube's choke to the muzzle then the tube's choke will dominate.

Does anyone know the numbers? Probably a good subject for an article.