doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Shell selection reality check-gotta see this!

I too am very concerned about some of the things I have read on other forums, some of these experts are lucky to have not won a Darwin award. Here is a recent posting on another forum:

“Been lurking here awhile, but wanted to mention that having gone through a BUNCH of shotguns over the years, my first really good gun was a Fox serial #ed around 1907. I still have it and it has killed geese to quail for me for almost 40 years with chambers lengthed (I guess) to 3" and 32" bbls. I have, in my foolish youth touched off both barrels apurpose with 1 7/8 oz. of BB so can attest that unless the gun is butchered in some way, you needn't be concerned (steel shooting excluded) about strength of a Fox.”

http://www.shotgunworld.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=93519

I think that every one here knows by now to use low pressure loads for safety and to keep stress on the wood to a minimum. Accidents happen and guns fail, but why take a chance with loads which were never used when the gun was brand new? The NID was designed to deal with higher pressures because the Flues and earlier designs were not able to handle them and for all intents the NID was the last designed US gun and other than the Model 21 maybe the only one to shoot modern shells without major concern. When shell makers had to raise pressures, to work autos, the double gun was left behind by the shell makers. Sales were too few to warrent any major improvement in design for most makers. Either the old guns could handle the higher pressures or they became the Miners, Flues and Klunkers too weak to shoot safely with factory fodder. Have your gun checked, barrel walls measured and use basic common sense.

IF only one of the big box sporting stores, stocked low pressure shells for the masses to buy, it would be a public service. In fact if one ammo maker got smart they could corner the market in sales in a heart beat. Federal should make their paper shells in 12, 16 and 20, loaded to low pressure levels. Market them as "trainer loads, low recoil loads, vintage loads or classics loads". Bring them out in 2 1/2 or 2 9/16" with 1 ounce in the 12, 1 or 7/8 ounce in 16 and 7/8 in 20. Price them at or below 5.00/box retail, the shooters would buy them by the case. In fact I would personally buy 30-40 flats. Keep the pressure to say 6,500/12, 7,000/16 and 8,000/20 and they would have a winning combo. With modern powders, paper hulls and wads to work with these are reasonable to acheive. Anyone know if Federal looks at this BBS?

There is no room for mistakes when it comes to the older double.
You will be fitted for a hook, if you have different bore sizes and big brute modern auto all packed in your cabinet.

ItalianSxS, I think the statement you heard was misconstrued a bit. As a generalization,(which means it generally isn't accurate enough to be reliable)the highest pressures occur WITHIN the first 10 -14 inches - meaning after that first 10 -14 inches the pressures have diminished to much lower levels as 2-Piper said above. If the trend to create slower burning powders like Longshot continues, that 10 -14 inch generalization will increase. This type powder generates lower peak pressures but gains velocity by sustaining higher pressure than other powders further down the barrel. If you look at Rabbit's pressure curves above, the area under the curve represents work performed in moving the shot down bore. An optimum powder would raise pressure to some reasonably high pressure without a peak and sustain that pressure pretty much throughout the length of the bore. The area under the curve would increase quite a bit as would velocity. Of course all our guns would then be obsolete and the new ones would have much thicker barrels further forward (or metalurgy would have to improve immeasurably.)

Looking at the barrel profile (wallthickness) it's easy to get a visuallization of the pressure decay as the payload moves down the barrel. Match up that graph Jack posted and you'll see a barrel profile, even a 100 yr old one, matches up fairly nicely. Makers have matched the barrel profile to the pressure, probably thru trial and error (blowing up barrels) over early years of development. Likely, proof houses had something to do with all this, maybe not. I dunno. But barrels have that taper in the places they have it for a reason.

I read Sherman Bell's article in the Spring DGJ and I think this is probably due to a bore obstruction,(even though he says there was none). A high pressure load would have blown out the breech. Thin barrels held up surprisingly well. Look at the photo at the top of this post. Notice the buldge in the barrel before it split? Read his article. Very interesting.

Didn't he say that the barrels were honed at some point? Couldn't that have effected the weak 'seam' in the barrels or as I/M said a barrel obstruction?? I've always reloaded and after buying my first old shotgun the next day I went out and bought a MEC single stage reloader.
All the best

I watched this happen in the late 1970's at the Darwin Gun Club, Older gentleman shooting a very nice english (I think ) SxS probablly using AA 1 1/8 factory loads,split just like that,just a bit further forward' didn'n lose any fingers, made a hell of a noise. Gun had just come back from a full refurbish in Melbourne (I Think), the barrell had been reamed paper thin. Marakai would know this man if he is still alive (the owner not Marakai), had a few nice double rifles including a Woodward .303

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