doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 14 gauge shotshells

Maybe chamber sleeve it to 16? I was more interested in the Purdey part than the chamber sleeve part.

Best,
Ted

That might work but larger bores than standard and cold weather do not play well together. Even 50 deg and things go south.
The current trend toward .737 bores in a 12 ga are troublesome. I’ve been testing and even at 80 deg velocity loss is significant.

One question I have is instead of re boring guns why not make smaller wads and shot cups if they are an improvement?
(They are not)

I had a Darne 12 gauge that somebody (I know who, but, we’ll just leave it at that) treated to a massive backbore. I can remember being at the club with a box of the new, at the time, Winchester low noise and recoil ammunition to shoot some clays-the gun was under 6 lbs, and I figured lower recoil should be a good thing. It wasn’t cold, but, it pretty much sounded like I loaded 25 bloopers during that round. Performance was subpar.

I switched to my MacNaughton 12, a gun originally proofed as a 13 bore, shot the same loads, and, viola’, I was back in the game.

Chamber a Winchester AA super handicap 7 1/2 shot load and grouse fell from the sky. Either gun. But, the Darne was handier in the woods, by far.

Best,
Ted

Maybe more than most guys, I pay attention to what the temp is when I shoot, by the way. It isn’t just the ammunition, either, those single triggers I hate so much come out when I ‘gotta wear gloves, I just got a new stock on the Silver Snipe 12 and the kid and I have been out with it just enough to know the LOP will work much better for both of us. My dad always loaded hot ammunition in that gun, because the squishy Pachmeyer pad he put on it interfered with the inertia single trigger. When the pad got old, and hard, that quit happening. I didn’t put a pad on the new stock.

Historically, I wander out with the ‘snipe during the waning weeks of the Minnesota pheasant season. If it is very cold, and the Vikings are still in the hunt (Pun!) so to speak, I’ve got whatever field pretty much to myself. That circumstance hasn’t occurred for a few years. But, I take it when I can get it. The hunting is tough, but, walking over a slew when it is frozen beats walking around it every time. The birds are spooked by that time of the year, and I load Federal “Pheasants Forever” 1 1/4 oz loads of 5s and 6s in the ‘snipes modified and improved modified 26” barrels.That load might be just outside what the gun was proofed for, as it is standard Italian proof, unlike my BL-3 20 gauge, with superior proof, and 3” chambers.

But, there isn’t a whole lot of shooting at that point in the season. I don’t have enough time left to be concerned about hurting that gun with 1 to perhaps 5 rounds of ammunition in the fall.

Best,
Ted

or buy a pair of little skeeter 12 ga chamber inserts, made to shoot 28 gauge shell...turn them down to fit 14 gauge chambers...load and shoot...

https://www.littleskeeters.com/

I tried Parabolas suggestion here and it worked great with one swipe of wide painters tape starting just past rim on my 16ga low pressure reloads was even able to reload once. Ched/rio hulls high brass


Parabola

Re: 14ga help
Jtplumb #635986 10/01/23 03:03 AM
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Parabola
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In one of the later issues of DGJ Ross Seyfried described shooting a black powder 14 bore gun.

As I recall he used 16 bore cases, wrapped with tape to be a sliding fit to the chambers and the 16 bore rim gave sufficient purchase for the 14 bore extractor to work.

16 bore Black Powder loads would be a good starting point.