doublegunshop.com - home Forums Thread Like Summary - lengthening chambers

over the years, many thousands of pre ww2 double guns were made with chambers less than 2 3/4", which is the standard length for most shotgun shells these days...

have noticed that if gun with lengthen chambers is of english make, then some here make a big deal about it...


why is that? so long as there is sufficent metal left in front of the chambers for safe shooting, what difference does it make?

Ed is only bringing this up cause he has some English guns for sale for once.

Any gun that has safely endured 100 years of any load available in a hardware store should be able to endure another shot. However, if you take a bunch of metal out of the inside of the bore, all bets are off.

No edd do some work yourself.

I will not take metal out of the inside of any shotgun barrel. I don't care how short the chambers are, I can make shotgun shells that will work just fine. Sherman Bell's actual comment on long shells in short chambers is "The pressure rise in very small. Shoot shells that don't exceed the pressure range that is proper for the gun, regardless of the length of the shell." Using that thinking, I load and shoot 2 3/4" shells in 2 1/2" chambers when I feel like it, but load them to low pressure and reasonable shot charge. Right now, I'm way ahead in loading 2 1/2" shells, have plenty, so I don't worry about 2 3/4" shells. By the way, my 375 Ponsness Warren is a standard 2 3/4" loader with a sizing die that I made myself from a standard 2 3/4" die. That is the only modification and didn't cost me a cent. I probably paid about $65.00 for the loader 35 or 40 years ago.

Ed, if you haven’t noticed yet, originality is prized among collectors of vintage guns. None more so than American collectors of American makes. Lengthening the chambers is messing with originality, regardless of being safe or not. It’s not any more complicated than that and the quest for originality covers all aspects of the gun, not just the chambers.

Too easy to find proper loads on the internet or roll them yourself. And as we have covered many times it is not how long but how high pressure they are that is important. A 600Jr and a hundred dollars of stuff will make a lot of proper loads for shorter chambered guns. So why ream them out and hope they still have enough metal to shoot too high pressure loads?

It takes a gun out of proof and Stan is correct,and edd is fishing for something

Back in the mid-70's, I bought a between the wars Sauer 16ga as a graduation present to myself when I completed my MA. It had short chambers. I had them lengthened, after which I fired hundreds of high brass pheasant loads through that gun. Back then, a lot of gunsmiths did it regularly. But back then, we didn't have very many gunsmiths--nor gun dealers--who specialized in classic doubles. Thanks to places like this, and to Double Gun Journal, pretty much anyone who has more than a passing interest in a classic sxs knows better now.

It's of great consequence to someone wanting a original in proof gun whether uk Spanish Belgian French you must be trying to hawk out of proof guns and looking for a pass from the academy .