doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Double Rifles, Paradox Guns & Gauge Rifles @ doublegunshop.com .577 BP. Qest to Marakkai and the other owners

I've been presented by .577 BP Express made by Sauer, s/n 67xxx. The gun is in very bad condition, but rifling is good still. Now I'm in the middle of deep restoration, all ribs are soldering out from barrels and barrels began look like barrels after many hours of hard work.
Next step is bbls regulating, but before it I have to find the right loads and bullet weight.
The brass case looks a bit different from what Marakkai's shown on his web site, it's slightly tapered straight 24G case.
I got bullet molding stuff with this rifle, but I can't say the bullet weight right now, no weights on hands, but bullet is conical.
So what you'd suggest, BP powder type or substitutes, and loads. Thank's.

The gun was originally made for black powder, so I would be inclined to start with black powder loads, more or less fill the case up with 2F or 1F grade powder. Be sure to use a drop tube while loading.
I think that if you are using hollow base bullets (mini balls) , the thickness of the skirt is going to be extremely important to achieving accuracy as well as using a very soft alloy of lead. You may also want to try paper patched solid base bullets.
The greenhill formula (150 diameter square over twist = length) will tell you the maximum length of slug the rifling will stabilize.
Finally, my experience with black powder in general has been that seating the bullet just short of the rifling is more important that the actual charge of powder, in achieving accuracy

cheers Doug

Well, today I made some mesurements, bullet weight is 540 gr, it's double belted conical bullet. Molding stuff looks like original. Rate of twist is from 6 o'clock till 2 1/2 o'clock on 27.5" of barrels length.
Also made chamber cast and the case dimentions are matched to .577 Nitro Express 2.75" shown in Handloader's Manual of Cartrige Convertion, page 683.

Using a twist rate of approximately 1:36", that would allow you a maximum bullet length of about 1.38" or to be on the safe side about 1.25". Remember the express rifles were made for big powder charges and small light bullets in the mistaken belief that they would shoot flatter for long range shooting.

cheers Doug

I agree, I would start loading with black powder. 577's were about 6 dram guns some as much as 7. When was your gun made and how much does the gun weigh? How much do the barrels weigh?

Gun weight is about 9 pounds and barrels is about half of total weight.
Interesting, my friend who gave this DR to me as gift called me today and said he found one more bullet mould from this rifle in his garage and it looked like 650 gr bullet.
I don't know when the gun made, but proofs are post 1891 and pre-1912.

People say it's 1897.

I would have thought your gun would weigh in at at least 10lbs. Have you had it weighed accurately? The guns weight will give you an indication of the load.

Plus or minus couple of oz. I digged through all net, but didn't find no one German made BPE in large caliber to compare with, but some time ago I saw German 500 BPE and it was less, than 9 pounds as well. As soon as Englishmen never bring their DR themself, they don't care about gun weight, but as soon as can't take too much recoil, because they are feeble nation, their DR are too heavy

Well, then the weight tells us nothing except you going to get a fair amount of recoil! 5 to 6.5 drams of black or the nitro equivelant I would guess. What black powders do you have available?