Hello mates,sorry to disturb you! I have a sxs Chas Osborne 12 gauge shotgun and i send it over to gunsmith for repairing since i wasn't happy with the pattern of the shotgun.After 2 months the gunsmith kindly informed me that,the barrels were .37 thou and .44 thou.After, they have bored and regulated the barrels to 3/4 and Full(ie .30 thou and .40 thou). This is exactly what the gunsmith wrote me in their e-mail.

Can any of you gents explain me what does this mean in particular?

All the best!!

Kem

Sounds like your man has merely opened the chokes from the original 37 & 44 thou to 30 and 40 thou.
Thats a fairly basic procedure but 'regulation' is an entirely different ballgame where you are looking at the percentage of the shot load in a 30" circle at say 30 yards, or whatever you decide, using a specific cartridge, shot size etc. As a rule of thumb 3/4 choke should equate to 65% (shot within the 30" circle) and Full choke 70% within the circle.
Honing the chokes to 3/4 & full may (or may not) give these rsults with your gun & chosen cartridge, its very much a trial and error job. I doubt if anyone is lucky enough to get these things bang on.
I am sure someone will come along to explain this better than I.

Regulating a shot gun is purely about specifics.
To shoot a predetermined percentage pattern at a set distance with particular cartridge .
EG. To shoot 70% within a 30" circle at 40 yards using a fibre wadded Winchester "Game" No 6 shot .
The gun will be fired several times and then have the chokes opened if the pattern is too tight . It is a matter of trial and patience that can take time , but with modern cartridges being very consistent most guns with standard bored chokes will shoot reasonable patterns . It is the older guns that may need to have choke cones as well as choke bored to give you what you want
Regulating a shotgun is not about where the gun shoots no matter what any one else tells you , that is down to the user to learn and take into account when calculating lead .

Much of the rest of the world's knowledgeable doublegun builders (shotgun and rifle) and smiths use the term "regulation" to refer to where the individual barrels deliver their payload in relation to each other. What is strived for is that both barrels shoot to the same point of impact at a certain distance. gunman, in his above post, seems not to ascribe to this, preferring to relate regulation to pattern percentages at a certain distance. A simple search of the internet for "barrel regulation" will provide an abundance of evidence, and information, about how barrels are regulated to shoot to the same point of impact. Double rifles are much more finicky about this, most having to be used with a particular load in order to deliver bullets to the same POI.

If a shotgun is regulated to shoot both barrels to the same point at, say 30 yards, when manufactured by the maker, it will usually continue to do so with the chokes opened up, providing that the smith who does the work is knowledgable enough to pilot the choke reamer with the bore axis. Nonetheless, he should check for regulation before and after the work is done, as a matter of professionalism. There is a chance that the barrels were not properly regulated when he received the gun, and some will test fire it before doing the work to see what they are working with. Sadly, many gunsmiths don't care about such critical details. Better doublegun smiths do care, tho'. There are several who post on here that have very high standards for their work.

SRH

That's also how I interpret regulation. Makes little difference what percentages your gun throws if the patterns don't go where they're supposed to. Patterning a shotgun for point of impact (POI) is actually a 2 step process. First, you have to make sure the gun shoots where it's supposed to, which you do by aiming it (some people do so from a rest of some sort) to determine that the pattern is centered on your aim point. If the barrels are "properly regulated", the patterns will hit where you're aiming the gun. The second step is to make sure that the gun fits the shooter. If it doesn't, the pattern won't end up where it's supposed to, even if the barrels are properly regulated. (To paraphrase OJ's lawyer, when you're shooting at a moving target: "If the gun don't fit, you will not hit.") That involves mounting and firing without "aiming", but rather pointing the gun as you would at a clay target or bird in flight. You may then have to make stock adjustments--drop or cast--to make sure that the gun's fit is also properly "regulated" so that the patterns end up where you're looking when you mount and fire at a moving target.

Getting the appropriate % of shot in a pattern at 40 yards is a question of choke regulation, not barrel regulation. As Stan points out, if the gunsmith doesn't mess things up, opening choke shouldn't impact barrel regulation. The pattern should stay in the same place, but with fewer pellet strikes in the 30" circle.

There appears to be 2 definitions of 'regulation' in play. Certainly poi for both double rifles & shotguns was perhaps the prime use. Howevever in the case of the op, he had a patterning problem which was 'perhaps' remedied by his gunsmith adjusting the chokes. Nothing said about moving the poi, or for that matter he did not appear to claim that there was a poi problem.
In my limited experience adjusting chokes to give the desired pattern has been called regulation, patterning, and plating. With 'regulation by far the most common term.

Gunman . That's me has been involved in the building /rebuilding of double guns for 45 year I feel I am qualified to make an informed comment as to what is correct and what is fantasy written by people who have never worked on or had any experience of gun making .
Shotgun barrels on a side by side are made so the tubes at the muzzle touch and are in parallel to the centres at the breech in a horizontal plain .
To make a double side by side that shoots over lapping patterns at 40 yard you will need to have the muzzle's spaced about 3/8" with a rib that stand 1/2" high of the tubes , work it out mathematically if you want , making a shot gun look like a double rifle .
I am sorry if this goes against what you would like to believe but as Granny said the truth often stings.

I think I see what you're driving at, Gunman. Continuing the thought, wouldn't it be easier to regulate a O/U than a SXS?

Well i thank every1 thats trying to explain but,can somebody explain me what happened exactly to the gun in question ?

All the best,

Kem

Yes , some O/Us have spacers between the muzzles for this reason as with a higher ribs .Some tests I did showed that a B25 for example shot high on the bottom barrel but flat with the top as did several other modern production guns , so fitting a higher rib split the difference so to speak . Shoot solid slugs and see, a friend did , hit the mark top but shot over the top with the bottom
Side by sides will shoot on average , Right , high and left of centre at 25yards the opposite with the left . Its the nature of the gun . To those who argue that the barrel noses/muzzle's are altered so as to make a gun shoot to "point of aim " how do you do that to a gun with brazed ribs ?
No body ever sat down and worked it out. Barrel making just continued in progression from the first double flint locks , I doubt Messer Purdey , Smith , Fox or Greener even gave it a thought .

Most likely all that has been done is the chokes have been opened up. Perhaps shot to see what the pattern looks like if you requested it for a specific load and to make sure they are close to where expected.

I often chuckle aloud when I hear some shooter claim his misses are the result of a gun not shooting to his point of aim because the pattern was 2" high or 4" off at 30 or 40 yards. Take a 2 X 4 and stand it at 30 yards with either edgewise or large side facing you. Then take a 30" circle of cardboard and nail it to the 2 X 4 and see the relationship of your pattern to the 2" or 4" point of impact error. Perhaps 6" or more at 40 yards is a problem but not a couple inches.

Real problem many shooters have is estimating distances and perhaps too tightly choked bores. If your gun is too tightly choked your pattern will be smaller than expected. If you can not estimate distance correctly your leads will never be correct. A 30" pattern gives you what in reality is a plus or minus 12-15", call it one foot margin of error, for centering the bird or target, because the edges of any pattern tend to be very thin.

Do the math. If a crossing bird travels say ten feet at thirty yards while the shot travels 30 yards and is centered in your pattern, if it travels more than eleven feet at 40 yards, which it will, you will miss if you do not know the difference in distance between 30 and 40 yards and change your lead. Some will point out the pattern spreads more in distance but it is a cone shape not a cylinder so a 30" pattern at 30 will be larger and more full of gaps at 40 yards or tighter and smaller at 30 yards if 30" at 40 yards. Get the distance right to get the lead right or every shot is largely luck.

I did the calculations for Teal once and figured I needed to be within 2 yards plus or minus to hit them with consistency at 30 to 40 yards. Since they are still in great numbers I never master the distance estimation in their case but I still love shooting them.

Now if you really want to get it right you need to figure angles into our equations, as well as distance, but I left my pocket protractor at home. On a 90° crossing bird the lead is more than at 45° or at 30°. We will leave deflection, raising birds, speed changes, and falling birds for another day.

Kem, I would think the only way to receive a suitable answer to your question would be to talk with the man who did the work, and see what he means by regulation.

SRH

Not quite certain I am following you here. What exactly are you saying the barrels are parallel to.

If you have two tubes of equal diameter and lay them on a surface table the they will be on a horizontal plain .Gun barrels are put together so that they are parallel in the same way . It is so when you look down them one tube does not stand higher than the other .

Kem, basically your man has bored your bore you chokes out .

OK, Gunman and others, typically are the tubes joined perfectly straight or do they have a slight curve in the bores? That is, are they pulled together along the way to the muzzle to get them to shoot to basically the same point of impact at say 40 yards?

I have 'properly' patterned one gun .... that is to say, 5 shots from each (pre dirtied) barrel at 40 yards with a given cartridge, draw 30" circle (afterwards) - count pellets and work out percentage. Honestly - hard work with 6' square paper sheets that catch the slightest breath of wind. Didn't learn much - except its hard to do! Resultant patterns were a little tighter than the bore dimensions indicated, but the cartridge used had a plastic wad.
I have shot about half my guns at a pattern plate during fittings. This was to adjust the stock dimensions to shoot where I thought it should. None of my guns showed any significant difference between left and right, or top and bottom in the pattern centre. Where they shot LOW, or LEFT, stock alterations have been made.

Well yeah Sure, I'm not a Gunmaker of long years experience but have basically realised this ever since I owned my first SxS back in 1955. Quite obviously one doesn't want one of the barrels pointing up toward the Sy & the other Down toward mother earth. This is so elementary is not really worthy of mentioning. What may not be so obvious to some but should be if one uses any power of observation is that the two barrels "Converge" from breech to muzzle, All The Way Down. That my Friend is where the "Regulation" occurs. Even if they were calculated out where to sit & so set at their original assembly with no further adjustment made to them they were regulated. Admittedly some guns get more care in this regulating than others & hence are apt to "Shoot Together". As stated earlier by another poster barrel regulation & choke regulation are entirely two different matters. Both can be done with great care & consideration or both can be done on a Hit or Miss basis. A "Good Gun" doesn't just have the barrels thrown up there & soldered in where ever they happen to land.

Piper , One day you and I will see eye to eye over something .I live In hope .
Those who have never worked in a barrel shop may not fully understand how they are made on a production basis .Look up YouTube there several good examples .
Gunmakers , Purdey , LC Smith or AyA machine a standard action body with predetermined striker centres. The barrels are made so the centres at the breech match those of the action .

Barrels are made in lengths from 25" to 30" based on these centres, they are put together so as the tubes touch at the muzzle with the tubes straight ,no bows or bends , that's it .
No one has calculated convergences if they had you would never see a side by side with tubes that touch at the muzzles .
If you compare an older Grant with wide centres to a modern gun like the AyA that has narrower centres both with 28" barrels it will be obvious that the two guns can not possibly shoot to the same place at the same distance so how can they be regulated?

Fact is had you asked me 30 years ago I would have said the a 28" SxS would have had over lapping patterns at 30 yards , 15 years ago I found I was wrong and it came as quite a surprise .

The problem that long held beliefs often compounded by well intentioned writers who have repeated these without question as they were told it as "fact" are hard to put aside, so there is no point in Me saying anything that is untrue as it is my credibility at stake .
I can not explain any clearer than I have tried to and hope that those reading gain some understanding of actual gunmaking process not "what every one knows ", dispelling a few myths along the way .

Yes i am quite aware that the barrels are set in as straight as possible to make them & are not bent. I am also fully aware as would be anyone who has followed this board for any length of time with an open mind that it is not 100% given that "ALL" muzzles touch one another on a factory original with un-cut barrels. Numerous instances have been reported on which they did not touch & with barrels which lettered as original to the gun. These will nearly always be found on guns having barrels in the area of 26" length. Obviously there was a reason for this. In drawings extant from the US maker L C Smith, precise angles at which the bores are set to one another by them are given. Also shown is the point in front of the muzzles where a continuation of the bore axises would cross & the distance apart which this same continuation would have at 40 yds. I can assure you that if the gun actually placed its load at the exact point to which the bores point in a static position success with a SxS double would be virtually non-existent. When I used the term "Calculated" I was not necessarily speaking of doing a long mathematical formula, but this most likely came about through trial & error in the early days of double making. Whether you choose to admit it or not, to assemble the two barrels in such a matter as for them to place the load from each barrel to as near as possible to the same point "IS" their regulation. I am not implying here that shot barrels are continuously shot & tweaked but that they are assembled to a pre-determined regulation. There is of course more leeway with a shotgun than a double rifle, but never-the-less for success it is necessary that both barrels shoot to very near the same point.

Apparently, Holland & Holland disagrees with gunman re shotguns shooting to point of aim. From Vic Venters' book "Gun Craft", chapter entitled "Hand-Regulating Chokes"--which is based on a visit Venters made to H&H, and an interview with barrel guru Steve Cranston:

"Cranston's ultimate goals are to ensure that the gun prints its patterns to point of aim . . ."

Further on, same chapter: "At the most fundamental, Holland's entire barrelmaking process--including Cranston's careful choke regulation--does assure that the chamber, forcing cone, bore, choke cone and parallel are all concentric with one another and that both barrels will print where pointed when fed appropriate loads."

If the right barrel typically throws its pattern high and left of center at 25 yards and the left the opposite, then the patterns from the two barrels would be farther off in their respective directions at 40 yards . . . and it'd be a bloody miracle if you hit anything, especially with a tight choke (which you start to need at that range). That is, unless the distance from point of aim is only very slight, so that the patterns mostly overlap, even if not perfectly.

And if shooting to point of aim isn't what we should expect to get, then those who use try guns and pattern plates to do a fitting must be wasting their time.

Obviously, shotguns aren't rifles, and the spread of a pattern will compensate for relatively small divergences from point of aim. But they'd better be really small at close range--one standard distance to evaluate barrels shooting to point of aim being 16 yards--or they're going to become pretty significant at longer range.

Gents you can believe what you like ,that the world is flat or that that using a certain after shave makes you irritable to women . Must be true I have seen it in a magazine and on the internet .

Mr Brown a single shotgun barrel will shoot where it is pointed it is impossible for it not to do so . But a pair of shotgun barrels is a different matter .
Sorry but there is no point in my continuing this thread as I can see I am not able to persuade you to my point of view , not being childish just don't like banging my head against a wall.

Pretty much a contradiction to what you said in the earlier post.



OBTW, didn't you mean irresistable, instead of irritable?

SRH

Gentlemen, I see what Gunman is trying to describe and tend to agree with him. I cannot speak for guns such as Holland's but believe his statement to be true for the vast majority of guns. For instance, a 2 frame Parker has a set distance between the firing pins and whether the barrels were made 26", 28" or 32" they touch at the muzzle. And I seriously doubt there was any tweaking of the chokes to change point of impact. In a factory setting producing large numbers of guns there simply wouldn't have been time for such niceties. And no one is going to convince me that makers in the Gun Quarter in Birmingham took their guns to a shooting area outside of town and went through the profitless process of regulating POI on each gun. It just makes sense the tubes were carefully joined on the same plane and that was that. Just MHO so pardon my ignorance.

Well . . . they're not rifles, and the fact that you're throwing a pattern with a fairly wide spread makes up for some SLIGHT differences in shooting to point of aim. But think of it this way: If the right barrel were off significantly one way and the left barrel were off significantly in the other direction, then the shooters would have to think: "OK, now I'm shooting my right barrel, which means I have to compensate in this direction; woops, now it's the left barrel, so I have to compensate in the opposite direction. Chaos. But even double rifles are made so that the barrels shoot to the same point of aim at a given distance--and while a double rifle isn't a real long range weapon, we're talking longer ranges than even long shots with a shotgun. If it can be done satisfactorily with a double rifle, why not with a double shotgun?

Last year I sent a vintage American gun of excellent quality to a good barrel man to have the chokes opened up. But out of curiosity I also asked him to pattern it before, during and after "regulating". He called one day and began by saying "these barrels must have been joined on a Monday by someone who had a bad weekend". He went on with describing how one barrel shot to POI but the right shot about six inches out at 16 yards! He did ask if I wanted it fixed cause as is the gun gave me plenty of excuses for my frequent misses. Feeling I had enough other ways to explain away my misses I told him to go ahead. Well, with a lot of reaming, polishing and patterning he brought them to the same POI. fortunately the muzzles had a lot of metal to work with. Point of this post is that even one of the premier makers did not take time to fine tune where they shot.

Incidentally, shop rates at the pattern board were enough to buy many flats of ammunition.

I intentionally left off the maker so this thread wouldn't turn into a spitting match. But they were good.

Maybe that example goes to the point of the original thought. Even if the manufacturer didn't do it, it's possible for a smith to change the point of impact or have a different goal of regulating a gun than changing bore or choke dimensions. The thing I was thinking though is that I've noticed point of impact can change some between shooters. Maybe based on how the gun recoils for their hold, particularly the lower the velocity.

First & Foremost "NO" reputable gunmaker built that reputation by putting out guns of which the Surer your hold the more certain you were to "Miss". To say those barrels were not "Tweaked" after their original assembly is one thing. To say they were totally Sans Regulation is another thing altogether. They were by design assembled in such a predetermined way as to within reason assure they would Hit with reasonable accuracy for a shotgun to the same point of aim. That in & of itself is regulation. From what knowledge I have seen in the past "Long Before the Internet" many gunmakers did maintain an in House shooting range & did fire their guns for both pattern & placement. No doubt only in severe cases was any further action needed, & even then no doubt a few slipped through the cracks, as witnessed by Joe's gun.
To imply as gunman did that the only consideration was that the muzzles touch with total disregard as to whether they shot to point of aim, I simply Cannot & Do Not accept. As I said in an earlier post on this same thread Not All SxS doubles left the factory with the muzzles touching. It is not uncommon to find a short barreled gun built on a wide frame with a factory installed keel between the barrels at the muzzle. Why, well simple, to have placed them together would have created a cross firing gun.

And old friend of mine, a gunsmith, had a pretty serious trap shooter for a neighbor. Chuck told me about tinkering with the choke on the trap gun, making it slightly eccentric, in order to move the pattern. (Might well have been a double, probably an OU, but can't recall for sure.) Time consuming, but per the above, it can be done. But while I don't claim to have looked at nearly as many patterns as someone like Bob Brister, the ones I have shot pretty much tell me that most sxs--even relatively inexpensive ones--aren't off a great deal when it comes to shooting to point of aim. I can only recall one example that was really bad. Close to as bad as the one in Joe's post.

I haven't found that to be the case, Larry. I have seen many S x S and O/U that weren't regulated. In fact, so many that, when I buy a gun, I "hold my breath" until I pattern it and see if it is regulated or not. I have found many that were not. Maybe I'm just "lucky".

Beretta told us years ago that they will not provide corrective action on a double they built unless it is off by more than 8", I think at 25 yds. Eight inches is horrible, IMO. I will not own a gun that is off by that much.

SRH

I had a similar experience as Joe. A Belgian Janssen et Fils 3" 12ga I got for waterfowling was giving me fits until Tom Hall and I patterened it. The chokes had been opened a bit from the extra full they like to put on these guns it was done badly, the gun shooting about 2 feet low and right from the right barrel, not much better from the left.

A trip to Mike Orlen put it back in regulation, he was able to straighten out the chokes while opening them a bit more. Now I actually manage to shoot ducks and brant with it. The gun was badly regulated.

Eightbore and I believe that side by side barrels are curved in the horizontal plane, like two bananas back to back. My shooting student Joe Wood reports that the gunsmith at Skeets stated that side by side barrels are curved, referring to the curve as "English".

A thread on the Parker board I started on the subject: http://parkerguns.org/forums/showthread.php?t=12251&highlight=swamped

Thought provoking point Mike, but I think that link just notes that the center line of the two bores converge at some point or another in the muzzle direction. It doesn't seem to show if there is any curve in the bore between the breech and muzzle. I'd still suspect the point where a gun bore sights to and where it patterns is probably different, and maybe it should be patterned with a hold that's similar to how it will be used.

I wouldn't put up with one that bad either, Stan. Maybe you and I have been on opposite ends of the "luck" spectrum in this regard. Nice to know I'm lucky in some things!

AmarilloMike and I have been back and forth on this subject for quite a long time. I did tell him what comments one very good barrel man had. However, he did not say all were done, just that he had run into it and before doing any choke work he first determines if they're straight or not. If not, he pilots the choke work from the muzzle. I have a hard time believing the vast majority of builders did anything but "regulate" straight tubes while in the jig and ready for soldering the ribs on. And usually they got it very close. It is just beyond credibility to think the guns were taken to a shooting area and shot for POI and then ribs loosened and barrels moved, etc. I mean, does anyone really believe that when Ithaca was making a couple hundred thousand Nitro Specials they did anything like "regulating"? Comm'on.....or, how about many Spanish guns that have the ribs brazed on. The only way to remove the ribs is with a hacksaw.

Joe, obviously the barrelsmith believed that they were deliberately curved, not just a factory defect or poor workmanship. I don't know that that is clear from your post.

Even if Ithaca didn't regulate the Nitro Specials it doesn't mean they didn't regulate their Sousa Grade double trap guns either. Same with Parker Trojans and Parker AAHE pigeon guns. Same with Sterlingworths and Fox HEs.

Maybe they were intentionally curved, but I believe there are references in historical writings about how shotgun tubes were evaluated for straightness and corrected. It wouldn't surprise me though if the uneven heating and attachment of a rib system might not distort some curve into finished barrels. I'd think depending on the gun enough was invested at that point to not worry too much about it, but probably good to be aware of if it needs barrel smithing later.

I surely don't know enough about sxs guns to argue with any of you gentlemen, but I will report my recent experience with a Spanish gun. It was made in the 70s, but still very tight when I bought it, like it had hardly been shot at all. The triggers were nearly 10 pounds, so that was likely part of the reason that it hadn't been used much, but the barrel regulation was just awful.

The left barrel shot way to the right and the right barrel shot way to the left. If you had shot at a stationary clay target at 30 yards, you wouldn't have touched it with either barrel. I can only imagine the frustration that shooters had with this gun trying to hit flying game. I bought it hoping to make a turkey gun of it, but thought that impossible after patterning. And it was consistent with every load I tried; left barrel shot to the right and right barrel to the left.

I didn't pay a lot for it and told my son in law that I was gonna leave it at our camp for a gun to shoot the occasional varmint; just remember which side to aim. Then a guy on another forum told me how to file the chokes to move the patterns. With nothing to lose, I decided to give it a try. I started removing metal on the outside of the left barrel to move the pattern back to center. It was only after removing about half the metal at the very end of the barrel that the pattern started to move, and then it moved quickly. I got it close to center for my field load, and then did the same with the right barrel.

When I tried my heavier turkey load, I found that the left barrel was perfect, but I had gone too far with the right barrel for the heavier load - it now shot to right. I had no idea if I could undo what I'd done, but gave it a try by doing a little filing on the inside edge. Just a few licks with the file and the right barrel was centered.

I killed a turkey with the gun this spring, and it centers well with both barrels. However, it will only center the heavy turkey loads. Lighter loads are still off a little, though much better than before. It was an interesting project.

coosa that is great information and a great post. Thanks!

Chuck H. also reported that he regulated a 410 by filing the "chokes" to center the pattern.

The Barrel drawings in the L C Smith Plans & Specifications show the barrels set to converge at a definite angle. They also give the breech spacing & the muzzle spacing, the pint where the extended axises would cross & the distance apart the extended axises would be at 40 yds. It is "Extremely" easy mathematics to calculate that all dimensions are worked out with "Straight" bores. If a barrel is curved to any extent at all you can "SEE" it with the naked eye from either the inside or outside. I acquired my first double in 1954. In 60 years of looking at double barrel shotguns i have "NEVER" seen one from a JABC up to some much higher grade guns than I have personally owned & have yet to see one with the barrels swamped in like two Bananas back to back. "IF" you have such a gun please do take some good pics of it, take measurements of the barrel diameters at regular intervals & then the width across their outsides at the same intervals & post it all. In other words "Put Up or Shut Up". Double barrels simply are "NOT" assembled in that manner.

Glad you found it interesting, Mike. Last year about this time I posted on here about my previous attempt at making a sxs turkey gun. I bought a cheap Yildiz and had the barrels cut to 24", shortened the stock and added a thick recoil pad, and got the weight down to 5 lbs 2 oz. It shot field loads fine, but shot wall-eyed with the turkey loads - right barrel shot right and left barrel shot left. It was a problem I couldn't solve, so I had Brileys make eccentric chokes and made the gun usable, but it didn't throw very good patterns. Since I know how to file a choke now, I'm gonna try filing one of the cheap chokes I have for it and see if it will be an improvement over the eccentric chokes. Only problem with the Yildiz is that it doesn't have enough triggers.

I'm not sure I understand some of the discussion in this thread, but I thought that all sxs guns had barrel convergence to account for the recoil. If they were perfectly parallel, I'd think they would shoot wall-eyed unless you were using extremely light loads. My thinking is that my Spanish gun was set up with too much convergence, while the Yildiz had the correct amount but it was meant to shoot light field loads. Both barrels of it shot to poa with 1 oz loads; the gun does what it was meant to do and I'm trying to do something with it that the makers never intended. The Spanish gun originally wouldn't shoot anything to poa; I think this was just a flaw in the way its put together.

Its really easy to see the progression in the Yildiz, especially in the right barrel. The heavier the load, the more it shoots to the right. I think to get a light weight sxs that will shoot heavy loads to poa, I'd have to get someone to make me a gun with more convergence than normal. That, or take a file to it, and I gotta believe that is a detriment to the patterns. The Yildiz threw excellent patterns with straight chokes; it just wouldn't center them. The Spanish gun shoots better patterns than the Yildiz does with its eccentric chokes, but they still aren't as good as what its possible to get with a special turkey choke.

The combination I'm using of lightweight guns and heavy loads no doubt exaggerates barrel regulation problems. For most of the readers here, it might never be much of an issue.

Thanks to all for the great info posted here. I don't post often because I don't have the level of knowledge of the regular posters here, but maybe some of my trials with my turkey guns will help someone with a barrel regulation problem.

I know many will cringe at the idea of taking a file to a nice sxs, but remember that these are cheap guns that I am experimenting with for the fun of it more than anything else. I don't plan on chopping up a nice sxs.

Mike,

S x S barrels are not curved the way you say. this is an optical illusion that is created by the way the barrels are turned, then struck. Plus, it is exacerbated by the fact that you cannot see the same curves on the inside, between the ribs. I have removed the ribs from S x S guns and that illusion goes away. They then look perfectly straight, as they are.

The easiest way to tell if any barrel is not straight is by looking down the bores at the concentric rings made by the light reflecting at different distances from the eye. If the barrel is straight the rings will be evenly spaced all the way around. If not, they will be closer together on the side with the "inside of the curve". This can be done with smoothbores and rifled barrels as well, though it is a bit easier with a shotgun for me.

SRH

Stan if they are perfectly straight then there are a lot of barrels shooting cross-eyed.

The angle between the two barrels is different for different guns. A Parker 2 frame 12 gauge with factory 26" barrels has a different angle between its barrels than a Parker 2 frame 12 gauge with 34" barrels.

The Skeets gunsmith agrees with me.

Mike, are you folks thinking both barrels curve enough that the muzzles have some parallel segment. At the muzzle end, are both barrels looking parallel, not cross-eyed. And, they're shooting parallel to each other.

There ARE a lot of them shooting crossed. I have run into many that were not regulated. IME, when a S x S is not regulated it is usually shooting across, i.e. the left bbl will print too far right, or the right barrel will print to far left. The bore rings don't lie, Mike. They cannot be perfectly round and concentric if the barrels are not straight. Look down the bores of a really clean barrel at them.

I watched a Beretta video awhile back, made at the factory. One of the segments was about a craftsman there who was a barrel straightener. That's all he did, straighten tubes to perfection with a press. Not a barrel curver, but a barrel straightener.

SRH

P.S. I agree the barrels are angled, in relation to each other, and the angles are different on different guns. But, they are angled without being curved individually.

SRH

Mike and anyone else. Joe Wood sent me the Nov. 1937 American Rifleman article "Making Double Shotgun Barrels" by A.P. Curtis some time ago. He discusses barrel straightening and joining. "Great care here is necessary to see that the tubes lie in the same plane, and are properly adjusted to prevent cross-firing."
I'd be happy to forward the article to anyone if you'll e-mail me at revdoc2@cox.net

No. When the right barrel is fired I think the barrels rotate to the right as the shot goes down the barrel and that the muzzle is both displaced and moving to the right as the shot comes out of the muzzle. Of course mirror image when the left barrel is fired.

The O/U hangar Kreighoffs have hangars that adjust the vertical point of impact from one barrel to the other. If you want the POI the bottom barrel to move up you put in a shorter hanger. If you want the POI to move down you put in a longer hangar. Adjusting POI by curving the barrels does not require a press.

Fact #1;
Drawing for L C Smith 30 12ga FW barrel. C/l's at breech separated by 1.156", at muzzle by .8175" for a taper in 30" of .3385" or .0113" per inch. Continuation of bore Axis cross at 72.452" from muzzle or about 6 feet & a half inch. A continuation of bore axis to 40 yards shows a cross point of 15.43"
Fact #2;
The impact of the center of the pattern is Not exactly to the same place the bore points in a static position, if it were ALL doubles as built would cross fire.

Hear-Say;
Rule of Three:
My Third Wifes Third sister's Third Father-in Law worked for a gunmaker in '33. He was employed there for Three months, but they fired him. Reason, he insisted on bending the last Three inches of the barrels so they would lay parallel to Shoot to point of Aim. The company didn't want that bu he insisted it had to be done that way so the barrels would shoot together. They told him they didn't want them to shoot that good, if people missed a lot more they could sell Three times as much Ammo.
Ain't it kinda funny how many people would buy that, that won't buy established FACT.

Miller Joe Wood talked to the Skeets gunsmith a couple of weeks ago. Joe Wood relayed that part of the conversation to me. Joe Wood acknowledged in a previous post on this thread that that is what the smith said. No third wives, third sisters, third father-in-laws involved.

Mike, once again, he did not say all barrels are bent but that he had seen some that were. That's why he checks before deciding which way to do the choke work.

Fair enough.

I have little doubt that considering the number of doubles produced over the centuries that some amount of those have gone out with "Bent" barrels. As of yet I have seen nothing to definitely indicate they were bent on purpose. There is Vast evidence extant that indeed great effort was applied to have them as Straight as possible. The fact that Joe's gunsmith checks a barrel for straightness prior to doing choke Work on them simply indicates he is most likely a competent Smith, does not on any way prove any of those barrels were intentionally Bent
The Rule of Three was of course meant as a bit of Sarcasm, in actuality I have had One Wife for a bit over 54 years now, though she does have Three Sisters, well Half Sisters to be totally accurate.
I do distinctly recall that several years back 8-Bore did state that barrels on a double ended up parallel at the muzzles for a short distance. I had thought that between several others as well as myself we had educated him beyond that belief, but when you stated that yourself & 8-Bore subscribed to the "Banana" configuration of the barrels I thought perhaps you were also subscribing to That Theory. The "Preponderance of the Evidence" certainly indicates otherwise.
It is true of course that a barrel can be bent by hand pressure without a press. It is also equally true that upon release the barrel will return to its original configuration. The reason the old time barrel makers used the press to straighten barrels was they had to be pushed to their yield Point so they would Stay Straight for assembly.
After Acquiring the L C Smith plans book & seeing the barrel assembly drawing I carefully measure barrel diameters & widths across their outsides at regular intervals. Even though of other brands they were all real close to that .011" per inch of convergence. I was also at that point already familiar with looking through the bore at the Rings as Stan mentioned here on this thread. All appeared as straight, "None" showed any signs of a Banana configuration.
Don't take My Word, Don't take the word of Joe's Gunsmith (which I think has been cleared up as being a mis-interpretation of what was actually said). Examine every set of barrels you have available to you. If you can find a set in which the barrels are indeed curved & placed Back to Back, Please do post the evidence, but no more Hear-Say.

Joe's gunsmith indicated that the curve in the barrels was deliberate. Joe and I have had this discussion going on for years. Joe was asking the smith questions in the context of how the smith opened chokes, from the muzzle or a from the breech. Joe questioned specifically as to the curve of the barrels as this is of interest to both of us.

I grasped that the third wives reference was sarcasm. I didn't appreciate it, but I understood that you meant it as sarcasm.

I linked to a thread on the Parker board. There are very specific calculations based on very specific and well known dimensions of Parkers. Please do read that thread.

The curve in the bores is very small. Please post proof that, using your ring sighting method, you are able to spot a curve with a radius of 20 feet in a bore that is 2-1/2 feet long. Or a 30 foot radius. Or a forty foot radius. But I want to see a peer reviewed paper by a scientist or engineer that says you are able, using the ring sighting method, to spot even the smallest curve in a barrel bore. No hear-say. Look down the bottom barrel of a hangered Krieghoff and spot the curve in that using the ring method.

So i have speaked with the gunsmith and he briefly explained me about the work that is done,first of all the muzzle chokes were 3/4 and 3/4 though what i didn't know was the chokes deeper inside the barrel were so tight,"they were even tighter than extra full" the gunsmith told me. He also added that they have opened those chokes to 3/4 and full and also tested the pattern with 28gr loads. I asked him about using higher gr loads such as 30 and 32(thats the max i use),and he replied me " We have tested the gun with 28gr loads,when you use 30 and 32 the pattern will have more points as expected. They will also send me the patterns they shot with the gun.

The reason i sent this gun to the gunsmith was there were big holes in the pattern and i had some trouble killing birds.Most of the time i shot them perfectly and they just wouldnt drop down even if i hit them and i myself tried the pattern on a big panel and saw it and send it immediately to the gunsmith.

I can see a lot of folks have tried to explain the meaning of boring and regulation and i really thank to that, i respect every opinion and the time you spent posting here.

All the best,

Kem

I'd tend to agree all tubes can probably be shown to have some bend, but I'd wonder how the old makers could locate and align such a bend that might not be seen. Once done, how far would that effort move a shot pattern at say thirty yards.

It would be interesting to have an idea how Skeet's smith determines if bend is present. It doesn't seem to be his preferred method, but the reliable solution would be to pilot all choke work from the muzzle end.

I'd guess if he sees trends in barrel bends, however slight, it may be a byproduct of manufacturing. There may be many heating and machining steps that the tubes experience to become a barrel set. I'd think that similar steps could change stresses on the tubes in a similar way on different barrel sets.

The Krieghoff example sounds like a good way to see how visible a slight bend might be, but the purpose may be different than for side by side game guns. I've seen it used more as specialized gunfitting for individual styles rather than to get the barrels to shoot to the same point of impact.

Mike,

I thought we were talking about S x S doubles, not O/U doubles. There is a huge difference. In your "banana" post you were referencing S x Ss, but this issue about Kreighoff O/U is apples and oranges. Just because a K80 has the ability to change the bottom barrel's impact by using interchangeable hangers, that put a slight bend in the bottom barrel, proves nothing about how S x Ss were/are assembled. Ever seen a S x S with adjustable spacers to regulate the barrels? of course not. There is no need to mess with the patterns horizontally on a gun already regulated. With an O/U the purpose is to change how high the pattern hits, in relation to the bead, as it were.

Read this short piece written by Kreighoff. They state that their skeet and sporting guns are delivered with the bottom barrel shooting flat, or 50/50, or "dead under the bead". This can be changed with the hangers. Trap guns are delivered shooting 70/30 (high). Can you prove to me that either of their models are assembled with the barrels ALREADY curved, to get the POI they deliver? Of course changing the hanger will curve them, that's obvious, but has nothing to do with our original discussion, IMO.

Interesting also is that the hangers only shift impact on the bottom barrel, I assume because that top rib gives the top barrel bracing and stability against bending.

http://www.halkguns.com/detail.cfm?g_ID=51

All my best, SRH

Stan my Krieghoff argument counters your argument about the Berreta barrels being straightened in a press. You argued that since the Beretta mechanic was straightening them they had to be straight in the final barrel assembly. The ability to adjust the Krieghoff POI by bending the straight barrels means that the tubes in side by side barrels can be curved when they are assembled, even though the Beretta mechanic previously straightened them, just as the straightened Krieghoff lower barrel can be curved, either up and down, long after it left the factory.

Prove that they don't curve the tubes in a side by side when they assemble them into a barrel set.

I point out again the math I did in the thread on the Parker BBS that I linked to.

And the Skeets smith said that some barrels were curved.

Point taken about the Beretta barrels being straightened, Mike.


Explain to me again the point of bending the S x S barrels in a curve during assembly, when the convergence can plainly be done with convergent angles. I do not doubt the "Skeets smith" has seen some curved barrels, but did he tell you he believed they were purposely assembled that way?

I've seen lots of centerfire rifle barrels that are bored off center, too. That does not mean they are supposed to be that way. They aren't.

SRH

Well, I went back & read that Parker board link. WHAT, did I Miss. I saw absolutely no proof that any barrel had been shown to be Swamped, only pure speculation. I have shown you the L C Smith specs for their barrels which show linear convergence. I have also stated that I have "Personally" measure several sets of barrels for their spacing & they all showed linear convergence. Some of these were Lefevers & another or so but has been some time & don't recall for certain which ones, pretty sure on e was a Birmingham J P Clabrough which is one of the guns which i have shot probably better than any other gun I ever owned. Straight, from breech to muzzle by both measurement (outside of barrels) & by sight internally. Don't know much molre I can say to counter "Somebody Said", which so far is all the evidence you have cited. I can certainly see why you didn't appreciate the little "3" story, as they say there are things which hurt worse than the Truth, We just haven't figured out what it is yet.

Stan: The purpose of arching those barrels back to back is so that the shot charge follows a line parallel to the line of the rib at the time the shot is fired. After the right barrel is fired the recoil causes the barrels to rotate to the right. The rate of this rotation is determined by the cartridge and the MOI of the gun. So the barrel is rotating to the right as the shot charge goes down the barrel. The intention is that when the shot charge comes out of the muzzle it is moving a line parallel to the rib at the time the shot was fired.

Parker built guns in OOO, OO, O, 1/2, 1, 1-1/2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. One of the dimensions that varied with frame size was the distance between the firing pins. Parker made 12 gauge guns on #2 frames that had barrels 26" long and 34" long. Parker factory barrels always touched. There may be a few exceptions to the rule but I have never seen one. Geometry dictates that the barrels converge at a faster rate on the 26" barreled 2 frame gun than they did on the 34" gun. If those tubes are absolute straight then either the 26" gun is going to shoot cross-eyed or the 34" gun is going to shoot wall-eyed or there is a supernatural force acting on the shot charge after it leaves the barrel.

Read Coosa's post again. In the cheap gun he regulated with a file all he did was put curve in in the last few inches of the barrels by opening the outside half of the muzzles to stop it from shooting cross eyed. After he got through regulating them they shot to a point with the turkey loads but not as good with the lighter loads.

I concede that many and maybe most Fox muzzles don't touch. Same with LeFever. But every English gun I own has touching muzzles.

Miller I would be interested in a more detailed critique of my Parker post. For instance you might explain what you think it is that causes both tubes on the 26" 2 frame Parker to shoot to a point at 35 yards and both tubes on the 32" 2 frame Parker to shoot to a point at 35 yards. I mean in the context of them being absolutely straight.

Miller I don't know what you think you can tell about by straightness by measuring the outside of barrels. Having measured the wall thicknesses on many, many barrels the bores are not necessarily concentric with the outside of the barrel. Frequently the wall thickness on the top of the barrel is thinner than the bottom or vice versa. And the outside of the barrels I have are curved, not straight. I would also like to know the the tolerance your eye is calibrated to when you are peering down a barrel measuring straightness. Does it measure down to 1/100" bend per foot of barrel? Can it detect down to 1/1000" per foot of barrel? Or does your method have some unknown plus or minus figure? Or do you know the plus or minus figure?

I enjoy the give and take of debating this issue. But I am nonplussed when my opponent just declares his position is the Truth because he said so.

Barrel straightening: from what I have read in the past the men who did the work in the factories could detect the slightest crook and correct it. I'm talking closer than .001 for its entire length. Traditional method was to have a thin line drawn on a high window and pointing the barrel at it a shadow of the line was cast inside the bore and any unevenness was readily seen by a skilled workman. This is also the method Skeet's uses. I have watched makers of muzzleloader barrels do the same thing and their ability to straighten them is amazing.

Joe where do you get the .001" ?

And how do you get a straight-tubed two-frame Parker 12 gauge with 26" barrels to shoot both barrels to the same point at 35 yards like your straight-tubed two-frame 12 gauge with 32" barrels?

And I believe you told me the Skeets smith looks for and sees the curve in the SxS barrels so he would know whether to go in from the muzzle or the breech to open up chokes.

I don't doubt barrel smiths can see, feel, and smell things that the rest of us can't. And I don't doubt that they can do amazing things when they are regulating barrels.

Supposedly, visual acuity is a tad better than .0035". Evaluating reflections of a distant line through a tube may very well show distortion that's some multiple smaller than .0035".

If that 26" barrel has more wall thickness at the muzzle, they can touch and have the same convergence as the longer barrels. Maybe so because it might be easier to lop a few inches of the muzzle end of a standard parts bin barrel than special machine shorter tubes. Tubes might not be likely to be shortened from the chamber end.

Maybe the convergence is slightly more for the shorter tubes, but it's too hard to evaluate a tiny shift in POI on the pattern board. Maybe the shorter barrel set has more muzzle flip than the longer ones and more needs to be figured in to end up with a similar POI as the 32" set.

I'd figure, once it's known that wall thickness varies, that could well be enough machining to distort a tube. One of the by products of manufacturing (finishing) that might alter an intentional bend or straightness. The eccentric choke example maybe one of altering flow through the opening than creating a curve in the tube. It could be distance sensitive.

Still hard for me to imaging that an intentional bend was created, visualized, aligned and preserved through the manufacturing process.

Mike;
First & foremost I am not trying to convince anyone that this is So "Because I said So". no indeed, in fact if only my meager evidence were available I would never even have posted on it. What I am saying is the evidence is out there, one simpy has to seek it out. My meager checking simply DID, fall exactly in line with available published data. As to the difference in a 26" barrel & a 30" barrel, not having a Parker at the present time I will fall back to the LC Smith data I posted earlier. Breech spacing was 1.156" with muzzle @ .8175". With barrels set "Straight" & distance between the projected axis of the two bores at 40 yds was 15.431"
For a comparision lets use those exact same dimensions "Except" for a 26" barrel. Convergence from breech to muzzle is still .3385" (1.156-.8175") .3385/26" = .01301923" convergence per inch as opposed to .011283333" for a 30" barrel. Multiplying this by 40 Yds x 36" per yard 18.748". Subtract from this the .8175" from which they started in the opposite direction gives 17.930" or a "WHOPPING" 2.477" difference Re the difference in barrel length only & this is at 40 yds for the total spacing between the two barrels. Error from point of aim would be half that. Also of course this does not give the exact point that gun is going to center its load in firing, but is simply the mathematical extension of the bore axis from a static position. That is where the bores are pointing "Before" the triggers are pulled.
This is all "Hard & Fast DATA, not worked out by me but by Gunmakers, simpy cited by me. Still looking for anything at all from your end other than Pure Speculation & Hear-Say.

Barrel straightening . . . It's quite common, after the first couple morning drives on a driven shoot in the UK, to be offered a nip of what they refer to as "barrel straightener". Depending on the "gun" in question, it can be helpful.

Mike, I understand all the physics behind why convergence is necessary. What you are saying, tho', is that the reason for convergence does not occur until after the shot charge leaves the barrel. Recoil is the reason. And that recoil begins to act on the gun, pulling it to one side or the other, BEFORE the shot charge leaves the barrel. If it didn't, convergence wouldn't be necessary. Recoil from firing the left barrel pulls the muzzles left, recoil from the right barrel pulls the barrels right. Now, stop and picture this a second. If the bores were parallel at, and near, the muzzle, as you say they are from bending the barrels, convergence of the axis of the two bores would not be necessary, because it would be counter-acted by the parallel section near the muzzles. I mean, why in the world would a barrel man put two barrels together with a converging angle, which is to counteract the recoil which pulls the gun to one side or the other, then make the bores parallel? That would be self defeating.

SRH

Stan I don't think we are disagreeing on why SxSs need convergence but I think this might settle whether we do or not.

Suppose my shooting student Joe Wood and I are out dove hunting. A dove flies up and lands on the barbwire fence, to the right of a decoy. (That is Joe's favorite shot by the way). This sitting dove is 35 yards away. And suppose Joe is shooting his two-frame Parker 12 with 32" barrels and extra full chokes. Now, for the sake of argument, suppose the tubes are perfectly straight as advocated by you and Miller. Joe takes careful aim at the dove, setting it right on top of the bead. The rib points exactly at the dove. Since the barrels converge the right barrel is pointing to the left of the dove. Joe pulls the right trigger, the firing pin hits the primer, the powder ignites, the shot starts down the barrel. Because of the recoil the gun and thus the right barrel rotate to the right, approximately around the buttplate. As the barrel is rotating to the right the shot charge is coming down the barrel. Just as the shot charge exits the muzzle it is headed parallel and a little to the right of the line the rib was on before Joe pulled the trigger. The shot, except for vertical curve, goes straight to the dove and it falls to the ground dead. Joe yells "YEEEE-HAAAAW" and does his victory dance.

Now, same scenario, except Joe pulls the trigger and the gun fails to fire. He pulls the left trigger and it also fails to fire. Joe opens the gun and discovers he forgot to put the hammers back in it when he worked on it the night before. I hand Joe my two-frame Parker 12 gauge with 26" tightly choked barrels. And for the sake of argument lets say it had straight tubes as you and Miller contend. Joe aims carefully at the dove on the barbwire. The rib is pointed exactly at the dove. Because of convergence the right barrel is pointed to the left of the dove. It is pointed even further to the left than the 32" barrels because the 26" barrels have a higher rate of convergence. Joe pulls the right trigger. The recoil causes the gun and thus the barrels to rotate to the right as the shot charge goes down the barrel. But since the convergence rate of the 26" barrels is higher than the 32" barrels when the shot charge leaves the muzzle its direction, instead of parallel to the original line of the rib (before the Joe pulled the trigger), is at an angle to the original ribline. In a few yards the shot charges crosses the original rib line and goes to the left of the sitting dove, hitting the decoy and knocking it down from the wire. Joe yells "YEEEE-HAAAAW" and does his victory dance. The dove looks around, shakes its tail, and flies off.

Stan I am not contending that the back to back bananas give parallel bores. I am contending that curved tubes are part of SxS barrel regulation. Coosa's cheap gun could have been regulated by putting curve (more curve) in the tubes when they being were assembled into barrels at the factory. Coosa put the requisite bend in with a file in the last few inches of those tubes to regulate them properly. Had he been so inclined and had the requisite skills he could have taken the ribs and bulkheads off and put curve (more curve) into the tubes and then reassembled them to get the same result.

All that is cool, Mike. Except that the makers took into consideration the fact that short barrels would need a different angle of convergence to have them truly regulated. You are assuming, I assume ( ), that all barrels, whether 26" or 32" are touching at the muzzles, and they are not. You are also assuming that all of them will center their pattern perfectly at the distance the dove was sitting on the fence, which they also do not. And furthermore, that Joe's extra full pattern is not going to be big enough to kill that dove on the edge of the pattern, even if it IS off because of the differing angles you speak of.

This is not all exact science. Bench rest rifles are, shotguns are not. As I alluded to earlier, there are probably more double guns that are NOT perfectly regulated, than there are those which are. The angle of convergence is calculated to be right with what the maker concludes will be the most likely load used in it. Loads on either end of the spectrum, heavier recoiling or lighter recoiling, will affect this.

One more time, why would a maker go to the trouble to build an exact angle of convergence into the barrels of a S x S and then bend them to parallel at the last few inches?

SRH

Miller:

When I flip the switch light comes out of the lamp. One time I investigated and discovered the wire connected to the light switch and to the lamp was solid. So the light couldn't have come from somewhere else and into the switch and then through the wire, into the bulb, and then out to my room. I did some Google research and discovered that it was electrons flowing through that wire. They go through that filament in the bulb and cause it to emit photons.

Now I have never seen an electron. Nobody else has either. So is the existence of electrons speculation or is their existence needed to explain the physics of our world? My contention of curved SxS barrels is not merely speculation.

Stan I know I am wordy but please go back and read my post #366027.

The muzzles on all Parkers touched when they left the factory. There may be some exceptions but I have never seen one.

My specification of two-frame Parker set the distance of between the firing pins and thus between the centerlines of the bores at the breech.

So in my example the distance between the bores at the muzzle were identical on the 26" and the 32". And the distance between the bores at the breech were identical because I specified the two-frame gun.

So the angle between the 26" tubes (if straight) was different than the angle between the 32" tubes (if straight).

That's a pretty big jump, Mike, to say that filing a little metal away from one side of the muzzle is the same as putting a curve in the barrels.

Just because the results are the same does not make the causes the same. He may have been just overcoming an error in the angle of convergence built into that barrel.

SRH

Exactly!

If those tubes in Coosa's gun were straight they should have been curved. If they were curved they should have been curved some more.

I am not able to see any curve in the barrels, but I'm certainly not trained to do so.

I would like to point out that all the filing was done in the last 1/4" of the barrels. I think I could move the pattern with even less than that, but it was hard to file it without going at least a 1/4" into the barrel.

Please carry on your very interesting discussion!

So, has anybody put a double shotgun in a machine rest and sent rounds down range? What did it prove? Has anybody then fired a double off a bench to verify barrel torque effect? What did it prove? Has anybody actually measured the distance between the bores in their shotgun to see if they are parallel? Don't ask me to do it, because I can't afford the tools right now without getting into trouble with She Who Must Be Obeyed. Especially on Mothers' Day eve. Inquiring (and, in my case, lazy) minds want to know.

I don't believe it's possible to say this is so. Purely on science, if the gun rotates while the shot is in the barrel a lateral force is being applied. It's not likely to exit 'straight' out of the muzzle when it clears the gun. It's supposed to continue on a tangent to the diameter of the circle the gun was rotating on when the shot exited.

I don't believe the buttplate can be taken as the center of rotation, because it is not fixed and the shot is accelerating. I'd bet the radius that the shot is rotating on increases rapidly until leaves the barrel. One way to look at it might be the recommendation to follow through or swing through a moving target. It can be more difficult pick a lead then spot shoot at it with a fixed gun.

Say I shoot a thirty inch 100% pattern, any distance, then five more shots three from each barrel. The composite measures 32 inches. I'd want to do the back flips, but now I'm to conclude that the barrels are two inches out of regulation.

Mike;
I thought I replied last night but it appears the post went astray over the Airwaves somewhere. Actually I Fail to see any point at all in a comparison of shotgun barrels to electrons Traveling down Around the perimeter of a wire. My limited research in this field does indicate that is how they travel, rather than "Through" the wires.
As to the curve in the barrels, I have offered Drawings from the L C Smith Company showing their barrels were straight & set to a predetermined convergence. The drawing cited was for 30" barrel. I further showed that if the same spacings were used for a 26" barrel then their "Static" points of impact would be changed by only 2½" or 1¼" per barrel. Consider that if exactly identical loads are fired from each set of barrel ie 30" & 26". Now I do believe we are agreed that the gun is moving as the shot travels down the barrel, thus compensating for the Crossed axis in the static position. While admittedly the time of travel down the mores is extremely small I Do surely believe you would agree that barrel time in the 26" set is less than that in the 30" set.Now Here is some "Speculation' on my part. I speculate that slightly greater convergence of the shorter barrels is a necessity to compensate for the lesser barrel time of its load. How's that for Speculation??
Now further I have stated that I have measured several barrels & found them to have a simpe straight convergence. Yes I worked off the OD's & I am fully aware that bores could in fact not be perfectly concentric. However I did this checking upon acquiring that L C Smith book & wondered just how my guns compared to the Smith specs. Well every one I measured showed a convergence of between .011" to .012" per inch of length. Perfect Match to Smith (.0113") specs though none of them were built by Smith. I did then give them the "EYE" test by looking down the bores & could detect no noticeable bend. Now I fully realize you have "Greatly Insulted" my Intelligence to be able to do this with any reliability, but with 35+ years as a Machinist I developed a pretty good eye for looking at a lot of things.
I will say one more time, to date you have offered Nothing "ABSOLUTELY NOTHING" but "PURE SPECULATION" to defend you position, while I have consistently offered Facts. I can with certainty tell you not a Single double gun I own has curved barrels set with the curves Back to Back, they are simply as straight as possible to make them & set Converged.

After spending many hours watching barrel straightening at Perazzi, Piotti, Beretta and other factories I can state that barrels are straightened several times during their manufacture.

The method used is not the concentric circles but by pointing the barrel, while in the press, towards a window edge and using the shadow/light lines in the bore. It is a more accurate method than the concentric rings.

No maker has talked of "banana" bending, all of them insist on absolute straightness.

If the barrels were bent, then there would be machining and jointing issues with either chopper lump or monobloc construction. You cannot fit a bent barrel in a monobloc while having parts hot. As for chopper lump, refer to the Holland video to see the braze flow at 750 degree centigrade and the barrels straight and relaxed, held only by wires at the breech ends while the muzzles are LOOSE and outside the kiln which they would not be if they were bent.

Personal observation of dozens of unribbed barrel sets leads me to concur with 2-Piper on this one. Barrels are geometrically convergent by design and not by bending. At least in good guns they are.

Miller I never meant to insult you or your experience in any of my posts. I put great weight on the things you post here. If I disagree with one of your posts I go over it and over it in my mind. I respect you and your opinions. But I don't know anybody that I think is right about everything, including me.

I meant to challenge the assumptions that were being made by you and others as to what what degree of curve, what degree of "tolerance" you could see looking a down a barrel with a chamber, a forcing cone, a bore, and a choke. In addition to those features in almost every double bore I have measured the diameter was larger an inch downstream of the forcing cones than it was an inch upstream of the chokes.

And as far as being insulting your "third wife" analogy was acknowledged by you as being sarcastic indicating to me that you do not believe I deserve respect. When I said I didn't appreciate the sarcasm you doubled down.

I mostly enjoy the debate about this subject. But I don't know how to respond when my opponent says I have to either agree with him or insult him by not deferring to his 35 years of experience (in another field).

You still haven't pointed out why the calcs I did on the Parker thread that I linked to fifteen posts ago don't make my point. When you do that I will address the calcs on the Smith guns you did.

Certainly I should have been more tactful but I figured anybody that could post the third wife analogy would have to have a thick skin. From this sentence forward I will put much effort into being tactful. I hope I can receive the same courtesy from you but I will make the effort regardless.

In my lamp analogy I meant I discovered the light wasn't being piped in to the lamp through a hollow tube as in fiber optics. I did not mean that the electrons ran down the outside of the wire.

Certainly the time the shot spends in the 26" barrel has an effect on the rotation of the gun. But it would seem the less time the shot spent in the barrel the less the recoil and the less the rotation. The 26" barrel needs more rotation, not less.

I point out a fact against my argument. Everything else being equal, The 26" barreled Parker two-frame gun has a lower MOI than the 32" barreled Parker two-frame gun. The 26" gun would rotate faster and that could make up the additional angular rotation needed by the 26" barrels. I find it unlikely that every double that ever shot straight happened to have the perfect MOI so that the shot was sent down (or parallel to) the same line the rib was on when the shot started down the barrel. I think they were regulated in some way, perhaps by filing the chokes or the forcing cones or by bending the tubes when the barrels were assembled or a combination of the three methods.

Gents,
The general principles of regulation are very well known due to double rifles, which have far more ambitious goals for regulation than shotguns ever will.
Regulation depends on:
- construction of the barrel set (static convergence, length of barrels, straightness, muzzle area)
- projectile velocity profile in the barrel (charge of powder, type of powder, projectile characteristics, friction on the barrel walls)
- inertia of the gun + projectile (how much does it move while the projectile goes down the barrel)
- to a lesser extent, how you hold the gun (same as above)

Even though indeed the tubes should be straight through manufacturing, I am sure that someone somewhere fixed up regulation by mucking with the barrel assembly.
Pretty much *all* double rifles are done this way : the breech and the forend loops impose a fixed geometry on the barrel assembly towards the breech, and only the muzzle wedge is adjusted to make things work. The barrels *have to be bent* (in a small way)to make this work.
Another way is to modify the muzzle profile. This is heretical to double rifle people but well known recent examples exist.

By and large, the shotgun makers should know how to build a shotgun to make this work without mucking around with anything post assembly in a "correct by construction" methodology. Of course, the way you define correct is interesting, i.e. how good is good enough...
Additionally, the regulation cannot be perfect for every load anyways.

Best regards,
WC-

Mike;
There is one thing I can most definitely agree with you on. That is that we simply need to discuss this like Men, no sniping etc. I will try my level best to do so. All that I can go with is like they say in a court of law, The Preponderance of the Evidence.
Let me state that carefully one more time.
My copy of the L C Smith Plans & Specifications is copyrighted 1981 by F Brownell & Son. I pre-ordered this book when notice was sent out of its up-coming publishment. It came with a facsimile of the title block of an actual shop drawing attached inside, declared the book to be #1328, Autographed by William Brophy & dated Nov 15, 1981. Sometime shortly after receiving this book in studying over the drawings therein I noted the barrel specs which I have cited. I became curious as to just how some of my guns compared to the Smith specs, so set about to find out. Measuring the space at the breech & muzzle is extremely easy. I picked about three sets of barrels to compare, don't even recall exactly which ones now. The first thing that struck me was that just taking the spacing of the two ends & considering the lengths of these barrels they all showed a total convergence of from 011" to .012" per inch of length or virtually identical to the Smith specs. Next I carefully measured & marked regular intervals along the length of the barrels (about 2" intervals as I recall) until I came to the area of the barrel flats where it was no longer practical. A careful measurement of the outside of these barrels compared to the measurement across their outer widths did indeed show that as far as their OD's went they had the same convergence on a linear basis as their two ends had exibeted. There is of course still the factor that the bores are not necessarily concentric with their OD's. I did take all this into consideration. I did do the sight check & to the best of my ability & knowledge they were about as straight as they could be. At this point I am not totally certain whether I used the concentric circle or the back lighted window, though I do more commonly use the frame shadow line & this is most likely what I used. While these are the only ones I have ever measured to this extent I have looked down the bores of many sets of barrels over the years to see if I could spot one that had those swamped in barrels, as I have Heard this "Theory" for years. Do date I have not encountered a single barrel set which showed this swamping.
That in a Nutshell is the preponderance of my Evidence.
Now I am ready to honestly & manly review any evidence you can present which actually shows a set of barrels to have been constructed in this manner. I promise to give it my utmost attention & consideration with no snidey remarks.
Best I have to offer.

Mike,

Sorry to drop out like that, but have been busy all day with Mother's Day meal and company and such.

Have enjoyed all the back and forth, but still await an answer for the question I put forth (twice). From post #366059:

"I mean, why in the world would a barrel man put two barrels together with a converging angle, which is to counteract the recoil which pulls the gun to one side or the other, then make the bores parallel?"

The shot charge will be leaving the muzzle guided by the direction given it from the last bit of bore, right? If there was, say, 6 inches, of parallel bore the shot charge would leave basically in the direction given it by that last 6 inches, right? Then, why build in convergence, which you admit exists? The parallel bores would nullify the convergence given by the built in angle.

Think with me through this a minute. The shot charge begins moving down the left bore, and the gun begins to rotate left because of the recoil being off-axis to the centerline of the gun. The angle of convergence will counteract that rotation if left alone. But, now the shot charge hits a bend in the bore and begins to move back left, the opposite direction from where it needs to be directed.What is the reasoning in this? Help me out here.

SRH

From 366066



Does that answer the question you asked? If it didn't I need more feedback on what I am missing.

Stan this is about the maker setting the convergence of the tubes. If, as you and Miller argue, both tubes are straight and since Parker muzzles all touch then the convergence is not set by the maker on a two-frame Parker, it is set by geometry. The two-frame designation sets the distance between the centerline of the bores at the breech, the touching muzzles set the centerline of the bores at the muzzle. Parker doesn't set the convergence, geometry does. If the tubes are straight and the muzzles touch then all two-frame Parkers with 26" barrels have the same angle of convergence. If the tubes are absolutely straight then all two frame Parkers with 32" barrels have the same convergence angle. The 32" angle is different than the 26". It is only by curving the barrels that Parker would be able to set the angle of convergence on those guns because, for whatever reason, they built their guns with touching muzzles. Could we just focus on two frame Parkers for a little bit. Once we have a meeting of the minds on Parkers we can go on to guns that don't have touching muzzles and other variables.

Thanks Miller. Just finished up Mother's day at the in-laws and look forward to continuing the discussion tomorrow.

Mike, I have to believe the tubes are straight unless a mistake was made by whoever stitched them together. If they were anything but straight there would be reams of material written about the fine art of bending them and then the incredibly difficult task of joining prebent tubes. There is nothing. In your discussion comparing 26" and 30" barrels have you considered the difference in barrel flip? Seems to me the shorter the barrel the greater the flip and vice versa. In my way of thinking that could easily explain how these two different lengths with very different convergence points still shoot to the same POI at distance. To reinforce the concept I have heard that guns firmly set in a bench rest shoot vastly different than shooting offhand.

Joe barrel flip is up and down, not left and right. Garwood reported that it most frequently appears on long barreled sub-bores.

As far as anchored barrels/guns: If the barrels didn't rotate when the shot is fired then the barrels could be made parallel. If barrels/gun with normal convergence were fixed where they could not rotate then the right barrel would shoot far to the left and the left barrel would shoot far to the right.

Kind of an awkward example, but what would a Parker concept gun look like if it had a pair of blunderbuss barrels mounted up and touching. Do the 26's and 32's touch by design, or pure random luck based on the tubes that got dropped off that morning. Maybe they can be machined to touch as well as change or preserve some convergence angle.

Chances are after being designed and tested someone jigged up a method for production, rather than adjusting bend, choke and convergence angle for each barrel set that was made. Still wondering, if it can't or is barely seen, how did they place, align and preserve the intentionally bent tubes through the makers process.

Edit to add, "flip" I believe is the recoil/rotation/what ever. The gun movement on firing likely has many influences and I can't see it limited to vertical.

Craig "barrel flip" has a specific meaning. It is phenomenon that causes SxS barrels to shoot low. Garwood wrote that it most frequently manifests itself in long barreled sub-bores. By arguing that barrel flip is up and down I am not arguing that the barrels aren't rotating in the horizontal plane as the shot goes down the barrel, they are.

Parker barrels left the factory touching at the muzzle. I suppose there have been exceptions but I have never seen one.

Burrard wrote he felt it was a mistake to have barrels of different length fitted to the same gun as Barrel Flip would cause them to hit to a different point "Vertically". He did not confine this to sub-bores but was speaking primarily of the 12 gauge, which was at the time of his writing "THE" gauge in the UK.
This I believe was not what Joe was speaking of. Perhaps the best term here would simply be Barrel Displacement. As I read through these posts I believe we are all pretty well in agreement that the barrels are moving during the load's travel down the bore, otherwise there would be an unacceptable amount of crossfire, as the barrels whether straight or bent do converge.
Now let me Speculate a bit. I believe it is a False Assumption to believe that the barrels of every given length, every weight of gun & every load fired has to end with the same degree of convergence. Maybe I am misinterpreting here Mike but I seem to be getting the feeling you are saying this has to be so. I have gone back & re-read your link to the Parker Board. Let me say this as kindly as I can, but I can see absolutely nothing there other than the speculation that barrels of different lengths having the same breech spacing & still touching at the muzzle "Must" have been bent so the last section of the barrels at the muzzle would have the same convergence. This is as far as I can see an unproven hypothesis.
In studying the history of barrel making one finds their configurations were Set, well back in the Welded barrel era. At this point a barrel was generally made to be round at any point, though contoured down its length. Metal for the flats was welded on. It was also found that flats needed to be put on the mating surfaces of the breech ends of the two barrels to bring their centers closer together, else they would indeed crossfire. Of all the barrels I have ever checked this on I still find that the web between the two barrels is not equal to twice the the wall thickness at the extreme breech end of the barrels, thus Gunmakers are still building to essentially the same criteria. All the writings I have seen would indicate that standard practice was to make the barrels as straight as humanly possible & to set them at a converging angle, no doubt worked out over time by trial & error. The "Very" limited amount of barrels which I have personally checked show that "Those" barrels were indeed made in this fashion.

There are people joining the conversation late. I think these are things that Miller, Stan, and I all agree on. All are in reference to side by sides. I will quote it the next time someone chimes to argue something with me that I am not disputing.

1. The barrels converge at the muzzle because recoil moves the barrel/gun as the shot charge goes down the barrel. The convergence is needed so the gun will shoot where it was pointed at the time the shot charge started down the barrel.

2. As the shot charge goes down the right barrel the barrel/gun rotates to the right. It also rotates up. This necessitates both convergence of the barrels and that the axis of the bores point down relative to the axis of rib. Of course firing the left barrel gives left rotation, muzzle rise will be the same.

Could you please quote Burrard on muzzle flip. I think you and Joe are using "Muzzle Flip" when you mean "muzzle rise". "Muzzle flip" is a dynamic by which the barrels bend downward from the initial recoil, and shoot low. Garwood wrote of this phenomenon and that is how I remember he described it. He said that long barreled sub bores were more susceptible to it because the barrels were not as stiff along in the vertical plane since they were of a smaller diameter. I would dig it out of Garwood's books but since I am debating several of you I am at a time disadvantage. So I request the favor a you, asking you to dig out Burrad's definition of muzzle flip.

At any rate when I used the phrase of "muzzle flip" I meant it in the meaning I described above.




By definition all Parker two-frames have to have the same distance between the centerline of the bores at the breech. By definition the muzzles touch on all Parkers. The amount of convergence needed in any barrel set is determined by the MOI of the gun (everything else being equal). Suppose I make a shotgun out of carbon fiber and aluminum with identical dimensions to a 26" Parker two frame. I mean same stock dimensions, same spacing of the bore centerlines at the breech and at the muzzle. Suppose when I get done building it it has half the MOI of the real Parker two-frame 26". That carbon fiber gun will need much more convergence than the real Parker because, as the shot goes down the barrel, the barrels will rotate much more before the shot leaves the barrel because the carbon fiber gun has a much lower MOI. If the carbon fiber gun had the same convergence as the real Parker AND the tubes were straight the carbon fiber gun's right barrel would shoot way to the right of Joe's dove perched on the barbwire. The left barrel would shoot way left. But wait a minute! I can't give that straight barreled carbon fiber gun more convergence because the barrels will cross each other at the muzzle. So, instead of putting the bananas back to back I turn each banana over and they curve out from each other in the middle but join at the muzzle and breech. The muzzle end has a higher convergence than straight barrels and the carbon fiber gun can shoot straight.

Miller I make the same request of you that I made of Stan. I request that for just a little while we keep the discussion on two-frame Parkers. By doing that I think we can broaden our areas of agreement and gain a more exact understanding of our differences. Or course it is up to you.



I go back to the lamp. The light is not piped in through a fiber optics cable. Electrons going through wires to the filament cause it to emit photons. I have never seen an electron. No body else has either. But we have to have electrons to explain the physics of our world. I certainly am not offended by your statement. We are arguing facts and physics. I would much appreciate a more detailed explanation of your disagreement with my Parker post.



Your belief that the tubes are always intended to be straight is the reason I keep focusing on two-frame Parkers. If you give the length of a factory orginal set of two-frame Parker barrels AND if the tubes are straight as you contend I can calculate the convergence. And it is amazing that the convergence rate and the MOI just happen to work out that those straight tube Parker two-frames shoot straight, whether they have 26", 28", 30", 32", 34" or 36" barrels.

Thanks for clarifying barrel flip, but I'm glad you noted that the barrels do rise. Maybe, for the same amount of rise, the s x s will hit a bit lower than the o/u.

Possibly, on a free hanging line on a gun with no cast you may get an even rotational recoil right and left. Maybe, decent, or not so, gun fit will not allow a comparable rotation to the left for a right handed shooter because of different hand grips on the wrist and forearm, and cheek contact in an uneven manner on the stock. I've noticed gun fit can be given quite a bit of importance on affecting point of impact.

Also, I don't believe a flat rib necessarily lines up divergent to the horizontal [lane of the bores. They're on different planes, but I bet it's pretty likely to see the line of the rib converge with the plane the bores are on. Wouldn't you want bores to point a bit up from the aim since the shot may 'flip' down.

I'd still suspect it's more likely to limit muzzle rise on a longer barrel gun, but the longer a shot column is in a barrel, the more it can be affected by any movement. Probably wouldn't matter though as much as on a s x s rifle.

I find all this pretty interesting,, but I have forgotten most of these 4 pages..
I would have to believe Gunman...he worked at Webley n Scott, or just Webley, in his younger years, it seems,what ever..he seems to me to be a real hands on gunmaker, I'd have to go with what he said,as the rest of the stuff said here is just opinion, not hands on work by real gunmakers...???
I',m sure he is telling the truth,though whether you can understand him or not is a different matter.
Not many posts from real gun makers apart from him.
What would old crossed chisels say???
Talking of David, is he ok, hasn't posted in a good while?
No harm meant, but, these people might just know more than you all..?
Franc

I have been convinced I was wrong about the curved tubes. Joe had a conversation with Kirk Merrington. Joe relayed as best he was able what Kirk said in a thirty minute conversation to me.

This is my understanding of what Joe's understanding of what Kirk said. The third wife bit all over but I felt I needed to explain what changed my mind.

The gunmakers intended for the tubes were to be straight in the barrels as per Miller, Stan, Shotgunlover and others. If jigged up properly and with straight tubes they both tubes would shoot to a point. Each tube needed a convergence of about six thousandths per inch of bore which is .012" for both tubes which is the number Miller has been giving out for his Smiths I believe. The .072" difference at the muzzle in a two frame Parker 26" and two frame Parker 32" gun was made up by the flat that was filed on the flat filed on each tube at the muzzle.

Parker barrels made before 1900 were made with straight tubes as described above. After 1900 something changed in their method. After they were brazed together at the breech but before they were soldered at the muzzle they drove wedge in between the barrels. The wedge was driven in just downstream of the hook. They drove the wedge in until the flat surface filed on the outside of the barrel at each muzzle touched at the right angle. This new process created a bow in Parker barrels made after about 1900.

I am unclear if Kirk said regulating the tubes to have the same POI by filing the chokes was normal for the top tier guns. He said the Birmingham makers did not do that.

I hope Joe will post a more detailed account.

I repeat: I was wrong, Miller, Stan, ShotgunLover, Craig, and others were right. The competent makers did not intentionally install curved tubes in their SxS. Thanks for the interesting discussion.

Thanks for that post, Mike. Now, if I could only convince you the eye can discern a few thousandths "out of straight" in a barrel, by light rings and shadow lines. Oh well, we'll save that for another time.

Sunflowers are up!!! High hopes for another great dove season! First Saturday in September, 117 days. Man, that seems like a long ways off.

SRH

Well Mike, all I can say is that was a pretty classy admission on your part. You are a gentleman! Everybody pretty much knowed you was wrong but you made a cogent argument anyhow...Geo

Thank You Mike;
I was just getting ready to add the Only reason I have not included a #2 frame Parker in my discussion was that at the present time I do not own a Parker of any frame size. Any Parker I have owned was long gone before I became interested in this aspect of gun making. I could only speak of that which I had personal knowledge. Sorry for any friction that may have arisen over this topic & still perfectly willing to consider you as a "Friend". I will say your point on MOI using the carbon fiber barrel I feel certain was quite valid & would be correct. I would add one more little bit here for your consideration. While I do not know what the actual spacing on a #2 frame Parker is it seems obvious that if you build both a 26' barrel & a 32" barrel on this same frame the 26" ones have a lesser MOI than the 32" ones.
Now this next is "Pure Speculation" on my part. It would however seem valid to me that with the coupling of the lessened MOI & the shorter barrel time of the 26" barrels they would Need more convergence than the 32" ones.
As to the barrel flip Burrard was saying the same thing as Garwood. I was not disputing that, only stating it was not totally Confined to the smaller bores. When I stated he said a longer barrel had more Flip Vertically, I thought I had made this plain. He did not compare a 12 ga with a small bore, only a longer barrel with a shorter one in a 12ga. His reasoning on the flip was for a downward flexing brought on by the rise of recoil exactly as you stated. His contention was of course a longer barrel fitted to the same frame, stock etc would hit lower. The reasoning that a smaller bored barrel is more flexible certainly seems sound to me. I would think that a 30 barreled 28ga for instance would need a straighter stock than a 30" barreled 12ga to compensate. However a 30" barreled 12ga would still have more Flip than a 26" barreled one & would need a slightly straighter stock, but not to the same extent as the 28ga. I actually did think that on this point I had Agreed with you.

Hi Miller:

It greatly pleases me that you consider me your friend. I certainly consider you my friend.

Sorry I missed the meaning of your original Burrard post. I should have read more carefully.

I did point out a few posts back that the lower MOI of the 26" barreled two-frame would work to counteract the (incorrectly assumed by me) greater angle of convergence of the 26" barrels. But, at that time, I was doubtful that it would just happen to offset it. As it turns out it the Parker two-framed 26" barreled gun had the same angle of convergence as the 32" gun. But yes, I agree with you that if the 26" gun had a higher rate of convergence it would be at least partially offset or perfectly offset by the lower MOI of the 26" gun, everything else being equal.

I view you as one of the most knowledgeable contributors here, perhaps the most knowledgeable.

Your Friend,

Mike

George thank you for the kind words. And classy admissions are the kind of admissions classy guys make. I completely agree with you. I still don't understand why my physics were wrong.

Stan is saddens me that you are looking forward to murdering those wonderful little songbirds. May I suggest you shoot clays instead? Clays don't bleed.

Yep. When I read your post I immediately started thinking about what gun I would use opening day. Right now I am thinking the Parker two-frame with the 32" barrels choked really tight and super tight. I shot it at trap Saturday. 7-1/2 pounds of avian lethality. But if we shoot over decoyed dove I may use the 5-1/4 pound Parker Reproduction with 28" barrels. But it is so expensive shooting decoyed dove as my shooting student Joe Wood winds up shooting all the MoJo decoys at $30 per.

When we have more time I will disabuse you of your delusion that you can see a thousandth of an inch bend in a 30" tube.

I get my share of clays, Mike, but there is no substitution for the little grey rockets we call doves. They haunt my dreams even in May. It is a sad, sad thing (to most of the world, not to me ) to be so consumed with something, as I am with shooting doves.

SRH

Good for you!

Stan, I'm perfectly content to let the little buggers nest in my pine trees all summer then in the fall send them down south for you guys to have fun with. To me there just isn't enough meat on one to justify the cost of a 12 bore shell.

I understand and then some. I sit up here in MA where they are a protected songbird and watch them fly around knowing I will never look at one over the rib of a long-barreled 20 ga. What I would give for another warm Sept. Sat. afternoon in a picked MD corn field sitting on a stool next to a fencepost, hearing my father yell "Mark!" as the next flight swings in for dinner (theirs and mine).

I agree, Joel. I almost never use a twelve on doves. I begin the season with a .410, then move to a 20 as the doves wise up and become more wary (read, longer shots). I have a new 28 that may, or may not, get used this year on them. Then, for the late season, high flying migratory birds (those that you raise) I often go to my 32" 16 ga. Elsie, with one ounce loads. Haven't used more than one ounce in so many years I can't even remember the last time.

Just for funsies, I can see this in my mind's eye, clear as a bell:





To get back on subject, it takes a really "WELL REGULATED GUN" to do service on these little boogers. With that shameless post, I will bow out of this fine thread.

SRH

Without discussing any of the actual merits of the different gauges, in my area at least if one shoots "Factory" loads (I seldom do) one simply cannot shoot cheaper than a 12ga. 12's & 20's will mostly be the same price for a similar "Type" load, .410's & 28's are ridiculous in comparison & 16's virtually non-existent.