doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Let Out Chambers On Brit Guns

Hi all, kind if a follow up question to a previous post.

Other than making a gun out of proof and perhaps risking a damaged stock, what other damage could result in letting out the chambers on a Brit gun?

I seem to recall that when Brit guns started to come on to the American market in numbers, that quite a few had the chambers opened, as 2 1/2" loads were few and far between. At that time, not many made an issue of this practice.

Your thoughts.

Thanks and all the best!

Greg

Greg, to my thinking a British gun should be in proof by British standards even in the US. If it is not, it takes a big hit in value. If it had been sent back to the proof house to be proofed with it's new longer chambers and passed, we are back to just looking at the quality of the gun. I don't think I'm alone in this mindset.

With the easy availability of 2 1/2" low pressure cartridges designed for these guns today, most collector/shooters don't see a need for altering a perfectly good old Brit so Wally World specials will fit it. Heck, maybe it is just me!

Greg: I don't see stock damage, through increased recoil, as a risk at all, or at least not the one you need to worry about. It's commonly thought that shorter shells are less powerful, but they aren't necessarily. Yes, the hottest loads are more recent and are typically in 2 3/4 shells and, yes, many modern low-pressure loads are found in 2 1/2 shells, but it's easy to find new, short ammo with plenty of kick. It's my understanding that few shotshells are full to capacity of powder and shot, and that longer shells didn't necessarily introduce more powder, or power, to the equation. (Although that begs a question I can't answer, but maybe someone else can ... why, then, was the 2 3/4 shell introduced in America and elsewhere?)

In other words, battering the stock is not the danger in a gun with lengthened chambers. Blowing up the barrels is. A typical Brit "field" gun was engineered to be light, among other fine qualities. That meant they put no more steel in the barrel walls than was necessary to repeatedly contain the blast of a shotshell. (The proofing process overloads a gun, exceeding the demands of proper ammunition and thus prooving it to be safe for lengthy service.) Lengthening the chambers removes metal in a section of the barrels where the walls likely begin to rapidly thin. That in turn dramatically increases the possibility of structural failure, and of the barrel blowing up when you pull the trigger -- all in the same basic area that the off-hand is grasping the barrels.

That's the real reason why so many of us want to know if a gun is still "in proof," and why those guns that aren't tend to be discounted, sometimes significantly. My opinion, anyway. Best to you. TT

Hi all and thanks, I have a few Brit guns (all in proof BTW) and would never, ever let the chambers out, to foolish an act. And if I did have one, would never shoot long shells in it.

The bbl issue is what I suspected, just common sense.

I'm trying to get more technical knowledge on Brit guns as opposed to historical lately. So thanks for the info...keep it coming!!!!

All the best!

Greg

Greg, you're correct: lengthening short chambers used to be very common "barrel surgery" among American gunsmiths. Actually, the short-chambered Brit and European guns were a minority of those lengthened. Most of them were American guns, which were also mostly short-chambered until the 20's and 30's. And with American guns, there was less of an issue. Barrels tended to be heavier, and the standard load prior to the development of the 2 3/4" Super X, which is usually regarded as the first "modern" load, was not all that much lighter in terms of pressure--only about 1,000 psi or so. The same barrel surgery, unfortunately, carried over to Brit/European guns--for the simple reason that most American gunsmiths didn't know that the pressure standards for those guns were lower. It's really fairly recently that those differences have become common knowledge. For example, when Dr. Norris bequeathed a Purdey to George Bird Evans, one of the first things Evans did was to have the chambers lengthened. Yikes . . . on a Purdey!

BB's such as this get a lot of credit for spreading the word on the dangers of such practices, and on the fact that even though Damascus and danger both start with a D, they don't mean the same thing.

gjw:
As has already been disclosed, it is the load INSIDE a shot cartridge that is of concern, not necessarily its length. I regularly shoot 2 3/4 -inch Winchester AA hulls with 7/8 oz. of shot in my British 2 1/2-inch chamber guns. Thousands every year for over 20 years. Never a hint of trouble. But my load is very light, about 1050 fps. Other researchers, such as Bell, have proven that 2 3/4 -inch cartridges in 2 1/2-inch chambers induce virtually no additional pressure. This is NOT to say that Wal-Mart promo loads ought to be used in a fine English double. Hardly! But lightly-composed 2 3/4-inch handloads should pose no problem.

Best, Kensal

Xactly