doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Double Rifles, Paradox Guns & Gauge Rifles @ doublegunshop.com 12 ga. double bore rifle

A new rifle has arrived. It is a John Blissett & son [London] 12 ga double bore rifle.
1. 11.25 lbs
2. 28.125" barrels
3. 1 standing sight marked 100 yds, 3 folding. marked 150/200/250 yds.
4. 14.5" lenght of pull, front trigger.
5. 45" overall lenght.
6. Jones under lever
7. Forend held with a "key" as most M/L are.
8. 2 triggers
9. Rebounding hammers with safeties.
10. Rifling twist is 1 in 120" and a round ball of .760, [pure lead], will just slide on top of the rifling.
11. With one .125" powder card, the brass case will hold 9 drams of BP and the ball is just below its max dia. where the case could be slightly crimped to hold the ball in place.
So if anyone has any starting loads or max loads or any experience with loading for a "bore rifle", I would appreciate learning from their experience.
Having shot BP for 25+ years and rifles up to .58 Cal. and 500 BPE single shot rifles, this is my first attempt with a double.
Thank you in advance for any ideas.

Nice buy Blackhorse. I'm envious. I used to have one by Army & Navy but sold it years ago. I don't have the loads.

Do you have an idea when the gun was made?
Based upon weight only, I would say it is a 5 or 6 dram gun. You need groove diameter and cast the round balls slightly over. Going to need brass cases as I don't believe a ball that large will go into a paper/plastic case and chamber in your gun. Brass cases will have to be made to fit your chamber and the mouth of the case sized to accept your ball/bullet.

As near as I can tell from the data that I have seen, 1865/75.
I have some MagTec cases, new, that are just a little lose in the chambers un-fired. I agree that a larger ball may be needed but BP should expand a pure lead ball to groove dia. For now the .760" ball will just go into the new unfired cases.
5 to 6 Drams of BP will require a filler of wads to fill the case above a powder card that the "ball" can sit on.
Your suggested starting load was were I also figured to start trying to see what will happen with regulating a R & L @ 50 to 75 yds.
Life is a little busy now with some "court proceedings" going on but I'll let you Gentlemen know what happens as soon as I can get started "playing" with it. Thank you for your interest.

Harder to pigeon hole early guns. What is your chamber length? The likelyhood of the gun being regulated for 7 to 9 drams is low. I have a 7 dram gun with 3 inch chambers and weighs 13lbs. I also have a # of twelve bore molds I think one is quite large and was sold to me as a 10. The one original roundball mold I have casts just over .740 Post some photos when you can.

Good for you Blackhorse!!! Good luck with your first endeavor also and I, for one, can't wait to read the results.!

Sounds like a nice one Blackhorse. I have an Alex Henry 12 Bore full rifle made in 1879 that weighs over 13 lbs. The factory records show it was made for steel cored bullets or explosive shell bullets. The case length is 2 5/8" and the charge is listed as 6 3/4 drams. It is a brass case double rifle and the Alex Henry mold with it casts a .750 bullet weighing 1009 grains. It is #1 of a pair. I have a book written by the owner of the rifle describing a very long safari tracing the Livingston expedition in 1879. Much talk of elephant , buffalo and hippo shooting. Good results with the steel cored bullets, explosive shells not effective. Dr. Findlow had a great article shooting the 12 Bore rifle DGJ Autumn 2002.

Forgot to mention, I owned back in the early 70's a mint, cased Holland and Holland underlever hammer double rifle steel barreled with 26" barrels that weighed 16 1/2 lbs and was made for the Nawab of Bhopal. It was chambered for a 4 1/4" brass case and the original charge card in the oak and leather case says the charge was 10 DRAMS! Contacting Holland and Holland, they said only a double and a single 4 1/4" 10 dram 12 Bore were ever made. Couldn't afford to keep it, damn it, and sold it to Gary Herman.
Blackhorse, I would not shoot 9 drams out of that rifle. I agree with PM that is probably a round ball rifle with the slow twist and a 5 to 6 dram charge. Maybe I am wrong, but the ball goes down in the case and the case is crimped somewhat over the ball.

From the Holland and Holland case.



From the excellent Frank Findlow article Some thoughts on 12 Bores (one of the best researched bore rifle articles to date.)

Seyfried also has an article in the DGJ on 12 bore rifles. I just saw it the other day while browsing through my back issues and I think it was spring 2000.

some 12 bore molds

A couple of mold that are on ebay. One has both a 16 and a 12 bore.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/300731786176?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

http://www.ebay.com/itm/300731795319?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

The link doesn't work.

try these

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Antique-Englis...=item460502e3c0

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Englis...=item4605030777

The first listing combo caliber is so unique as to be useless as anything but a collection oddity. The second listing has possibilities but 12 bore mold can produce a wide range of diameters.

Gentlemen; Thanks to all of you with the data and suggestions.

The 1st test firing went better than I might have hoped. I loaded 8 cases, 4 with 5 drams and 4 with 6 drams. I used 10 ga. nitro cards to fill the case just so I could get the "ball" so a slight roll crimp would hold it in place.
A large paper target was put in place at 25 yards, the 1st 2 shots went into a 1.5" group which I felt was positive for the first test.
Three others wanted to then try it and I/we wound up with a 4" group, if you can call that a group with 4 different shooter's and 2 different loads.
I need to find my cerosafe and get a casting of the barrel and get a better fitting ball. Along with the measurements from the fired cases and compair those with the un-fired cases.
As expected, the recoil is more of a push than a slap but no doubt that the weight of the gun is appreciated!
Thanks again for all of you veiws, thoughts and ideas and the above loading data does confirm for me anyway, about where I can go in the future.

I just learned something that might help one of you if you shoot BP in brass cases.
as you know I/we have a quest on for how to clean a brass case after firing BP in it. I think that I have tried just about ALL of the different ways that anyone can think of over the years.
The methoid I found to be the easiest and the best cleaning for me, was the outfit that Cabellias used to sell with the cermaic sticks and some green soulition that was added to the water inside the tumbler.
And yes it worked just fine. However it seem they no longer carry that soulition. So the quest has been on to find something else that works equally well or even better.
For me anyway, that is a powder called LEMI SHINE, it is made to use in a dishwasher and the only place I have founf it is at WALLMART.
After 6 hours the 8 cases that I fired yesterday, were as good as NEW when I checked after starting the cleaning cycle.
I added about a table spoon to the "sticks" and put enought water in to cover the sticks and cases. Turned the machine on and let 6 hours go by and when I checked to see what if anything was happining, they were clean as new un-fired cases.
If you have a favorite way of doing things
, great, if you want to try something different and rather cheap, I can recomend this methoid.

I hope this will help someone in cleaning the brass cases after firing BP in them.
In the past I used the Cabellas cermaic "sticks" and their soulition. But I have run out of it and they seem to no longer carry it. I guess it worked to good in really cleaning the brass cases both outside as well as inside.
The 8 fired cases made me remember that I needed to figure out something to add to the cermaic to remove all of the fouling.
So I tried "LEMI SHINE" that is used in dish washers. It is a white powder and I used about a table spoon full in the mix last night and checked to see what was happing 6 hours later. Excellent results and about 98% CLEAN both inside and outside. I then flushed out the dirty water and re-loaded it again and let it run another 6 hours. All cases now look as good as new both inside and outside.
If you have a favorite methoid then keep on using what you have been, but if you are not satified and your cases are not looking as good as new. Then this method sure did work for me!

Blackhorse - This sounds great, but I'm confused. I get that the product LEMI SHINE is meant for dishwashers. You say you filled the cases with it and checked on them after 6 hours.

Did you just let them stand in a basin or something and just let the product break down the BP grit?

I thought this was feasible, but then I read where you "re-loaded it again and let it run another 6 hours". This seems to indicate you loading the cases and LEMI SHINE in a machine, i.e. a dishwasher, and "let it run".

Is this what you did? Putting them in a dishwasher and running it fopr SIX hours?

I belive he put them in a case tumbler.

I thought of that, but man........six hours?

In about 10 years of (smokeless powder) handgun shooting and reloading I just remember putting around 150 - 200 cases in my tumbler, a little paint thinner, and running it for 2 hours MAX.

Something just doesn't seem right to me. 6 hours to clean some brass (EIGHT shells!) of blackpowder fouling?

Well, I guess I just have to accept it as fact until trying it myself. It just seems so......extreme.

black is a pain. The few times that I've shot it I've left the cases in for a work shift of 8 hours. Might be overkill but they are clean and it's done while I'm at work.

Black etches brass cases quite strongly. I don't worry about the discoloration. I deprime, run them through 3-4 hot, soapy water rinses, let them dry then resize, most of the time only neck size, then run them in my tumbler about 3 hours. I go through more media than when I loaded a lot of smokeless but it's well worth it to me.

Probably 25 years ago I bought a 12 hour timer, a handy box and put a male and female cord on it. I plug my tumbler into the timer cord, plug the timer in and set it for 3-4 hours....works great.

Sorry for the confusion. I use a "Rock Tumbler" with the cermaic rods/sticks inside the tumbler with the cases and water and Lemi Shine. [About a table spoon full]
As the songs says ... it goes round and round. To see what if anything was happining, after 6 hours I checked and found about 98% clean as new cases. So I drained the water off and re-loaded the tumbler as before and went to bed. 9 hous later when I got around to checking again. The cases were as clean as new un-fired cases.
As this was my 1st attempt trying this "mix/methoid", I had no idea if more or less Lemi Shine would work and or do anything one way or the other.
For me, after trying for many years to figure out as easy way as possible to get the fired brass case clean after firing BP in them, this works very well for me and seems to be very easy. I hate reloading and putting black dirty cases in a chamber of my rifles or reloading dies. Perhaps they would not hurt anything and others may not mind at all how their cases look.

Krakow Kid:

Yes, only 8 cases, as that is all I shot for a 1st test of a newly aquired rife.
And as it was the 1st time I had used Lemi Shine, I had no idea if it would even do ANYTHING to the cases or may have even DESTROYED them. At the cost of brass 12 ga. cases, I felt that until I knew what if anything was going to happen, 8 would be enought for me to try for the 1st attempt.

As for "extreme", they may not have needed 6 hours if more Lemi Shine was used. That was just the amount of time that I waited to check them. And as they were not yet to MY STANDARD of clean, I changed the soulition out and ran them the rest of the night. Again, maybe 1 or 3 hours would have accomplished the same thing and or results been the same.

Having some experience shooting a lot of brass cases with BP, in the past, mainly .45-70, .40-65, .450 x 3 1/4" and .500 x 3" and doing 50 to 100 cases at a time, more Lemi Shine may be needed and for a longer time period. This I do not know yet.

So I only reported what I knew and experienced first hand after this first attempt at finding an easy of a way to clean BP fired cases. For someone who may be looking for what seems to me, as an easy of a way to clean them.

If someone has a better/faster way that works for them, GREAT, and what I obsurved may not be a methoid that they would wish to change to. That is fine with me. There are many ways to "skin a cat".

But letting cases get cleaned while I sleep, does seem to me to be rather of a easy way to get the job done.

Blackhorse

Well, I guess this old dog learned a new trick! I'll have to keep it in mind if I ever start using REAL black loads instead of nitro-for-black in my .450 BPE. I probably should work up a BP load, I kinda feel like an imposter using the smokeless in my old Alex Henry.

I shoot many blackpowder muzzleloading shotguns and rifles and never found the cleanup to be a pain, so I just couldn't imagine.......I guess there's more sizzle when you stuff 'em from the back!

When shooting muzzleloaders I found that two things worked best for cutting the black powder crud, baby wipes and windshield washer fluid. I would think that some of the fluid added to just a little water and tumbled should get them clean. Also Hoppes Number 9 Plus is good for cutting black powder residue. Bob