doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Damascus small bore upland guns

I also shoot Damascus 16 and 20 Parkers, both hammer and hammerless, and some day will shoot my new Lindner hammer 16, but they are so overpriced and hard to find, I recommended the Husky because they are easier to find and closer to the price of the gun you linked. I have almost bought nice old Huskies several times and now I will look a bit closer at them.

Yes I hunt with a several Damascus double's,I hunt with the Remington model 1894 and 1900 in 16ga. I also use the pre. Flues model Ithaca double's in 16ga.

In the small bore damascus guns, what pressures are people trying to achieve when shooting. Most say that under 7000 for a 12 bore is fine, and many try for around 5000. Is there a difference with the subgauge guns?

With 12 ga guns, they do say to stay under about 7,000 psi. When you go down in bore size the pressures will go up. I do not know what the number is in 16 and 20 ga but it should be higher. That is why I just use black powder in my 20 ga Ithaca Flues. I do not know what pressure levels the black is producing but it should be OK because my loads are light.

Jack

It is interesting that many think black powder produces less pressure than smokeless. Tests by Sherman Bell articles in DGJ indicate that this is not true. Think about it, if your black powder load produces 1100 fps and the smokeless load produces 1100 fps they are the same as far as pressure is concerned if all other thing are the same, shot weight, wads , case. Jim

James-l: I'm no expert, or suggesting you're wrong in your essential point, but as I understand it, BP does burn it's way much farther up the pipe than smokeless (a longer explosion in both time and distance), creating somewhat different pressures at different points in the barrel. Others who understand much better will no doubt weigh in on this. TT

Um.. you CAN engineer a load that duplicates black powder velocity and pressure, or nearly duplicates it, and many here do just that. BUT to assume a smokeless load that produces 1100fps has the same pressure as black is really dangerous thinking. It's only so if that was the loading objective, the powder selection and charge is correct, and the loads have been tested to meet the objective.

I am not suggesting that you go off half-cocked and pour powder of any kind or amount into your shells. Common sense and pure physics say that if you discharge the same weight of shot and wads, and they are the same velocity, the same pressure is being developed in the barrel. The idea that BP burns slower than smokeless has been proven wrong, also another one that it burns faster. The burning rate of both BP and smokeless is determined by the type of powder, there is both fast and slow in each. Before making judgments on this you should read Bells articles, they are eye opening on many misconceptions. Of course you should use tested loads, if you don't sense enough to do this you should not be reloading anyway.

James, a glance at ANY reloading manual will prove your second sentence incorrect. The same final velocity may be acheived with several powders, with a wide range of peak pressures. Again, to claim that any final velocity is acheived with the same 'barrel pressure' all else being equal is wrong, dangerous, a misinterpretation of Bell, and just plain absurd.

A simple example: Alliant publishes a 1090fps 12 ga load with 1 1/8oz shot using Red Dot. A mild, low recoil, target load. It shows 10,300 psi. Now, is that the same pressure as a 2.5 dram BP load? Gonna shoot that in your damascus barrel?

OK lets try this from another angle. We have 2 loaded cartridges, identical in all respects. Same case, same primer, same wad column , same shot weight and size, both loaded to 7000 psi. The only variable is the powder, one is loaded with BP, the other with smokeless or whatever. Will the velocity be the same? I say yes, prove I am wrong.