doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Peterlongo "Vena Contracta" 16ga to 20ga?

I have a Peterlongo hammer B�chsflinte (Cape gun) in 7x57r and 16. I just got around to measuring the 16 gauge bore (as best I can), and discovered it seems to have a steady taper from a 16 gauge chamber to .622 (at the muzzle.) Anyone heard of 'vena contracta' bores in Austrian/German guns of this vintage (1920's)? And what was supposed to be the point of these tapered bores? (I have not yet made the gun go bang, but look forward to patterning it.)

You just jogged my memory fiercely! I don't think I would EVER have remembered those words and thought they pertained to guns and not vineyards.

Anyway, there's a very eraly DGJ with an article on these barrels. I'll try to dig it out and see if I can help somewhat in your search.

Joseph Lang built Vena Contracta guns which were 12 gauge down to 20 gauge.

Here's a link to Michael MacIntosh's reference to this:

http://books.google.com/books?id=nLq3yaV...cta&f=false

and a link to Dig Hadoke's information:

http://books.google.com/books?id=lvBk8df...p;q&f=false

FlyChamps: thanks for the links. Very interesting stuff! A shot string from hell to breakfast!

Krakow: yes, please contact me if you are successful digging up the appropriate DGJ. Do you recall if it had references to 'vena contracta' guns on the Continent as well as Britain?

Many thanks to both of you.

Yes, I believe it did. It's frustrating, the official DGJ indexes don't have anything listed for"Vena Contracta" (sounds like a sexually transmitted disease to me tonight). Perhaps I should look under Joseph Lang guns. Hmmmm that's not a bad idea.

But I'll go through them issue by issue if I have to. It's supposed to be a rainy day today, a good day to do this research.