doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 15 bore percussion double?

I recently came across a Hollis & Sheath (1849-1861, Boothroyd) percussion double. The barrels look pretty clean and I measure the bores at .674 & .683, somewhere between a 14 and a 16 bore. 29" barrels, 7lbs.-8oz.
The best I can figure is a wall thickness of .050 about halfway down. I also got short choke cones of .010 &.020 but choke boring wasn't supposed to be introduced until 1874 by Greener.
Were there such animals as 15 bores or were percussion guns made on a different methodology?


thanks,

Rob

Looks like a nice old gun. From what I hear bore sizes ran that gambit. 15 bore wasn't that uncommon....most I've saw and owned were stamped with a bore size.
I've often wondered how much platinum weight is in the vent plugs....might be worth more than some guns ?
I suspect the little choke you are measuring might have been caused by barrel honing who's to say if it was intentional choke or not.

Those silver discs are platinum? Were they safety plugs that blew out before the barrel would blow?


thanks,

Rob

Platinum vents so the powder could breath better on ignition.

There's a tiny hole in the center of each one...sometimes you'll see guns with the holes peened shut.

When percussion cap guns first appeared..the flint lock makers claimed their guns shot harder because the system was more open. So the vent evolved...some later, cheaper made guns didn't utilize them.

So there's a small hole in the platinum?

Visible in the top picture

Thanks Joe.

Rob

Judging from the rest of the gun I'd bet the top tang screw is a poor replacement.

Any one know what the fish/serpant engraving on the hammers symbolizes ? (They were fairly common on muzzleloaders).

I believe that all older engraving symbolized something other than just art work.

"To the ancient Greeks and Romans sailors, dolphins were a symbol of divine protection and guidance because they aided the sailors by surfing the bow wave of ships at sea."

Other than that I think the ancient depictions of dolphins lends itself very well to the shape of a hammer.

I just learned something...

Recoil Bob,
The rules of proof, 1813-1863, applied when your gun was made.These rules specified bore size and test load for each bore size from 1-50. The bore size given for 15 bore was .685 The proof load is given as 4 times the standard charge.The proof marks on your gun contain the letters B.P.C which indicates that the gun was made and proof tested in Birmingham,some time after 1855 and more than likely prior to 1863.
Hollis and Sheath 1849-1861 was re organised as Isaac Hollis & Sons.In 1861 the name was changed again to Hollis and Sons.
From a trade label in my collection we read that they were,Contractors to Her Majesty,s war department & manufacturers of double and single barrel fowling pieces,rifles,pistols and military arms.

I have a 15 bore sxs muzzle loader. Thats a pretty nice gun from the looks of it.

I've always believed there was a connotation of happiness intended (in addition to the divine protection and guidance) when an artist used a dolphin image. Something about the way they leap, especially near the bow of a boat.

I see them every day here...Once when the water was mirrorlike, we shut down the boat and waited for a school of several hundred to reach us. My Brittany, Charlie, got so excited he jumped into the water. They played together until Charlie got tired and scared...Something I will never forget...

Actually, the hole in the platinum plug is also a clean out
device, The pressure blowing out each firing keeps the bolster clean and prevents fowling

Never heard that before....what's the bolster ?

Those barrels look to have been un-breeched. The rib on the plug does not perfectly align on top and the keel piece, or short rib on the bottom looks to be loose(?)

Removing breech plugs is a major undertaking and they can be very difficult to realign, this also might account for jug choking that you are apparently measuring. Jug choking is only reliably done with the plugs removed.

Platinum vents were quite common throughout the percussion era, and when clear will puff smoke as the gun is fired. I'd think twice about shooting that one, and have an experience person do a very thorough inspection.

I used to shoot and work on muzzleloading guns quite extensively, my fav double was a 14 ga. Belgian gun. I still have a 20 ga. flint gun of my own making and jug choked dozens of barrels. (I no longer do any M/L work.)

SDH,I am not so sure on the misalignment of the breech plugs and the rest of the barrel assembly. The joints between each on the sides and bottom appear to fit perfectly. Maybe the rib has raised a bit, so it looks misaligned.

The hooks do have some shiny marks but looking from the underneath the breech plugs look to be in perfect alignment.

From what I've heard jug choking can and was often done on muzzle-loaders without removing the breech plugs with expandable reamers.

From what I'm looking at I'd have no fear at all of firing it.

The brrel rib is a bit higher than the breech rib so it looks misaligned since the photo was not taken from directly above.

I will say this, the barrels ring like a church bell when hung by the hooks. I know that's not definitive proof of anything but encouraging nonetheless.

The Bolster is the protrusion that the nipple screws into. Later ML rifles have a cleanout screw,but the English did not need that with the tiny hole to blow out gases through and self clean.

The term I've heard was breech plug not bolster.

I've never heard or read about the platinum plugs as having anything to do with cleaning anything....their intended purpose was to let air be sucked in to the tighter percussion cap system for better ignition.

A breech plug screws into the rear of the barrel and the bolster-plug containing the nipple is another form of breech plug. Look in some of the ML Catalogs and you will see them displayed. Hold your hand outside of the vented bolster sometime and see how pressure comes out. Not as much as a touchhole on a flintlock, but noticible.
FINIT

I don't know about the use of the hole to clean the flash chanel on a gun with blowout disks. I have seen(somewhere) a fix for caplock rifles, where a hole was drilled into the bolster and supposedly ignition was improved.
Yes, the hole was pointed AWAY from the shooter.
I don't know if it sucked or blew.

Couldn't resist
Tom

joe, it is not likely reamers inside the bore were expanded from the outside as the adjustment is on the inwardendward.

If you could hold the gun a little closer to the screen, I could get a better look at the plug alignment...

Stallone I think you confusing the platinum vent plugs with something else.

It actually blows out a minute amount but it was thought at the time that it let the powder charge breath air for better combustion....never heard or saw in print that they cleaned anything.

Upon closer inspection SDH is correct, the rib on the plug is misaligned with the rib on the barrel. The side reinforcements around the platinum plugs also look out of alignment.

Dangerous situation or just annoying?


thanks,

Rob

I wouldn't let it worry you too much.

Hey Rob.
If the gun was taken apart to jug choke it, it looks like they just did a mediocre job on the strip and relay. That much difference shouldn't matter. The tool marks seem to line up on the bottom of the breech so it may have just been made "off". How do the inside of the tubes look?
Also, although that tang screw doesn't look right, then neither does the hammer screw on the right lock.

Tom

All it really shows is that the plugs were out, unless you can measure jug choking, that would have been done at the same time. Is the keel piece loose (the short rib, bottom rear)?

Strip and relay is not required for plug removal.

I was around a lot of percussion double, but that was nearly two decades ago. I saw more than one set of barrels literally fall apart during a trap match, loops and ribs falling off and brls separating, but never saw a barrel come apart.

Guys have always seem to see guns being safer than I did, always being very cautious. I sure wish I had pics of my 14 ga. or my original English single barreled flintlock 11 gauge... I bet I put 1000 rounds through that gun before retiring it.

American Fowler brochure (scan from the Archives circa 1985) fortunately I still own this gun.

You may be right O Killer of Brant, but then again it looks the same as the screw on the left lock. I think a trip to "I " may be in order on my up to Colt, he'll have an opinion I'm sure. The owner wants me to run it by him anyway..




SDH, the keel strip doesn't seem loose in the normal sense of the word when we speak of ribs but then again it looks like it could use some more solder under there to fill up the empty space. But, as I said, the barrels do ring beautifully. What does the "3" signify? Barrel weight?



BTW, are the breech plugs threaded or soldered in?

No they are not soldered.

No they are not soldered or threaded? Then how are they held in?

Threaded, but one over the top of the other, that's part of what makes them difficult to remove... and perfectly replace.

I will agree with Joe here on the Jug Choking, it "Can" be done from the muzzle. It is more convenient to do it with both ends of the bbl open, bt not an absolute necessity. In either case it is necessary to expand the reamer within the confines of the Jug & then collapse it for removal.

I've never used a reamer for the jug choking I've done. It was always accomplished on a lathe with a boring bar.
I'd sure like to see the reamer you can expand and contract from inside the bore???
For that matter, I'd like to see an explanation of how jug choking can be done with any reamer? Preferably from someone who has jug choked barrels...

SDH;
I have never actually jugged a bbl by any means. I did spend 35+ years working in macne shops so familar wth most aspects of metal working. For ceretain with a boring bar in a lathe it would matter not if the bore were open or not. Easiest of course would be on an individual bbl, then the breech could be simply chucked & muzzle run in a steady rest. To do it on a double I would build a fixture to put the muzzles in, chuck the breeches with bore of the bbl to choke on a center & turn the fixture true to run in steady rest. Either way it would, once set-up, be quite simple to bore the jug.

I don't know per-sey that reamer was actually the proper term, but used it for want of a better one. I saw a drawing on this in a feature the Rifleman used to run, back in the good old days. It used a flat tool steel blade let down for a tight fit into a wood dowel. The center of the dowel was drilled for a pin having a taper section at the end. To start the blade had to be down so it would enter the bore of course, then it was wedged up tight from one end to start the cutting. By continual adjusting & cutting according to the author a nice jug choke could be worked in. It might be more correct to call this a hand operted boring bar. The tool should be jacked up on the end away from the muzzle so the jug will end with a cone toward muzzle.

This was given as a way to choke ML'ers without the necessity of pulling the breech plugs. While it may not be the ideal it is a possibility. If I have learned nothing else in what will,in about another 6 weeks be 74 years, it is that if one uses the terms "Never" or "Always" it will "Nearly Always" come back & bite you.

I've never did it but have talked with a few older guys that have and I recall them saying they used an expandable reamer...

How else are you going to jug choke a gun without reaming the entire barrel ?

I simply get tired of the amount of misinformation presented here by those who have never, nor will ever do what they are presenting as fact...
I'd still like to see any reamer that could be adjusted from the muzzle end of a shotgun barrel while in the bore.

Joe, Google BORING BAR, Lathe....
Then try to find out what an expandable reamer looks like...
For that matter, you might try to find out what a jug choke looks like.
I quit.

I thought I had a pretty good idea of what jug choking looked like...correct me if I'm wrong.

Its a honed section a few inches behind the muzzle that's generally a few inches long that's a larger diameter than the bore behind it and the muzzle end in front of it ?

If I am close to being correct in my layman's description how do you propose this was done without some type of expandable reamer ?

jOe

I've used an automotive brake cylinder hone to polish chambers and clean up mild pitting in barrels (it smooths and polishes that sort of sugary surface you sometimes see located just after the forcing cone). As long as you weren't looking for a whole lot of choke a brake cylinder hone, with coarser stones on it then what I've been using, would be great for what you just described, and easily accomplished as well simply using a power drill. SDH, I think you're making the process harder then need be.

BTW the chamber I polished was on a new Remington 870 Express. The factory chamber was so rough that shells would occasionally stick in it. After polishing with the hone there were no more problems. Yes I probably should have sent it back to the factory, but then I would have been without use of the gun right at the beggining of hunting season .

Steve

Got a 14 bore and a 16 bore. No 15 bore (yet)

It seems odd to me that the underside of the barrels aren't each stamped with a "15", but I guess there's room for procedural slips now and again, especially back then.

I have to admit I tend to agree with the assessments of SDH on this one.

Maybe you'd like to explain it then.

Don't recall that we were ever given a maerking for the gauge of the gun in question. If the bores still measure what they did when built then one would have been marked 16 & the other 15. Prior to 12887 there was no 16/1. With those bore sizes after 1887 but prior to the marking of actual diameter they would have been marked 16/1 & 15.

SDH
Incidently I have never in my life worked in a proof house & measured a bore with an "Official" plug gauge nor stamped its size on a bbl. I can however still speak with some reasonable amount of intelengence on the subject. While true I have never had a reason to jug choke a bbl, as I stated I wporked for 35+ years in the machinist trade & have certainly performrd far more complicated tasks than putting a little ol jug in a shotgun bbl. I can assure you I could perform that simple task without removing the breech plugs.

I have an equal hatred for folks who think "Their Way" is the "Only Way". I thought everyone knew there were at least 4 ways to do anyrthing.

I talked with an old muzzleloading enthusiast at the gun club today and said he had jug choked several Muzzle loaders with a home made expandable reamer from the muzzle end...even mentioned that another member had an original reamer by V.M. Star.

...and I spoke with Shiva today and he told me you were FOS and that Miller needed to work on his spelling.

I don't know my arse from my breech, but I do know that quite a few guys with flintlock fowlers do get them jug-choked, usually specifically for turkey.

As I intimated, I don't know the procedure but I think Joe is on to it. I'll bet he's known some guys who've had it done.

The muzzleloading site I'm a member of could supply me with a smith or two who perform this service if someone here needs to pursue it.

I'll tell you one thing; the purists are strictly against the practice because, of course, nobody had such a barrel back in the 18th century. But there certainly are some guys today who have no qualm about that.

Its not so much my spelling as manipulating the keyboard. I never took typing in school nor do I make any claim to being a writer. I did spend 4 yrs in an official machinist apprenticeship & the following 31+ yrs plying my trade. I know a good deal about lathes & other metal working including a lot of hand work. More than 20 of those years was spent as a model maker.
I would offer you the advise of once you have been proven "WRONG" on basic facts then attack on manners of mere trivia, but I see you've already picked up on that.

Who is Shiva ?

Shiva must've been the gent that thought there was only one way to skin a cat...

The fellow I talked with knew of you and remarked that you had built some beautiful guns....

I don't know this "Shiva" fellow but I do know Bobby Collins and he's been going to Friendship Indiana and been a muzzle loading enthusiast since the age of the Dinosaur so I have reason to doubt anything he says about a muzzle loader.

Just to add some fuel to the discussion, my bore gauge is 16" long and the bore was consistent until the choke so unless the barrel was "jugged " for 16"or more it's just regular choke cones.

Of course the barrels could have been over-bored when they were taken apart to leave some choke in there.

With the original bore diameter unmarked I'd want to be sure it had sufficient wall thickness before I shot it.

Right around .050 16" back from the muzzle. Of course this is using OD-ID/2, not the best indicator but all I have at the moment. If I ever get the chance to fire it up I will have it properly checked.

http://www.chadwickreamers.com/model_mb.php

I believe this tool is designed for an operation similar to jug choking. I have had the manufacturer build me the tooling I use for cutting standard chokes and believe if anyone could design a reamer to do the job, they could. I have never cut a jug choke though.

SKB;
That is a piloted expansion reamer but I do not think it is designed for cutting a Jug Choke & certainly not one which could be used with one end of the tube plugged. I presume that all in this discussion does understand the difference between Jug Choking & Back Boring. An ordinary expansion reamer is normally adjusted outside the hole & used in successive steps for enlarging a hole in small increments.
In order to Jug a bbl it is necessary to do the expansion without removing the tool. A normal expansion reamer does not cut efficiently down the length of its flutes, but as it goes forward it cuts on its leading angle.

See SDH I do understand what you are saying, one doesn't just pick up a standard expansion reamer & jug a bbl with it. It does however remain as a "FACT" that enterprising folks have come up with various ways of effectively accomplishing the goal with out the removal of the breeech plug & without a large enough lathe to swing the bbl set in.

Revisiting this topic as today my good friend Tom Hall stopped by a muzzleloading specialty store called Dixon's in PA. He got some FFG and was going to pick me up some cards & wads for this gun but they told him that they recommend against shooting a gun like this, apparently the choke constriction can cause problems with the cards and wads.

Tom, care to chime in?

thanks,

Rob

I have a percussion 12ga with a choked barrel. I fire it with no problems at all. The only way there's a problem is if the cards/wad can't get past the choke. I cut my prelubed wads into fourths and turn them sideways to get past the choke then flip them with my finger. Over shot cards are the same way.

I know some people use 3 or 4 OS cards in place of a wad with good results but I prefer having the lubed wad.

Also, I have made up some replica Eley patent cartridges to try. (but have not really tried them yet). They are initially a little bigger than 20ga in diameter but open up to fill the 12ga bore when rammed home against the powder.

They pass the constriction with no problem at all. Depending on how much time you want to spend prefabbing loads that might work also.

V.M. Starr jug-choked my 10 bore Dewson percussion double in 1968 and I saw no evidence of breech plug removal. I thought he used expandable reamers, but am not sure.