doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion German & Austrian Sporting Guns @ doublegunshop.com Odd Drilling Rifling?

I have a no name Drilling circa 1925 with a 9.3x72R rifle barrel.

The lands are only .047 wide and the grooves are .147, six lands and grooves. The lands are very tall at nearly .010. The diameter between the grooves is .364 and the diameter between the lands is .3445

Can anyone give me some info on this barrel, type of bullet etc? Are these tall narrow lands common? How would you load for it?

The rifling you describe is typical for 9.3x72R barrels and others designed originally for black powder, lead bullet cartridges. In Germany it is usually called "Expressz�ge" = express rifling. It is the German version of the British "Henry rifling". Land diameters of 8.8 or even 8.7 mm are common. As the German proofhouses usually stamped the land diameter besides the proofmarks, we aare often asked "What's a 8.8x72 cartridge?" The smokeless 9.3x72R loads are essentially "nitro for black" loads. For these cartridges and lead bullet rifling the gunmaker Collath in Frankfurt on Oder river in 1905 designed copper jacket bullets with a short bearing surface. These Collath designed bullets are still loaded in current RWS and Sellier & Bellot 9.3x72R loads. A common substitute here is using soft, conventional .358" 200gr .35 Remington bullets, no Noslers, but Sierra, Hornady or Speer. Though undersized they will shoot quite ok, as the metal displaced by the lands will often fill out the grooves to a degree. A better bet is, of course, to find the correct RWS or S&B bullets or to use gas checked lead bullets.

Your description sounds like Henry rifling, common in British rifles during the late 19th century. Developed for paper patch bullets and usually very accurate when they are used. My Reilley has Henry rifling and the Hawk .025 jacketed bullets give excellent results. A hard cast lead bullet of 20-22 BHN has also given good results.

Of course soft lead paper patch bullets will almost always give excellent results.

This bullet is available from Buffalo arms would it be correct.

http://www.buffaloarms.com/366_Jacketed_Bullets_it-158343.aspx?TERM=9.3x72

IMHO Yes, it is very close to the original Collath design.

Note the canalure on this bullet, I believe it is the 200gr 35 cal bullet kuduae recommended, that has been "bumped up" and reswaged by Buffalo Arms. They make a real effort to help us shoot our old "treasures".
Mike

Some old designs of copper jacketed "nitro for black" bullets:



l. to r.: three Collath/Tesco designs of 1905. RWS made 8mm 150 gr. RWS 9.3mm 193 gr. S&B 9.3mm 193 gr. Two forgotten, slightly later competitors: Nimrod 9.3mm 179gr, Chr.Funk 9.3mm 226gr

Axel, your box of "treasures" amazes me.
Mike

Yes, and he's a bad influence. Recently, I have all too often bought some little firearms/reloading/bullet casting relic because of what I've seen Axel put up a picture of....and Mr. Ford is no better!

When paper patching a bullet for this, would you use a bullet of .344 diameter and patch it up to .365(a lot of paper) or start with a .358 diameter bullet(two wraps of .002 paper)and patch it up to .365?

Oskar,
Are you considering patching cast or jacketed bullets?It seems that rifling such as this would cut the patching material all the way through(I've seen this type rifling,it looks like the lands are knife blades).I would suggest getting a 9.3mm mold(around 200gr)if you want cast bullets, or buy the Buffalo Arms bullets for Jacketed.If you still want paperpatched bullets, I defer to Sharps4590.
Mike

oskar, what I know and what I have done are sometimes two different things. I do know the Henry style of rifling was developed for paper patch bullets and that it really likes them. Too many articles and more than a few friends who shoot British doubles with Henry rifling surely cannot be wrong. However, I have never wrapped a bullet in my life. It is a step I just don't want to add, regardless of how historically accurate it is, which is more often than not a deciding factor for me...gotta be historically correct. While I don't like to revert to jacketed bullets, preferring cast, I will shoot jacketed to keep from patching bullets. The best I can do is refer you to The Cast Bullet Association and their web site. If it can be done with a cast bullet, someone over there has done it.

From what I've read about patching bullets your second suggestions sounds the best. I believe patched bullets are supposed to be dead soft and I am thinking that one patches to the bore diameter, allowing obturation to finish off the sizing.....but do not take my word for it! I may have to work up a paper patched load for one of my rifles just to learn about it.

Vic,
I'm not sure his barrel has Henry rifling,it sounds very much like the rifling in my cousins 9.3x72R. It has very wide grooves and thin lands,which look like knives in the barrel.This gun is nitro proofed but he is afraid to shoot jacketed bullets, because of the thin lands.Without trying I wouldn't bet the farm on it, but it just seems such rifling should cut the patch.
Mike

Paper patched bullets were rarely used in German hunting or target black powder loads. Other then the British, Germans most often used lubricated plain hard lead bullets. Two old 9.3mm factory swaged lead bullets:

left: RWS # R 9.3, 225 gr, .364" diameter with a .375" seating stop / guiding band. You may see the second band being stepped. This was the standard 9.3x72R black powder bullet weight. Loaded in front of 54 gr Cramer&Buchholz #6 "Nassbrand" black powder for a mv of 1500 fps. Used in the 9.3x82R the load was 69gr C&B #6, ballistics unknown.
Right: RWS # 15J, 190gr, .365" diameter with .372 stop band, for the 9.3x57R, but also used in the 72 for roebuck shooting.

I don't believe it's actually Henry either but from his description it certainly sounds "Henry-esque". Kinda like my 9.3 X 75R except mine has what I'm going to call double lands....that is two lands fairly close together. They are thin and appear sharp.

As far as shooting jacketed bullets in his rifle I believe he should if he isn't going to paper patch. That style of rifling, in my experience, likes dead soft jacketed bullets, such as the Hawk I mentioned, a lot better than it likes cast, naked, grooved and lubed bullets unless they are cast of almost straight lino, that is to say very hard. The BHN of lino is 22 and dead soft annealed copper is 25....precious little difference. That has been my experience with the two rifles I now own and others owned in the past that had "Henry-esque" rifling, (well, the Reilly definitely has Henry rifling but then it's British). You no doubt remember all the wailing, cussing, moaning and gnashing of teeth I went through with my T & S drilling and cast bullets with smokeless powder, straight black powder and duplexed black & smokeless. It shoots 34 grs. of IMR 3031 and the Hornady 200 gr., .358 jacketed round nose bullet into less than an inch at 50 yards off a bench, open sights, cooled about 15 minutes between shots. I have yet to try the Hawk bullet I bought but I expect excellent results from them as well. Now, none of that is to be taken as the last word as I am certainly no authority. That is just my experience. We've all been fooling around with firearms enough to now that each one is an entity unto itself.

If sized and patched correctly I don't believe it will cut the patch. I believe that has been the experience of my friends who shoot PP in British doubles with Henry rifling. It definitely unwraps it better than Enfield style rifling. I wish I knew more about PP bullets but I just don't want to do it. I dink with enough stuff without adding another step....lol!

Vic

Thank You all for the info. I've learned more on this sight than all the others I've posted on including Paper Patching ones.

I bought this 9.3x72 drilling as kind of a nostalgia thing, in the 1960's I hunted with one but it was before I got really interested in firearms. I was handed the rifle and ammo and went out and killed stuff with it. I have good memories of how those big bullets did the job and how sweet the drilling handled. I remember they had nothing but lead sticking out of the case, no copper jacket. I was hoping I could load soft lead paper jacketed bullets in this, but as I'm learning more about it, it is looking like it might be a dead end.

I'm going to order some S&B ammo to give jacketed bullets a try in it and then, if they work might just leave it at that, it won't be a high volume rig anyway as I have a few modern combos and drillings that I hunt with.

Thank you again for all the info.

This is one of my favorite sites as double guns and drilling are my favorites, old and new.

Oskar,
I talked with my cousin, this morning about patched bullets in his 9.3x72R. He hasn't tried them in that rifle, but uses them in other rifles.It's his opinion that they would work well, and doesn't believe cutting the patchrs would be a problem for you.I defer to his opinion.
Vic,
That is what makes this game fun.
Mike