doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Chamber sleeving

I have used Gauge Mates, those that stay in the chamber, with good success. I use 20 ga. in a 12 ga. and the pattern results have been excellent. Much better than I can get any of my 20 ga. guns to shoot. I have also shot a few hundred starlings using the combination and it performs well.

I would say go for it as you will like them if yor results are similar to mine.

Lenard

I have a 16 Fox that I chamber sleeved down to 20. Sleeves are slightly longer than the chamber and forcing cones to get a good wad to bore seal and to make the transition to the larger bore less of a fall off. The gun shoots very well and has been a fine long range dove killer. Patterns are about what you would expect for a Full and Full gun and I see no magic in any back bored barrels. They shoot well but I can still miss if I try a little.

Before anyone laments the loss of a 16 let me assure you that the chambers were pitted beyond hope. I chose to go down to a 20 because I thought that making a 20 chamber sleeve would be easier, it was not really that easy, and I wanted a 30" 20 Fox which I lacked at the time. After several attempts and about a bucket of chamber cast I got the job done. If I had it to do again I would pay someone else to do it.

As another note, I have an Ideal Brevette 24 ga that I have had
chamber sleeved to 28 ga and it works well. It kills birds like
a RAY gun(from Marvel Comics)

I have wondered before why folks believe that chamber sleeving to a smaller ga. would convert an unsafe barrel to a safe one. Say your 12 ga. barrels are damascus and too badly pitted or dented to be safe to shoot. I can understand that full length 16 ga. inserts might make things ok, but why would chamber inserts or sleeves make the bad barrels suddenly safe. The pitts and dents would still be there, and I doubt that the pressure reduction of switching from 12 to 16 in the same bad barrels would be enough to cure the problem...Geo

I have a German single shot 16 ga on the Lefaucheux action. I had a gunsmith epoxy a Gaugemate 16:28 ga adapter into the chamber, cut a notch in the rim, put a grubscrew into the extractor, bingo, a 28 ga SS which earns its keep as a ruffled grouse and squirrel gun around the farmyard. I load 28 ga shells for my Remington 11-48, a cute gun if there ever was one, so I have lots of 28 ga shells around.
Gas obduration is complete looking at the spent wads. I know they should not work but they do, as do my little skeeters in 12:20 ga.
Mike

Jim- I remember the article to which you refer. As I recall, it was indeed Briley doing the work. The purpose was to replace pitted chambers and the areas directly forward of them with new steel. The length of the sleeve (or liner, take your pick) was sufficient to contain the pressure until it dropped off to a safe level. Sherman Bell's articles in the Finding Out For Myself series proved this to be much closer to the chamber than most believed.

The forcing cone is unnecessary because the barrel diameter increases rather than decreases. The effect on patterns was an improvement.

This is all from memory and I 've been known to screw up in the past but all in all it sounded like a good way to put an otherwise good gun back in service.

Cary

A quick check of Briley's web site shows they still perform this service for $375.00 per barrel.

Cary

Note that Bell "Confirmed" this to be true. I do not know his age but no doubt this was "Proved" long before Sherman was born. It seems all the old gunmakers knew it as they befed up the "Breeches" of their shotguns. The old E I DuPont De Nemours Co published some graphs of pressures generated by 5 different powders which showed this well in the late 20's. These graphs have been posted here on this BBS on several occasions. burrard new it well when he was doing work on his "Modern Shotgun" prior to WWII.

It would not make unsafe barrels safe. It would make compromised chambers and or forcing cones safe, which is the original purpose of chamber sleeving.

My intent is to convert a lightweight set of 12ga barrels that are spare to allow me to make a Churchill16 SxS