I am looking for anyone with accuracy results of bore rifles at longer ranges; especially with paradox type guns. Longer range can be as close as 100yds. I am working on a 20ga project gun (pt1 to test out slugs) and the accuracy between 50 and 100yd is very different (.5-1" at 50 and 4" at 100). I feel that it is the bullet going subsonic and the effect of the wave hitting the base of the slug.
Did the paradox guns simply keep things below 1100fps?
I would think that round balls should fair somewhat better than conicals, but hard info beats guessing.

Any experience would be appreciated.

Thanks

Tom

paradox guns were designed to shoot both round and conicals as well as decent bird shot patterns. Early guns were BP later nitro and even magnum, your groups are quite good as they usually want period type ammo and loading, round balls are a short range fodder conicals delivering more energy and acurracy down range and work off flip up sites. Excessive looading can deform the base on ceartain bullits causing inaccuracy.

The 8 and 10 paradox guns and bore rifles shoot at velocities well above 1100 fps with good accuracy. The latter nito 12 paradox guns shot at around 1250 and the super magnum at 1500fps.

Thanks for the input. I was hoping to have actual results from shooters. I KNOW that there are people on this board who own or have owned them. I looked in the Greener book and most of the targets are from short to medium range. Greener also states that the rifled gun was fairly accurate to 120yds and the smoothbore to 60. Ipresume that this was for the bores besides 8 which he wrote about the most.
I am currently trying to decide whether to try and push round balls as fast as possible or to go with a 500+ grain slug and keep it moving slowly.
Not trying to make a 20bore into something it isn't though, just better than as it is currently offered.

Thanks

Tom

Tom:
A good source of diagrams shot with Paradox guns is 'The Field' trials held at the time, and widely reported in period literature, not the least of which was 'The Field' sporting newspaper. Holland's Paradox performed very well, and the diagrams were reproduced in their catalogues for decades afterwards. I'm away from my library at the moment, but will report details later if no-one else beats me to it.

Graeme Wright includes a good discussion on Paradox accuracy in the second edition of his book 'Shooting the British Double Rifle', definitely worth buying a copy if you don't already have it. Again, I'll report details later when I have access to the material, if no-one else comes forth.

Tom,
I load for 12 and 10 bore paradox. I generally don't shoot past 100yards. I start checking accuracy at 50yds and if those loads look good at that range, I "proove" the load at 100. 2" at 50, 4" at 100 but better acurracy is possible. I have not shot round ball out of the rifled chock guns. Getting the right bullet, componets and velocity is key in getting these guns to shoot well. Long range paradox shooting requires the LT type capped bullet and I have not been able to duplicate that as of this time. I hope to procure a big bore round ball gun in the near future.

4" at 100 is very respectable, especially for 2 barrels PM. I don't plan on having to shoot longer than 100yds but I do like the ability to do so. I am really pretty disappointed with full bore factory slugs as most of them do an abysmal job of holding onto velocity. I also know that I really can't turn my shotgun into a rifle.
If your gun is shooting into the group that you say it is, then there is something technical that I haven't gotten onto yet.
Marrakai, if you do have some of that info it would be appreciated.
In my case where I don't plan on shooting anything bigger or more dangerous than eastern whitetail, I really don't have any need for a "magnum" slug that really just acts that way out to 75 yds or so. Putting in a proper bullet would solve the problem entirely.
Right now I am just making sure that the twist on the barrel that I have on the test gun is right. 70" twist with a .615 bore and a .625 groove. When I saw the 100 yd accuracy I started to think that it was the load and not the barrel. Those slugs were standard Brenneke 2.75 and Winchester BRI style (just to test accuracy.)
I want to order up two more barrels, but not until I make this one work.

Thanks

Tom

Tom:
Here are the 12-bore Paradox diagrams shot at the 1886 public trials at Hollands' shooting ground at Kensal Green.




Fifty yard diagram, size not specified but all ten shots went into the 3 1/2 inch bull.




Hundred yard diagram, measuring 5 3/4 x 3 3/4 inch. Number 4 was obviously a 'flyer', as a second group was shot to accomodate a late-comer to the trial, whereby all ten shots went into 3 1/2 x 4 3/16 inches.

I would conclude from this that 2 inches at 50 yds and 4 inches at 100 yards is not only perfectly satisfactory, but rather excellent, especially if it can be sustained for ten shots!

Thanks for those diagrams Marrakai. It matches up with PM's results as well. Now I have a benchmark. I will definately post updates after hunting season is over. My range is closed until then.
If I can get 2 barrels to do that I am going to be pretty happy.
Any other thoughts or ideas, please send them along.
Thanks.

Tom

Just found Webley's diagrams for their 12-bore 'ball and shot' gun, as illustrated in the July 1914 Webley & Scott catalogue. The sizes aren't given, so you'll have to guess them for yourself!

100-yard group on left, 50-yard group on right.

I own and shoot two different 16b SxS bore rifles, both of them sport fully rifled barrels and express sights.
I shoot roundball.
I haven't been fiddling with them lately, but the first image here is of my first day out with one of them, note the two holes on the lower left corner of the cardboard target backer.
Those are the rifle's first breaths in over a hundred years, shot at fifty yards.
The following images are from a J&W Tolley catalog.











--Tinker

Tom,

Think about this for a second. If you shoot a round ball from a smooth bore barrel, you are shooting a musket. If you shoot a round ball from a rifled barrel you are shooting a rifle. The early muskets were often shot with out patching during war to save time loading. Hence the need for long lines of shooters facing each other.

When I did a lot of black powder rifle, the trick to accuracy was properly patching the ball so it engaged the rifling and prevented any blow by. The rifled shotgun slug was developed to help stabilize the slug by imparting spin. The skirt expands to prevent blow by. The minie ball kept the skirt in the design for the same reasons.

It sounds like your slug is not being stabilized, hence the large groups down range. A black powder rifle shooter with a decent gun can eventually work up a round ball load with patching that can achieve 1/2" groups at 100 yards.

Back from a few days away for the holiday.
Thank you all for the great info, although being "urgently advised" to buy a Tolley sounds like a hard sell.
Those vintage adds really answer a lot of the basics regarding what was available and to some extent what they were capable of.

I have been shooting black powder for about 12 years and I was originally going to make a ball gun.
I am sure that I will end up with something that works but I also wanted to look at all of the options. (most of which are around 100 years old).
As far as stability, I know that there are cases where a bullet is accurate at close range and less accurate further out (and the opposite can be true as well)but I don't think that this is one of those cases.
Range will be open in three weeks or so.
I'll have the loads ready by then.

Cheers.

Tom

PeteM:
This is simply not true, mate. The 'rifling' on the slug is to allow a crush-fit through the choke without raising pressure. Actually, it's not rifling at all: the fins are simply angled so that lead smeared off the fins as they are crushed in the choke is wiped into a space behind the fin, so the build-up doesn't raise pressure further. Invented by Wilhelm Brenneke I believe. Brenneke's tests showed that a 'rifled' slug rotates about one turn in 50 metres, certainly not enough to spin-stabilize the projectile. Smooth-bore slugs depend on the 'shuttle-cock' principle for stabilization, in one form or another (either attached base-wad or hollow rear skirt, or sim.).

Wikepedia perpetuates the mis-information about rifled slugs spinning to stabilize, but the Brenneke web-site will set you straight.

Hope this helps.

Bit of apples and oranges here: the Tolley Ubique is a choke-rifled gun, not a fully rifled gun and fires the Fosbery conical projectile of about 535 grains or so. Chokerifled guns usually weigh in at 7 lbs and 4-8 oz. whereas, the fully rifled arms are much heavier. H&H claimed that its Paradox (Fosbery's original patent) would give the same accuracy as an Express Rifle at 100 yards.
Regards, Tim

Hey Tim

Don't you have a Coggie Cosmos?

I also agree with Marrakai regarding slugs. I think that the problem with my groups is compounded by the Brenneke with the attached basewad regarding the transonic thing. (there is visible tipping at 100yds that isn't there at 50.) Have to try the conicals to test that theory out

Tom

Tom,

Yes, I've a Coggie Cosmos and I'm embarrassed to say that I'm in a trough because, despite some major efforts to regulate, I cannot get both barrels to shoot together.

Velocity is in the vicinity of supersonic and, given the supermagnum experiences plus what I understand of Ross Seyfried's work with the Fauneta (20 bore Westley Richards), I wouldn't worry about that question.

Round ball did our ancestors well. But, choke rifled guns are a major improvement at the distances of hunting (as opposed to sniping).

Luck in your efforts!
Regards, Tim