doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Double Rifles, Paradox Guns & Gauge Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Bullet Mould for 450 BPE 3 1/4

I'll be glad to help you as much as I can,Marc. Most, if not almost all black powder Alex Henry double rifles had Henry style rifling.I have a 12 Bore Alex Henry Double rifle and my brother has two 450 Henry double rifles, one hammer and one hammerless, all three have Henry rifling. A typical Henry barrel has 7 flats with a raised ridge of metal formed in the corner of each pair of flats giving a 14 point bearing surface. Rifle barrels made by Henry were marked as such, a lot of Henry barrels for his rifles were made by Adams & Tate (A&T) and so marked on the barrels. There was a great article written in Double Gun Journal by Dr. Frank Findlow on loading for tapered barrels.
Sherman Bell is an excellent source of reloading methods and used a 450 hammerless Alex Henry 450 double for his testing, he has far more knowledge than me. I am a collector and haven't shot a double rifle in years, but have owned over 30 Henry double rifles over the years.

Marc,I bought a metal from Brownells called Cerosafe that melts at a very low temperature. I used this to slug the bore by stuffing a patch about 1 inch from the muzzle and pouring the cerosafe in. The 7 point rifling makes finding the bore size difficult by just trying to mike the slug. You need to turn the slug in the jaws of the micrometer to get a true reading. I would use that measurement to order a bullet mold ( paper patch). Patching will then increase the diameter to seal the bore at the rear tapered end of the bore. I would guess miking the rifling just after the chamber ends would give you the correct size for a grooved bullet.

I have a Henry falling block side hammer that is stamped Henry Rifleing. My Henry 577/450 DR (damascus)has Henry rifleing too. It shoots cast lead bullets just fine but I have a package of origional cartridges that are paper patched.

Thank you very much, Mr Davidson, for your posts. Yes, I will now definitely concede about the Henry rifling issue. My barrels indeed have the seven point rifling. You know, I was trying to remember what Ross Seyfried said to use in an old article, it might not even have been DGJ, and you brought it up - Cerosafe! Thank you for the clear directions on how to use this material and how to mic the finished product. You're right, of course, about the tapered barrel, so the "snugness factor" has to be dealt with at the chamber end. I think you're 100% correct about micing the rifling thereabouts.
On a related note, searching the internet I came across a Mike Venturino article about slugging bores. He uses a soft lead roundball and pounds it into the barrel with a wooden hammer and pushes it out with a right-sized dowel(!)
Do you, or anyone here, think there would be any harm in just trying an assortment of commercial .45 rifle bullets just for the heck of it? I know I'd be right lucky if both barrels ended up .458, but it could also be a way to practice paper patching, no?

Mike, those guns must be real beauties! Have you ever had a problem at the chamber end with the fit of those cartridges with the cast lead bullets? I'm very tempted to try a bunch of 300 gr bullets, maybe even get the mould you suggested earlier, (or one like it) if I lucked out.
After all, I do have a target from the last owner showing that nice 50 yd target, and he gave me the load he'd found for the best regulation. Maybe I'd be foolish to bother doing everything he already did! On one hand I'd learn a lot, on the other I could just enjoy a lot more time to shoot the thing!

Hi Marc, the Dr Findlow article I was referring to is in Volume 18 issue 4 Winter 2007 of Double Gun Journal. Dr. Findlow IS a rocket scientist and really knows his stuff. I've talked to him many times. What 500/450 chambering do you have? I owned back in 1973 fully cased in oak and leather will ALL original loading tools and accessories an Alex Henry 500/450 3 1/4" Magnum BPE double rifle made for the Maharaj Rana of Dholpur. Needed money at the time and sold it. Have been trying to find it ever since, dang it!
I would not be too worried shooting lead bullets a little over size, but would be really concerned with oversize jacketed bullets.
By the way, almost all Henry double rifles came cased with a bullet mold numbered to the rifle. You really need to mike the bores to see what you have. An Alex Henry double rifle Dr. Findlow owned had a bore of .04564 at the breech and .4530 at the muzzle! Of course these are all Black Powder rifles.

Many Thanks for saving me the time to find the Dr Findlow article. But are you now trying to make me jealous? My Henry is but a 450 BPE 3 1/4 with hammers, in really fine shape but certainly not the princely 500/450 3 1/4 magnum(!)And my gun is stamped with a "15" on the left-side butt, a marking from the Maharaja's arsenal. No doubt it flew back to England when they banned all.45 caliber guns from Africa and India. And you had a Henry NOT from the arsenal but one made especially for the Maharaj Rana of Dholpur. With the oak and leather case with all the attendant goodies. My God, Mr Davidson, how many sleepless nights did THAT sale cause? What a package of beauty that must have been, even WITHOUT the - "oh,by the way, it was owned by..." -history attached to it! But I am familiar with the sad things one must do when money must be gotten "tout suite".
Thank you also for that mention of the Henry double rifles being cased with a mould numbered to the rifle. I suppose I could search for the original mold to my rifle while you search for the royal gun you once owned. I'd hate to see the odds on either endeavor!
Yes, if I do experiment with a variety of bullets they most definitely will be lead and not jacketed. And yes, I think I will still go through the whole ordeal of getting the correct measurements of my barrels. That way I could really get my money's worth on having a new custom mould made.

If the targets and load that a prior owner is good enough, don't mess with it. It's time consumeing as well as a few sheckles to get a recipe worked up that works well. After you get used to that load and the quirks of the rifle then experiment to improve it.

What AkMike1 says is right on the money! I am a collector, not a shooter and really like to find out who the rifle was made for and as much about it as I can. Your rifle was made pre 1875 from the serial number. I have some Alex Henry copies of ledger pages and will see if your rifle is on one of them. I used to own a .577 Alex Henry Dr and a 20 Bore Alex Henry DR consecutivly numbered and made approx 1875 for the Maharaja of Pattiallah (inscribed on the rib of both rifles. Sold them too, the 20 Bore is pictured in Dr Findlow's article. I would have to say that Alex Henry was at LEAST equal to any of the best London makers.
Dicksons Gunmakers have the Henry records in Scotland. Because of some stupid law suit they will probably not tell you the owners name, but will give you the rest of the info on the rifle. For example my 12 Bore Henry Double Rifle was made in 1879, weighs 12 lb 13 oz, regulated with 6 3/4 drams of no. 6 powder with a conical steel cored bullet.

Yes, gentlemen, thanks for knocking the sense back into my head. I'm going to load and shoot with other's cast bullets and do all the slugging and work when the cold New England days are upon us. Sounds perfect, No? And Mr Davidson, you keep on amazing me with your ownership of the guns of royalty!Man o man, next thing you know I'll be reading you once owned Prince Albert's game guns! Though I haven't read the article yet I looked at the picture that included your 20 bore. Very fine gun, sir! Coincidentally I had the issue pulled out for reading the second Bell article on British muzzleloaders. I got a beautiful Joseph Lang muzzleloader (double) last spring. I know from e-mails with Atkin, Grant and Lang that it was built in 1825 (serial # 355), but unfortunately all records from the beginning to 1847 were destroyed in the blitz.
I've always been drawn to Alex Henry guns, can't really say why, but probably because every picture I've ever seen of one just got to me. I think I would have to agree with your assessment of them, Mr GD. I'm like that with Westley Richards as well, acquired a beautiful double 12 bore from 1890 some 8 or 9 years ago. My first damascus barrels! And yes, Dicksons doesn't seem especially inviting when it comes to helping one trace their Alex Henry. A cold casse of "Let's have the money upfront and you'll take whatever we give you". Still holding back on tracing it through them, but I know curiosity will get the better of me one day and I'll bite. Thank You VERY much for finding out when mine was made, more or less. Even older than I had thought, which is interesting (at least to me!)