doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Double Rifles, Paradox Guns & Gauge Rifles @ doublegunshop.com 12 bore pinfire WR

Anyone have any experience with pinfire, bore rifles? I have a 12 bore Westley Richards pinfire that is in excellent shape, and I'd like to experience it. Finding info on loads for it is nearly impossible. While I haven't cast the chambers yet, it appears that the chamber is only about 1.6 inches long. Somebody out there is smart on this, and can put me on the right track.

Gramps,

No experience. However, this folks know a bit about it.

http://www.hammerdouble.com/load-data.htm

Gramps-

I seem to recall having seen you post about this WR pinfire rifle elsewhere.

I have two pinfire double rifles, I shoot them both.

You really need to cast those chambers.
My guess is that the rifle was set up for paper cases.

I strongly doubt that the thin walled brass cases offered by the company mentioned above will work with your rifle.

It's going to take some work for you to get it set up properly with just the right projectile (likely roundball) and the right charge and wad column.

I make my own cases from brass barstock. The case walls need to be thick to emulate the shape of the old paper cases. I'm working with reforming the rims on modern paper and plastic cases to get them set up to run in my rifles. The 209 primer pockets need work and I need to drill firing pin holes too...

It's a lot of fun, the rifles shoot well and have been quite a challenge, Very Rewarding!

So, back to my sense of remembering you having posted on this gun before, I don't recall you having gotten photos of it up on the web.
You really should either photograph it yourself or get someone to snap some images and get them up for us to see.
Include photos of the proof marks, the breech faces including the firing pin notches, the hammers, the locking system...

I want to see this thing!
There's another guy here on the site who shoots an old black powder cartridge bore rifle, I think his is a twenty bore. My rifles are both sixteen bore.

here's one of them in it's case



and the other one, it's first day at the bench



Now let's see your WR...


--Tinker

Tinker,
I did post somewhere and got ahold of you. The only one that's ever helped. Your second pic tells me a lot. I think mine will be set up like that. The brass case can only be about 1.6 inches long due to the chamber. I got some .690 and .715 balls in the mail today, so I will try to slug the bore as well. The cerrosafe just hasn't worked well for me when I try to cast the chambers. So your cartridges are a combination brass/paper? I'm ready to learn. This thing isn't cased, but it is gorgeous. WR sent me it's pedigree for the sum of 50 pounds. Sold April 13th, 1865 to Manton and Sons.

Gramps

Oh, hm.
Perhaps all of this holiday turkey and stuffing's working my long term memory a little too hard...

Good then, let's see what we can do to get your rifle going.
The cases you see above are short, like what you need for your rifle. That rifle likes two and a half drams of FFg Goex black powder, I have a fresh can of Swiss 1-1/2Fg that I'll be trying soon too.
I turned the cases from brass barstock to match my chamber casts, then hand fitted them to my chambers for a very snug fit.
I didn't run the walls as thick as a wax paper case, and neck them down very slightly to make up the difference. I wanted my cases to have a little bit of spring to them so as to provide a gas seal.
Over the powder, I run a little cup that I make out of milk carton material. I made a special punch and die to form them in. They resemble little paper water cups with very short walls.
I tamp the powder down with one of these, the cup facing the powder. Over that I set a 1/4" thick saddle felt donut wad that I soak with black powder lube -- essentially a paste that makes sure that the powder fouling remains soft from shot to shot.
I can easily fire a string of ten pairs of shots without having to clean or swab the barrels. The lube also renders the fouling relatively inert.
My firing pins are made of bronze alloy brazing rod material, and I use regular percussion caps for ignition. Black powder is easy to light, ignition's been very consistent.

If your gun is a twelve bore, the .690 balls are likely too small.
You'll want to run pure lead balls of groove diameter. Slugging the bores you might find that the barrels don't have the same diameters. Don't be suprised if that happens...

A tip on cerrosafe casting barrels--
Get two big soup pots of water boiling. Set the chamber ends of the barrels in one pot. That'll get them up to a temperature where the casting alloy won't flash freeze on the barrel metal.
Set up a double boiler in the other pot, I use a pyrex measuring cup to melt the alloy in. The handle and spout of the mesuring cup makes pouring the cerrosafe easy.
Plug the bores with cloth or paper napkins three quarters of an inch into the bores. That's enough to hold the cerrosafe back. Pour the cerrosafe into the chambers and short bit of the bores until it juuuuuust wells at the breech end of the barrels. Let stand to cool for about ten or fifteen minutes.
Then tap the casts out with a wooden dowel or cleaning rod.
Let them sit to cool for an hour and measure them.

You'll have chamber, bore, and groove dimensions of each barrel on each casting.

From there you can calculate what the wall thickness needs to be for your cases, and what your projectile diameter needs to be.

Hope that makes sense.


When I get a good repeatable method of modifying modern centerfire cases for pinfire use I'll explain it. At this point It's pretty much one-off modifications and experimentation.


And Gramps, post some images of that thing again. If I've seen them before, I've forgotten. I want to see it again!



--Tinker

The cerrosafe technique makes sense. you can get 2.5 drams in that little case with a ball? Do you crimp the ball, or seal it with bee's wax or something? i'll see if i can't get some better pics posted.

I saw hammer combination gun made by Ronge Fills in Belgium. Very high grade gun. Exellent piece! One barrel chambered 16/65 with straight rifling and the other one 12/40 (1.6") with twisted rifling. Both for centerfire ammo.

I designed my cases specifically to hold that much powder and the short wad column. There's no base wad, although the head of the cases are thicker than the case walls. I should note, I haven't noticed a need for a base wad and my fiddling with modern cases is showing that the typical modern base wad might take too much powder room for an appropriate black powder charge to fit in there with the wad column and ball.
I haven't needed to crimp or wax seal the roundball either. I size my case mouths a few thou small and let the spring of the case material do it's job.

Works great.
If I were to make a lot of ammunition up for a hunting trip I'd wax seal the mouths to keep moisture out.

Try that barrel warming trick today before the women take the kitchen over, let me know how it works for you. Make sure you give them a good oilrag rubdown afterwards, you'll notice they dry themselves very quickly as you get them out of the water, but the warm bath can take the normal thin film of oil off them and it's good to wipe them down with the oilrag while they're still warm.


--Tinker

I'll have to give it a try. I've been fighting a broken garbage disposal today that is so corroded, it simply will not come out of there. So you turn your own cases? We're starting to get into areas behind my abilities.

Tinker,
How do I post pics? I don't see that option here.