doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com H & H double rifle

Sorry bavarianbrit, I didn�t mean to sound rude there, best, Mike

What's the barrel length? Most rifles are relatively short barreled.

Hi,
66cm or 26 inches bbls.
Have yet to use it on the pigeons.
Regards Martin

What a fantastic starter gun for a young lad! An H&H! I hope he brings down a double gaggle of pigeons with his new gun. He won't care one bit about the weight or what it was in it's former life. He'll just be one thrilled boy!

I would imagine that the reason this was done is that the barrels were either shot out or rusted out, so really they were just making the best of a bad situation. Economics were obviously a consideration or they would have re-barreled the rifle.

Regulating rifled barrel liners would be a very difficult proposition. I have relined a bored out rook rifle to a .22 hornet but that's simple compared to a double rifle.

Bob,
Condition is very good I think it was bored out due to the fact that shotgun permission from the police here in the Uk is much easier to get than getting a rifled firearm permission.
Sad but thats the UK.
I will try it myself on pigeons this weekend in Dover area, so watch this space.
Martin

Bavarianbrit, I wonder why on earth the owner didn�t sell the double rifle as it was and buy a nice secondhand Holland shotgun and pocket the change ???? I�m baffled, best, Mike

Mike,
Although this wouldn't apply if the conversion was done in the US, in the UK many rifles were converted to shotguns when the rules changed back in the 60's (may have the decade wrong - before my time).
Rifles were split off from shotguns in the terms under which they were licenced. For rifles the weapon was licenced, and still is; for shotguns the emphasis lay with the person. ie. one could have as many shotguns as one liked but each rifle had to have a 'reason for ownership'. This is still the case which is why the British rifle enthusiast is rarely a collector - they would need a special licence (or a very understanding local firearms department) to have more than one rifle for any particular purpose.
Therefore rifles without any real purpose were turned into the appropriate gauge shotgun and kept for the children or occasional use round the farm/estate.
This explains the huge number of Rook Rifles converted to 410 shotguns.
Before this kicks off another tirade from some on the horrors of the British firearms legislation, I for one am pretty pleased that every 'old boy' doesn't have access to a rifle in our overcrowded isle.
However, I do regret the trashing of so many lovely old rifles, a terrible shame.

I think I would consider a compromise here: make it to a cape gun.

With kind regards,
Jani

Point taken Toby, some of the different laws in different places make me smile. For instance a .22LR is reasonably easy to acquire in the UK for knocking over rabbits but here in Spain with nearly 60% of the land mass still National park or Cotos given over to hunting you can only get a .22 if you are in a shooting club as it is illegal to use them in the country !!! Bear in mind there are no restrictions on numbers of rifles here, I have in my cabinet a .44, a .375 and a .500. I can use the .375 on rabbits but not the .22 ! Apparently they were used in poaching a lot and also back in the 1950�s there were quite a few ricochet accidents so the rimfires were banned in the field, shame. best, Mike