doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Double Rifles, Paradox Guns & Gauge Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Oval bore rifles?

I saw a beautiful Lancaster oval bore rifle yesterday. It looked as though it left old Charlies' shop yesterday too, all original condtion, just a lovely old gal. So what does it take to make one of these old gals shoot? This one is a .500-.450, jones underlever, external hammers. Do oval bores regulate similar to other double rifles? You would think it would be similar in that they were designed to shoot the ammo of the day.Any comments? Thank you,
Steve

An oval bore is really a barrel with very wide rifling grooves so presumably you would use the same dimension bullets as for a conventionally rifled gun of the same dimensions.
Having said that however, I have to confess when I made a mold for my Lancaster Colindian, I made the slug 1/2 way between bore and groove diameter. I have shot it a bit but not enough to decide if I could get better accuracy from a groove diameter slug.
The maximum length of the slug can be determined by the Greenhall forumla; 150 diam squared over twist = length. If you reverse length and twist you can calulate the minimum twist to stabilize a given bullet.

cheers Doug