doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Cross-Sticks Gun (pic heavy)

With Dave's blessing I decided to share something about the level of accuracy I was able to achieve from a custom built, heavy barrel, patched roundball rifle. I built this rifle for one type competition only .......... NMLRA Cross-sticks matches. The limitations were few, by the rulebook. 14 lb. max weight with the sights on the gun. So, I acquired a new Douglass XX 44" X 1 1/8" barrel, a maple long rifle blank sawed from the Savannah River swamp, a Schillinger lock, and a good set trigger. Some 200+ hours later I stopped work with this result. Everything was done except filing flats on two ramrod thimbles, and doing some simple line engraving on them. I'll finish that up someday, but I really wanted to shoot it! I realize that most folks don't have any idea that a roundball is capable of sub-minute accuracy, and just wanted to share what this one can do when the load "ingredients" are held to specs. National level competition in cross-stick matches demands accuracy like this. Been a long time since I competed with it, though.

I made a sight bar for the rear sight that screws to top flat of the barrel and holds a Redfield 75, with a Merit aperture with adjustable iris. The front Redfield sight mounts to a dovetail base in the barrel. It ended up 13 lbs. 15 oz. on the scales. Sheer luck. The load information is all recorded on the top of the target shown, except that the powder was sifted to remove extra large, and fine, granules. The furniture is all German silver, which has tarnished over the years.