AAh Marrakai-
Good to hear your voice in here.
There seems to be a state of radio silence around discussions of shooting the sixteen bore rifle.
I'd started in on the Mahillon months ago but got derailed from those efforts in the flurry around issues with my darling's pregnancy. Now that's all said and done and our daughter is born and perfect, everything's quiet around here for a change (imagine that, it's finally quiet now that the child's born...)
Having found this rifle got me off the duff once again and squared around with the task of setting up for and shooting the bore rifle.
I still have to bed the Mahillon and may well do the same with this gun. I think a stock bend may well be in the cards for it too as this one is shooting left to the point of aim and the stock is cast over to the left just slightly. Looking it over with that in perspective has me thinking it may have been bent in that direction some time after it was made. I'd seen a post from you somewhere discussing the hot linseed oil method of heating the wrist and getting one of your stocks to move. I'm gonna run out to the hardware shop today and see about getting a jug of said juice and setting in to correct that fine point of tuning before I go much further.
I got fifty or so balls cast last night and will likely get as many more done some time today as well as start in on a set of brass for this gun.
Having only two cases has been hampering the progress a bit. I also need to tweak my wadding setup as well. The waxed paper cup wads seem a tad short. Looking at some recovered cup wads and considering the occasional dropped bullet, my sense is that I need to run higher walls on the cup wads. As it is they're only about 1/8" high from base to top including the base thickness of the wad itself. Twice that will be the next course, the brass will have paralell walls inside instead of following the tapered shape of the outside of the shells. I don't think I need as much capacity as I'd given myself to start with and I think the gun'd do well with a -straight-no-taper shot into the bores. They'll be just a tad quicker to bust out on the lathe too.
Let me know about all those pinfire double rifles you stumble over in search of a good shotgun Marrakai. I know it's going to be a hassle for you to stop and write me every frickin time you have to toss one aside, but do think of me. You can ship the first one I find acceptable out here in that Tolley case you've been saving for me...
--Tinker
