Are there any double rifle regulation experts here?

[Ironoxide]

I'm currently working on improving the regulation of a "spare" set of barrels for my Pedersoli Kodiak double. Below I describe why I decided to re-regulate them and II have some questions at the end.

My main barrel set in. 50 cal shoots great. However, the other barrels in .58 cal proved to be much more difficult. I tried lots of projectiles, round ball and patch sizes. I even had some momentary successes, but all of them were really just chance occurences. After burning through over a kilo of powder one is bound to get some good groups sometimes.

In the end I could achieve a pretty good per barrel accuracy, or good regulation, never both. Even when I did achieve good regulation (with pretty bad accuracy and lots of powder) it was not what I would call reliable. Every few shots I would get fliers that barely got on paper. When I loaded manufacturer recommended amounts of powder I would get really nice per barrel groups and one barrel even shot at the point of aim! The other shot a good group too, but crossed badly and went down. When I adjusted the sight to the middle of the resulting "group" it was an eight of an inch to the side and wasn't acceptable due to the number of "fliers".

Someone suggested I should give up trying to use two sets of barrels with one stock, because there is no way both will fit properly and perhaps that is the case. I received lots of advice regarding loads, but having tried pretty much everything (and being successful with another set of barrels in the same stock as well as many other muzzleloaders made me think this is a regulation issue.

Before I gave up on the barrels I decided to have a shot at regulating them by myself. Originally they were regulated to cross about 4~5m from the muzzle. After researching very scarce information about DR regulation online I decided this looks like too much and that I should try more parallel regulation. So I desoldered original hard braze and resoldered them(with soft solder to cross at 50m (10 times less angle than originally). Before attaching the wedge slot and ribs I shot few test shots with barrels soldered with this new regulation. Instead of the wedge I used some cord wrapped tightly around stock and barrels. I also made a makeshift front sight to be able to shoot precisely. The results appear very puzzling.

At least after my changes barrels shoot symmetrically, but the shots are going very wide. So wide in fact that when I calculated required correction it came to be even narrower at the muzzle than originally! But I know for a fact that setup crossed over badly.

So I need some guidance on proper starting regulation and what is likely the end angle going to be? Without that I'm not sure if my new setup is indeed too wide or if the barrels shoot wide because there is no wedge installed yet and it is shifting in the stock. Also if anyone can point me towards any materials on the subject that would be great.

 

[Eterry]

The gun forum accuratereloading.com has many shooters of double rifles, sections devoted just to double rifles and threads about regulating double rifles.
I would visit over there and see what they say.
Good luck.

 

[Britsmoothy]

It is such a shame you didn't ask sooner, or did you?
Anyway. Sounds like two issues to me. I say that as though I sound flippant but I am not being flippant.
The erratic behaviour could be poor bedding. The design of the kodiac is based on their shotguns and the forewood is flimsy but the wedge passes through it. Any vibration through that wedge and potential irregularities at the hooked breach socket can cause problems.
Next up are the muzzles them selves. You mention one barrel would show promise? The other barrel may of needed an adjustment at the muzzle or possibly recrowning
It is possible to steer a shot by bevelling just a small portion of a muzzle. I mention this practice often but no one attempts it. It would of been a lot easier to attempt first over un brazing your barrels!

Whilst I have no proof I think the above method was used in various ways more than we realise!
Yes gun smiths of old would solder wedges in and try and this was a commonly known practice but what was kept a close secret was subtle shaping at the muzzle! Ever admired the fancy grooving around original jaeger rifles muzzles? Do you really believe it was just for decoration?
Ever since accurate machines have come in and guarantee a square cut and finish to a muzzle we have completely forgotten how to do it by analogue human and the subtleventing of gasses! But, what when a machine goes wrong, or the tooling wares? We are back where we started hundreds of years ago, an analogue human takes over.
Hope you get it how you want.

 

[Ironoxide]

The gun forum accuratereloading.com has many shooters of double rifles, sections devoted just to double rifles and threads about regulating double rifles.
I would visit over there and see what they say.
Good luck.

Thanks. I didn't know that site. I'll definitely use it

It is such a shame you didn't ask sooner, or did you?
Anyway. Sounds like two issues to me. I say that as though I sound flippant but I am not being flippant.
The erratic behaviour could be poor bedding. The design of the kodiac is based on their shotguns and the forewood is flimsy but the wedge passes through it. Any vibration through that wedge and potential irregularities at the hooked breach socket can cause problems.
Next up are the muzzles them selves. You mention one barrel would show promise? The other barrel may of needed an adjustment at the muzzle or possibly recrowning

I did on another forum (nitroexpress.com) and people did mention bedding and loading. In addition to load development I spent substantial amount of time trying different ways to shoot. There was many more than just those, but I'll mention the most useful: single wooden pole support under left hand or under left elbow or cross sticks under elbow. I'm close to 99% sure I couldn't resolve it with loading or shooting differently.

However, no one mentioned (and I have to admit I didn't think of) the possibility of shaping the muzzles themselves. Yes, it would've been much easier, but like many other people I have a "feeling" shaping the muzzle is not a "proper" fix. Also as strange as it sounds in context of unbrazing the whole thing, if someone suggested it to me prior I would've thought unbrazing as less invasive :-D
My thinking being, one can always resolder, but putting removed material back is impossible. In reality one could reverse muzzle shaping easily by facing off a few mm of the muzzles and recrowning. It probably was a good thing to try before.

Regarding bedding, I really value the other 50 cal barrels that shoot well. So I'm reluctant to make any changes to the stock. If possible I may need to come up with some way of fixing it without touching the stock (shimming, acraglasing the barrels - sounds like blasphemy to even think of it). I'm not sure what is the best way to rule it out. Perhaps shooting the barrels after re-soldering and if it becomes consistent it fits.

Regarding recrowning, is it possible to see that a crown is bad? (possibly under magnification) When I buy a new rifle (or barrel) to be used with prb I use a slightly larger lead ball with a wood screw driven half way through. I chuck the screw in a cordless electric drill and charge the lead ball with a lapping compound. I then lap until the tops of the lands have a nice angle. I follow this with a bit of very fine sandpaper (2000 grit) wrapped around my finger to just break any remaining edges if I can feel any sharpness. This process often helps with accuracy, but it doesn't touch the face of the muzzle. Maybe I should cut new crowns just in case. I'll do that when I have barrels separated next time (no doubt It'll take few attempts more to get them regulated right - I soft soldered the back too for the ease of separation during testing).

Unfortunately, the barrels as they are together are too big to pass through the spindle of my lathe, and even if they were my 4 jaw chuck is too small... I could figure out a way of using a milling machine for the task, but using a lathe is a much better way. This is why I mentioned it only in context of barrels being separate.

It is possible to steer a shot by bevelling just a small portion of a muzzle. I mention this practice often but no one attempts it. It would of been a lot easier to attempt first over un brazing your barrels!

Whilst I have no proof I think the above method was used in various ways more than we realise!
Yes gun smiths of old would solder wedges in and try and this was a commonly known practice but what was kept a close secret was subtle shaping at the muzzle! Ever admired the fancy grooving around original jaeger rifles muzzles? Do you really believe it was just for decoration?
Ever since accurate machines have come in and guarantee a square cut and finish to a muzzle we have completely forgotten how to do it by analogue human and the subtleventing of gasses! But, what when a machine goes wrong, or the tooling wares? We are back where we started hundreds of years ago, an analogue human takes over.
Hope you get it how you want.

I think you're right regarding shaping the muzzle in the old times.

There is also so little information and so much mystique surrounding the whole process of regulation of double rifles I wanted to try it myself to find out the reality of it. Those barrels would have ended up never being used (and unsold - as a possible future project) so they seemed a good candidate. One thing I didn't expect though was that the whole thing including ramrod holders, ribs, and full length of the barrels will be brazed with yellow looking braze. I have the means to de solder braze (uzing steel heat treatment oven preheat and a propane torch for the final last bit of heat to melt), but it was difficult. Definitely not something I recommend to any beginner. I have some (hobbyist) experience of brazing (I hard brazed copper pipes and fittings for compressed air in my workshop). I also have experience heat treating various steels and I did check the steel Pedersoli uses (30Cr Mo4) is not going to anneal excessively at 600~650 deg C required. I was worried they used normal brass rod that melts at over 800 deg C which would be very bad, but it did melt at between 600~650C so although it looks yellowy it must be a silver braze.

Next step for me will be soldering the wedge holder to exclude the possibility my makeshift method of holding the barrels in the stock (during testing) is causing the shots to go wide. Interestingly all the pictures of (nitro powder) double rifle muzzles I saw online look like they are regulated much closer to parallel than my barrels originally were. One would expect modern caliber to recoil a lot more, but at the same time black powder velocities are a lot lower so the projectile spends a lot more time in the barrel in which it may be affected by recoil.

 

[LawrenceA]

LB too slow_______________RB too slow
......................LB RB................. <------ just right
RB too fast______________LB too fast

 

[Gordoncourtney]

I have 4 double rifles......I don't understand why you want a spare set of barrels, I gather the original .5 barrels shoot ok, and will kill most things on our planet, I mean you do get double rifles with additional sets of barrels but they were all made for the gun. It's just a challenge I know I take it both barrels are , rifled , it sounds the .58 barrels are crap and don't fit the stock , use them for shot only......to regulate you need to make a steel frame with adjustment bolts that fits over the muzzels ,make different wedges, keep shooting and adjusting the bolts and wedges till you get it right , only re soft solder when you get good groups , You should see it on utube somewhere here's two .375 A4 targets , they came with my 450-400 double. I wish you well

 

[Ironoxide]

Thank you both. I know the general principles. Gordoncourtney, any chance you could tell me what "regulation" you started with and what were the final numbers? Perhaps you kept notes you are willing to share? No need to calculate angles etc. Either center to center distance at breech end and the muzzle, or if you haven't those if you could measure the total width and height of the barrels at the breech and the muzzle I would be grateful. From this I'll be able to calculate the diameters and distances.

I realise every rifle is different. I'm not asking for numbers to set my rifle exactly like that. I'm just interested in finding out if there is some kind of "rule of thumb" for what would be a good starting point.

If anyone is interested original barrels were regulated for the muzzles to be 2.9mm (115thou) neerer than the breeches (24inch 610mm long barrels). This means if we draw straight lines they will get nearer 4.5mm(180 thou) per meter and will cross at 4.5m. I can always go back to that if it turns out it was the best setup (the barrels were due for rebluing anyway).

 

[fleener]

I have only experience with one double rifle ML and it took me almost a year to get it to shoot well.

When I started the barrels were shooting around 30" high and right barrel shooting left about 11" at 50 yards.

Question for you: What do you expect for accuracy out of your rifle and at what range?

Fleener

 

[fleener]

The reason I ask the accuracy question is that as a rife shooter I expect an accurate rifle. I had a friend helping me when I was wrestling with this rifle and he told me that the British standard for regulation in muzzleloaders was 6”.

Fleener

 

[Ironoxide]

I have only experience with one double rifle ML and it took me almost a year to get it to shoot well.

When I started the barrels were shooting around 30" high and right barrel shooting left about 11" at 50 yards.

Question for you: What do you expect for accuracy out of your rifle and at what range?

Fleener

It is a good question. I expect at least as good as I'm getting from the 50 cal barrels with the same stock. That is (on a good day) 2~3 inches regulation at 50m ( 5~7 at 100m). Per barrel shots almost touching at 50m (2 inch group per barrel at worst). Multiply all those numbers by 1.5 on a bad day. Also no unexpected fliers.

I realised I haven't answered another question asked in this thread. Why do I want a "spare" set of barrels for a double rifle. It is a pretty long story. I'll shorten it considerably here. When I got the rifle first I ordered it in 58 cal. I have a 58 cal 11inch howdah (with a second set of 20ga smoothbore barrels for it) and I wanted a double rifle in the same caliber. Unfortunately there were cosmetic issues with the bluing and the seller offered me to replace those barrels. At that point I've done a lot of load development. I knew exactly what load they regulate with, what load they are the most accurate in (different than the regulation load, but I digress). I knew there are issues to resolve, but I was worried I'll receive a nicely blued, but even worse shooting replacement. At the time they had 50 cal barrels for that same rifle in stock so I asked to keep the defectively blued barrels and to get a very good discount on the 50 cal barrels instead. They agreed and that's how I ended up with both. It is like having two double rifles. Two is always better than one. Right?

 

[Britsmoothy]

Rusty, (ironside). We are assuming the muzzle/s of at least both barrels or just one was cut square at the factory. Remember, I said how do we know the tooling is not worn!
Removing a crescent of muzzle bevel barely visible on the opposite side to the desired direction is reversible and does not render a barrel ruined at all.
It always amazes me the knee trembling talk of muzzle working causes!

 

[Britsmoothy]

Did you ever compare how the .50 barrels sit in the breachsocket and stock and how the wedge grips to the .58 barrels? Any slight high spot on the breach at the face that butt's upto the sockets face would cause terrible inconsistencies.
I sure hope you fix it.

 

[Ironoxide]

I have only experience with one double rifle ML and it took me almost a year to get it to shoot well.

When I started the barrels were shooting around 30" high and right barrel shooting left about 11" at 50 yards.

Question for you: What do you expect for accuracy out of your rifle and at what range?

Fleener

I replied to your question in my previous post, but I forgot to ask how in the end did you get it to work? Did you have to use different patch/ball/wad combinations in different barrels etc?

Rusty, (ironside). We are assuming the muzzle/s of at least both barrels or just one was cut square at the factory. Remember, I said how do we know the tooling is not worn!
Removing a crescent of muzzle bevel barely visible on the opposite side to the desired direction is reversible and does not render a barrel ruined at all.
It always amazes me the knee trembling talk of muzzle working causes!

Yes. That's true. One more thing I'll add is that when I inspected the barrels from the outside they appeared to be bowed inward in the middle as if something squeezed the middle. However, when I made pins that were a pretty tight sliding fit in the barrels to check internal straightness they didn't bind. So internally they are straight. That was a nice surprise. I'll definitely recut the muzzles when I have them separated again just in case.

Did you ever compare how the .50 barrels sit in the breachsocket and stock and how the wedge grips to the .58 barrels? Any slight high spot on the breach at the face that butt's upto the sockets face would cause terrible inconsistencies.
I sure hope you fix it.

Just by looking they both seemed a good fit, but I'll check them both with soot.

 

[Gordoncourtney]

I my sorry I cannot give more advice as my doubles shoot ok. Look on utube like Purey and H&H you will see them regulating barrels Go the german way they have adjustable screws and wedges so you can easily re regulate for different cartridge. Better make a sight set for each barrel A friend gave up doubles due to regulation I mean the left barrel is never used in anger I even now prefer a single barrel shotgun. Make it into a cape rifle I have one 1852 enjoy

 

[Britsmoothy]

I would not be at all surprised if Pedersoli make the barrels fit a cnc made jig and that is as far as their regulating goes!
If I'm right it may explain the odd grinding or what ever that makes them look pinched together. If they lost equal concentrictity with each other it would explain a lot!

 

[Griz44Mag]

The barrels on my older Kodiak .58 just did not like each other. No matter what I did - they would not regulate.
I wanted to use identical charges and projectiles to simplify loading in the field.
I wound up removing the factor sights and replacing with a set I made.
I use a piece of .5 x .25 steel bar stock, cut and tapered it, cut 2 dovetails in it and mounted 2 of the marbles flip up sights that are adjustable for windage and elevation.
It is now perfectly regulated at 50 yards and has a slight spread at 100 yards using .575 patched round balls.
I am now very happy with it and will be hunting pig with it this fall.
I have pictures of this starting at post 28 of the linked thread.
https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/barrel-regulation-of-sxs.124936/page-2

 

[Britsmoothy]

An interesting point on different patching to regulate! The video is somewhat vague though.

 

[Ironoxide]

I my sorry I cannot give more advice as my doubles shoot ok. Look on utube like Purey and H&H you will see them regulating barrels Go the german way they have adjustable screws and wedges so you can easily re regulate for different cartridge. Better make a sight set for each barrel A friend gave up doubles due to regulation I mean the left barrel is never used in anger I even now prefer a single barrel shotgun. Make it into a cape rifle I have one 1852 enjoy

No worries. That's a very fine rifle.

I would not be at all surprised if Pedersoli make the barrels fit a cnc made jig and that is as far as their regulating goes!
If I'm right it may explain the odd grinding or what ever that makes them look pinched together. If they lost equal concentrictity with each other it would explain a lot!

I'm sure the do. I didn't mention it as I didn't think it was relevant, but there are flats milled on both barrels (on the inside side) that fit each other. They must have "designed in" certain regulation and called it a day. However, I'm not saying this as a critique of Pedersoli. I have lots of their guns and when I was buying this one I knew it may be a project. There is no other maker that makes muzzleloading double rifles at this price point so I'm happy I have one (with at least one set of barrels that work fine).

The barrels on my older Kodiak .58 just did not like each other. No matter what I did - they would not regulate.
I wanted to use identical charges and projectiles to simplify loading in the field.
I wound up removing the factor sights and replacing with a set I made.
I use a piece of .5 x .25 steel bar stock, cut and tapered it, cut 2 dovetails in it and mounted 2 of the marbles flip up sights that are adjustable for windage and elevation.
It is now perfectly regulated at 50 yards and has a slight spread at 100 yards using .575 patched round balls.
I am now very happy with it and will be hunting pig with it this fall.
I have pictures of this starting at post 28 of the linked thread.
https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/barrel-regulation-of-sxs.124936/page-2

Thanks for the link. I read the entire thread and I found some interesting info there I'll talk more about below. Regarding using two sights one for each barrel. That is definitely a quick solution, but for me I haven't exhausted all other options yet. Interestingly my 50 cal barrels originally came with two sights very similar to yours adjustable in both windage and elevation, but those barrels regulate fine. Then 58 cal barrels arrived with the gun having only one ghost style sight and they didn't regulate... Having both I can always swap it, but I'm still hoping for one poa with 58 cal too.

An interesting point on different patching to regulate! The video is somewhat vague though.

That is a good way to do it. One can also try using different balls. I have 562,570 and 575. I may have to resort to doing that at some point.

In the thread linked by Griz44Mag someone said "double rifles are usually regulated to cross between 7 and 12 yards depending on weight". That seems to confirm my experience so far. Original setup being to cross at 4.5m and any load under 120 grains would cross horribly (while any load over 90~100 would shoot with no accuracy at all. Then when I changed the regulation to cross at 50m even my moderate 75 grain load was going wide by about 5~6 inches. I discovered it today when shooting various loads.

I'm leaning towards thinking the relationship between where muzzles point and how the gun shoots is not linear. By this I mean that there is most likely some sort of regulation sweet spot that shoots parallel and a small deviation from it results in huge changes in regulation. I initially thought that I will be able to take the results of the original regulation, how far my accurate load crosses over. Simply widen the barrels by this much and job done... Nope, the result of this thinking is shooting wide. I think my next try will be a lot closer to the original regulation.

One extra bit of info someone may find interesting is that when I tried my testing setup first I was so surprised by it going wide I thought it must be something else than regulation. I had a wedge sticking out between the muzzles as pictured below:

I thought that wedge may be reflecting the pressure when the ball leaves the muzzle pushing it wide. So I decided to cut it off and to file it evenly with the muzzles as shown below

(Filing marks seen on the muzzles were stoned later).

Removing the wedge extension made no difference whatsoever with regulation. So the barrels are definitely set too wide.

 

[Britsmoothy]

It would be interesting what a couple of well fitting lasers would say when shone from the breach to a distant object!
Seeing as you have split the barrels how about removing the breach plugs and bore sighting them?

 

[fleener]

The rifle I was working on is an original English rifle from York. The front sight was a simple bead like that on a shotgun. I replaced that with a taller front sight. That brought the point of impact down.

I tried conicials, balletts and two different sizes round balls and 3 different brands of powder in this rifle. Not to mention various amounts of powder.

I settled on 85 grains of 2F Swiss with a .535 RB and .015" patch.

The right barrel shooting left was due to a small nick at the crown. I believe it was grabbing the patch and throwing it to the left. Once I cleaned up the barrel, the right barrel dropped right in where it needed to.

It took several shooting sessions to get this all sorted out. It got to the point I was really regretting buying it. But, now that I got it figured out, I am very happy with the rifle and very much like it.

I shot it the first time for fun at Friendship a couple of weeks ago in the double rifle match.

Best of luck with your rifle.


Fleener