historical question: most powerfull Percussiongun?

[JohnTheGreek]

"Baby" was a 4 bore. In his books, Baker references "half pound shells" but he is referring to conicals and not round balls.

Best,

John

 

[agent00]

thanks again for your answers.

 

[JoeC]

John .
Have you gotten anywhere,came up with final design, on your 8-bore gun?

 

[JohnTheGreek]

Hey Joe,

Well, it will be a while before Jim gets to my rifle but we know....

1) Jaeger
2) Percussion
3) 26" Tapered octagon barrel in .830 caliber with a twist at 1:120 and .005 deep grooves.
4) Exhibition grade American Walnut
5) Hooked breech with barrel keys
6) Coned breech
7) Double set trigger
8) Fixed sight regulated for round ball and folding rear leaf regulated for the conical
9) Ivory bead front sight
10) Ebony nose cap

Thinking about adding a swamped bbl, silver thumbpiece and maybe a bit of wire inlay work. If anyone on this board can suggest anything regarding what they think should or shouldn't be part of this rifle, I would be happy to hear suggestions.

Rifle will be complete by December of 2005.

Make any decisions about the bbl length on the 4 bore?

Best,

John

 

[JoeC]

John .
I'm going to take and cut about 2" at a time off of the barrel, and see how it feels.I might even shoot it over the chronograph just to see the effects.

I shortend the stock about an inch , it was a little on the long side for me anyway ,especially when i put the 1" recoil pad on it for the "range sessions" .
Just cutting the stock back an inch helped change the
balance a bit. So i am going to try just 2" off the barrel
first, and see how it feels .
Haven't shot it in a while ,trying to finish up the stock on it .Finally getting around to putting the forend cap/entry thimble on it . Going to have to refinish the stock after all the work .
I haven't been shooting it in a while anyway, still waiting for the shoulder to heal up a bit more . I was holding it a bit wrong with one of the 400 gr loads and it knocked something out of wack ..........
Two questions for you .....
1. Did you decide on a finished weight for it???
2. Does he make his own barrels,if not where does he get them ?(guess that makes 3 questions.....)

Joe.

 

[satx78247]

To ALL,

Once upon a time OCONUS, I saw a 1-caliber bore percussion rifle that was reportedly built in Paris, France for a Russian nobleman in about 1870 for ("Emergency Close Range" or "LAST DITCH shooting") hunting AMUN TIGERS, which can easily weigh 700-800 pounds. - I was told that the conical (like a Minie ball) weighed about 10 ounces.
The rifle, I was told, weighs 34POUNDS.

IF that's NOT the most powerful "shoulder-fired rifle ever", Isuspect that it's certainly "in the running".

yours, satx

 

[fleener]

a 1 bore should shoot a 1 lb round ball. So a conical should be even more than 1 lb.

Fleener

 

[Rifleman1776]

a 1 bore should shoot a 1 lb round ball. So a conical should be even more than 1 lb.

Fleener

Minies have hollow bases for the skirt which would cut down the weight.
But, when yer in pain, whose counting? :shocked2: :wink:

 

[Billnpatti]

There have been several unusually large bore caplock rifles made over the years. Many of them were unique one off rifles. If I were to make a guess at the largest commonly found rifle, I'd pick a wall gun. They were large bore guns designed to hook onto the top of a wall of a fortification when fired. The hook not only steadied the gun, it also absorbed most of the recoil. I think most were smoothbores designed to fire buckshot but some were rifled. I just read in the current issue of Muzzleblasts magazine of a man who had made what was referred to as a 100 caliber rifle and fired it at Friendship. That should most likely be more correctly referred to as a 1.00 caliber having a ball that is one inch in diameter. The article didn't give any details such as the weight of the ball or the size of the charge. I suppose one could use the formula for the volume of a sphere measuring an assumed actual diameter of 0.990 and the density of lead to figure the weight of a ball fired from a rifle of that caliber. I have no actual knowledge of any larger rifle having been made. The really large bore shoulder weapons such as the 2 bore or the 1 bore were smoothbore guns and would not answer your question pertaining to the largest percussion rifled shoulder fired weapon.

 

[Bon Sauvage]

I realize that the original post was over 8 years ago and the OP might well have lost interest in this topic since then, but what are we defining as "most powerful:" gun or load?

If it's the load I would think that one of the old shoulder mounted, whaling, bomb lance guns would rate right up there.

 

[RedFeather]

I would still go with a punt gun, although that is about the same as a wall gun. Of course, both are more akin to a swivel gun than a hunting rifle. Power isn't everything. You have to be able to hit what you aim at and in time. Imagine trying to throw up that 34 pound rifle to stop a charging tiger! You had better be in the best shape of your life and no telling what shape you would end up in after touching it off, even should you stop the cat. No orthopedic surgeons in those days. Actually, tigers were considered thin skinned game and many of the cartridge guns were not as large as those used on elephant, etc.

 

[pargent]

Some of the guys in a local CW unit have a 12 pounder that is fired by percusion does that count ?

 

[Squeeze]

I live on the barnegat bay, with a rich history of market gunners, punt boats/guns..etc there are several museums locally with examples of punt guns, some were a 2 man to shoot deal. One guy just shouldered it at the forearm, and one to shoot. theres a few local decoy and gunning shows yearly and I know of several modern made punt guns. I know of a guy has one I know he made from schedule 80 steampipe that he shoots every year at a few events and several other similar. one friend with a local boatyard on the bay has several hanging in the shop that his uncles and grandfather used back when. These guys were truly made of steel with balls that clank. just to look at them hurts your shoulder. most it seems were homemade pieced together from whatever materials were available, and many were simple fuse lit (or even lit cigar to the touchhole) basic shoulder cannons. story goes, they would scull as close to a flock as they dared, and try to time the shot and swing across the flock as it went off, then race in to finish 'cripples' with regular 12&10 ga. there are some common rumors of using nails/broken glass etc as ammo, but any old timer who really was there says it never happened as most of the ducks were sold to families, restarants and bed and breakfast type places as table fare, the down/ feather market was secondary

 

[Dphar]

4, 6, 8 bore was pretty typical for heavy game.
Invariably with a hardened round ball. Baker tried a conical in his "Devil Stopper" and it nearly got him killed so he went back to the ball. A belted ball I suspect since it was a 2 groove and I believe it shot a 3 ounce ball.
There were some 2 bores made as well but these were were not very practical the ball weighing twice what the 4 bore ball does. Once the ball gets too heavy the the ability to make useful velocity is reduced and the weight of the rifle increases to the point that it cannot he handled easily when hunting dangerous game. So what was made does not always equate into what was useful or actually used. So a something like a 14 or 12 bore would be more useful for Tiger than some huge unmanagable cannon.
"Shell rifles" fired explosive shells. Forsythe experimented with them extensively. By playing the detonating and fusing compounds he could delay the explosion until the shell had penetrated deep enough to the effective.
These were two piece bullets swaged together to encapsulate the explosives.
These are shown as drawings for the bullets and swages in Forsythe's "The Sporting and Its Projectiles".
Selous used 4 bore smooth bore "ducking guns" with short barrels and very light weight for the charges used for elephant. Something like 13-14 pounds. Most rifles of this bore size were much heavier.
This is in "A Hunters Wanderings in Africa" by Fredrick Selous.
Dan

 

[satx78247]

RedFeather & Everyone,

I suspect, but do NOT know, that the 1.0caliber rifle made to shoot Amun Tigers was designed to be fired from a machan (a blind in a tree) & I further suspect that it was NOT greatly different than a "wall-gun", in that it was likely fired (IF more than ONCE!) only from a rest against a driven tiger.

Inasmuch as a tiger of any size is "relatively fragile", when compared to an elephant or a Cape Buffalo, perhaps even a double percussion paradox gun would work well.
(IF I had a choice in a "certain tiger killer", I would pick a SxS percussion, a so-called "double strong", Cape-gun in perhaps .577 or .62 caliber, 1 in 48 twist, with an 8 or 10 gauge shotgun, loaded with 000 buck, on the right.- I think about 12-13 pounds & about 26 inch barrels would be about right, as I once had a 12pound, 7 ounce 9.3x74 double rifle-drilling, with a 16 gauge on the bottom, that I liked very much.)

yours, satx