Rifling large caliber smoothbores?

[mileman]

Yeah, I know it can't be done, but I didn't know how else to put it. Has anybody ever tried a .69 or larger caliber with rifling shooting round balls? How did it turn out, and what were your impressions?

I'm pondering that, because I was thinking if one could accurately shoot a .69 or larger ball accurate to about 100 yards, that would be a real deer gitter! lol

 

E.F. I'm curious. Why can't a large bore be rifled? Bet they can. And yer right, they would make a great stopper.

 

A one incher with 1 in 128 twist :winking:

 

[LRB]

You can buy rifled large bores. The problem is, the large heavy balls lose velocity too fast. The .54 RB will out perform them in any practical shoulder fired gun at 100yrds. The English used as large as 1" in Africa, but these were intended for close in work on large dangerous game, not long range sniping. Ballisticly, they are only superior at close range.

 

They have been made for many years. They were called "wall guns" during the colonial period and often used in place of cannon for fort defense. We have threads in the archives weith pictures and details. You can also look in the Collectors' Illistrated Encycloepdia of the American Revolution for Dutch, English and American examples. Up to one inch bores and highly respected for their power and accuracy. Always fired from a rest, as in hooked over the wall of the fort using a metal L to absorb the recoil. Weight was a factor too. They have one at Fort Tallose, Alabama, takes two men to tote the thing!

 

[Stumpkiller]

Oh yeas. Some of the old British doubles were 4 bore (that's a 1,750 grain round ball! :shocking What you can't do is rifle a thin barreled musket intended by God and it's creator to be a smoothbore - the walls are too thin.

The problem is that there's nothing much alive in the world that's worth standing behind a rifle of that size to kill it when a smaller caliber would do. Up around that size they start to mount them on wheeled carriages and pull them around with horses. ::

 

Yeh, Stumpy...but they are BIG! Bigger IS better.
Don't know why, but they are.
In truth the .54 is probably the BEST all around roundballer for this side of the planet.
Still big bores are fascinating! ::

 

[Bluegrass]

They have been made for many years. They were called "wall guns" during the colonial period and often used in place of cannon for fort defense. We have threads in the archives weith pictures and details. You can also look in the Collectors' Illistrated Encycloepdia of the American Revolution for Dutch, English and American examples. Up to one inch bores and highly respected for their power and accuracy. Always fired from a rest, as in hooked over the wall of the fort using a metal L to absorb the recoil. Weight was a factor too. They have one at Fort Tallose, Alabama, takes two men to tote the thing!

This is a little off subject, but they have a great example of a British wall gun at the Frazier Historical Arms Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. Looks just like a really REALLY big Brown Bess! :winking:

 

[mileman]

That's a pretty darn big rifle there. I was thinking though it'd be neat to mess with something in the .62 to .75 range, as I don't think I'd need the entire inch, lol. Has anybody ever taken game with these large rifles?

Oh, by the way, I've heard of a .950 JDJ that is way overbore for any of the world's game, including elephant. I think the stats are 3600 grain bullet at 2200 fps starting velocity. I think it equates to roughly 40,000 foot pounds if you buy into that whole thing, or a Taylor Knockout Factor of about 1000. All I can say is wow!