I often hear about the versatility of a fowler or trade musket. But isn't the double barrel be even more versatile? I mean theoretically you can load one barrel with shot and the other with ball and be ready for anything. Is it a matter of ergonomics? Sights? Accuracy? Thanks
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Versatility: Single Vs Double Barrels
- Thread starter Walkabout
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Only my opinion but for a round ball I think fowler would be the better choice, for shot a double for a follow-up shot on fast-moving targets.
I agree with Andy52 - there is something "sexy" about a SXS shotgun. I have shot a smoothbore fowler (I have one) and do find it is a fast-pointing light gun with a round ball and does well with shot but if I was bird hunting, I'd pick the SXS. 
TScottW99
40 Cal
Turkey load in the left barrel, 00 buck in the right
There has always been double barrels guns. Side by side, swivel breech ect. And by the beginning of the eighteenth century some rifle- shotgun combos.
Yet would not become real popular until well in to the nineteenth century
It’s fully reasonable and historically accurate to have one.
Why don’t I ?
No good reason, they just don’t float my boat
Yet would not become real popular until well in to the nineteenth century
It’s fully reasonable and historically accurate to have one.
Why don’t I ?
No good reason, they just don’t float my boat
If you are muzzleloading and want a quick second shot you have two choices. A double gun, or a gun bearer.
I've been looking for a decent double flinter original for years, I can find plenty of caplocks at fair prices but flint man they get pricey.
I have experimented with using a double gun as a combination gun and err yep, it works.
I got chastised by Feltwad a few months ago for shooting round ball out a what he considered a sporting gun. a very nice English SxS from about the 1850s. I was just trying it with a verity of different loads..
smoothshooter
50 Cal.
Depends on how well the barrels are regulated.
They tend to be kinda heavy in my experience, and I never shot one that was at all regulated.
Have two original combination rifle/shotguns - both over/under with rifle sights. If course, the rifle sights are for the rifle barrel, so it's not the same as two smoothbores. That said, just as mentioned earlier, regulating two barrels to shoot in the same place at varying distances is, from my research, difficult.
One of mine is a .54/12 gauge which I tried with modern 12 gauge slugs on a whim. Even at 25 yards, they weren't even close. At 50 yards, I might as well have been throwing rocks with the 12 gauge barrel. Patched round ball may have done better, don't know. Didn't have any.
One of mine is a .54/12 gauge which I tried with modern 12 gauge slugs on a whim. Even at 25 yards, they weren't even close. At 50 yards, I might as well have been throwing rocks with the 12 gauge barrel. Patched round ball may have done better, don't know. Didn't have any.
I strongly disliked my 12 ga. SXS (actually a 14 ga.) The chokes made loading wads near impossible and after they got past the choke were very loose in the bore allowing blow-by and lousy performance. Plus, when one barrel was fired the load from the other barrel jumped up off the breech and had to be reseated. I don't like loading over a hot barrel and if the reseating was forgotten you had a potential bomb in front of yer face. I know jillions of SxS shotguns were imported and sold but, for me, one of the happiest days of my shooting life was when I sold that gun.
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Ah but how much versatility can you afford?
Which is I think the reason why it wasn't done as much until the Industrial Revolution kicked in and dropped the price of SxS guns.
It's pretty easy, if you trust the barrel, to drop a ball down onto your shot load, and shoot at a deer. Not recommended but will work.
So yes, especially with a cylinder bore SxS, you can load the most accurate barrel with a round ball and the other barrel with shot.., or with two round ball IF you're in bear country.
HERE's the ultimate versatile SxS....
Paints-His-Shirt-Red from the movie Jeremiah Johnson, with a smoothbore x rifle combo!
LD
I was just thinking about that photo with "Paints His Shirt Red" when I started reading the thread. LD, you saved me from having to look for it..
Yea, I'd like one of those guns as well.
I lke the rifle smoothbire combination
All my rifle/shotgun combo's are Savage/Stevens model 24's. Great little unmentionables.
