Jungle guns, Cape rifles, and paradox slugs

[fat tony]

I thought I would spin off a thread from Brobee's thread about testing 12 gauge slugs & start my own. The Unobtanium Brenneke classic slugs are not going to show up very often in Canada if at all.

So, lets start a thread in which muzzle loading 'cape' rifles are discussed, these are the ones with huge torpedo like bullets with very hefty cast in riflings similar to the US 75mm recoilless rifle rounds which keyed in to the rifling.

Then there was the (?) Holland & Holland "Jungle gun" which was a 12 bore side by side with one barrel cylinder bored (?) and the other had about 2" of heavy paradox rifling at the muzzle.

The Paradox slugs of the late 19th / early 20th century were pretty fascinating, and due to the astronomical rise in labour and manufacturing costs, we will probably never see these types of small arms and ammunition outside of a museum somewhere.

In the spirit of curiousity, could some of the membership show off some of their Cape rifles, and Paradox guns (envy).

(link about the Jacobs rifle)

http://www.brettschulte.net/CWBlog/2006/08/19/the-jacobs-rifle/

The unique and highly advanced Jacobs Rifle:

Pic below shows the muzzles of two single shot .58 caliber Jacobs Rifles.

Allegedly Lord Kelvin preferred a single shot .58 Caliber Jacobs.

Jacobs (?) bullets cast from molds:

Paradox boring:

http://www.hallowellco.com/paradox_boring.htm

Paradox - Holland & Holland's adopted name for a barrel boring system invented by G V Fosbery to allow use as an ordinary shotgun and also to be able to fire a single projectile with reasonable accuracy approaching that of a rifle. The barrel is smoothbore for most of its length. Then, about three inches from the muzzle, a normal shotgun choke begins its smooth constriction. Finally, about an inch and a half from the muzzle, a deep, robust series of spiral rifling lands and grooves are cut. Shot is not unduly effected by the rifling. A conical bullet or a slug is given a real spin by the rifling---achieving far superior accuracy to that of a modern “rifled” slug shot through a normal smooth shotgun bore. Also designated generically as a Ball & Shot gun. And, by Westley Richards as a "Explora" 12-bore or "Fauneta" 20 and 28-bore.

Discussion on the nitro express forums about the paradox guns and ammo:

http://forums.nitroexpress.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=155670&an=0&page=2

 

[WR1894]

I will start off with a picture of my H&H pardox 12 gauge made in 1901 with the bullet mould

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It has both barrel with rifles chokes

Then a Westley richards single rilfe 12 bore and it uses a winged bullet, gun is case and has mould with it sewrial number to the gun bullet is 750 grains This gun was made in 1848

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John

 

[fat tony]

Absolutely gorgeous, and thanks for sharing! There is probably going to be a short list for these unfortunately.

I wonder if one of those extra full turkey choke tubes could be modified with paradox rifling. . . the Remington rifled chokes do not count.

 

[WR1894]

Not sure if you consider this as a jungle gun but it was used

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Top gun is a 8 bore rifle from Capetown and the bottom is a Hawken 45 they both weight about the same

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The muzzles the 8 bore is .835

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The 45 cal ball a 22 LR and the 8 bore ball

I will try to get some pictures of some cape guns also
John

 

[cigar_man]

Ahhhh, thread resurrection at it's finest.

I was looking into the Huskqvarna Cape guns in 9.3x57R/360 and 12.7x44

I found this thread in a search and thought I would bring her back.

My Thomas Bland Cape Gun

.577 Snider & .12 guage

T Bland & Sons
109 Strand London

No. 4201

30" Barrel

Rifle side of barrel is stamped;

TB&S
25
HENRYS PATENT A&T 3756

This gun was manufactured as a double barrel Cape Rifle in .577 Snider and 12 Bore 2 1/2 inch chamber.

The action was a Jones type under lever hammer gun and with full colour hardening.

The best blacked barrels were fitted with a loop for rifle sling.

The weight was to be near 8 pounds and balanced accordingly.

The stock was to be straight grain for strength with a 14 3/8 inch pull, with pistol grip and silver escution also with sling loop.

The barrels should be marked 136 Strand, London.

The gun was completed and delivered on 19 August 1884 to one Mr. Lawson for an expected trip to the Cape on Safari.

The information of exact date was obtained from the original ledgers of Thomas Bland & Sons, London.

The ledger made reference of Mr. Lawson in later dealings as Sir Wilfrid Lawson, 3rd Baronet, of Brayton (21 October 1862 – 28 August 1937)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Wilfrid_Lawson,_3rd_Baronet,_of_Brayton



Now the only Bad part,

The rear sight was replaced due to un-repairable damage.

The bore on the shotgun side has some pitting, perfectly fine to shoot.

Checkering is almost worn smooth on the wood.

One fixed crack or break in the lower grip area near the cap. (A very old fix.)

 

[buzzmagoo]

Some of my big bore Africans and shot shells
View attachment 79765

 

[mooncoon]

Here are my two contributions. The first is a Lancaster oval bore in 12 guage the model being "The Colindian" intended for India and the colonies. So far I have had limited success in getting it to shoot accurately. The bores are .018" out of round and make 1/2 turn in the length of the barrels. The bullet is from a home made mold and in the absence of any direct information, I made the slug .009" under groove diamter and the same over bore dimension. I am thinking of increasing that a bit to closer to groove diameter. The second gun is a .577 Boxer double rifle which I take to be the same as the 577 Snider. So far I have yet to get any snider rifle to shoot well and so this gun is also a work in progress. The 577 was missing its rear leaf sight and once I get it shooting accurately, I will try to make a folding leaf for it, although drilling the pivot hole seems a bit challending

cheers mooncoon

 

[chasseur]

Pedersoli makes their kodiak rifle as a cape gun by times in 58/12ga.I have one of their baker shotguns and was considering sending the barrels down to the states and having one barrel lined as a rifle and adding sights.I also have one of the Euroarms capeguns in 12ga and plan on putting express sights on it someday

 

[WR1894]

Here are a couple of cape guns and a gun I would consider a jungle gun

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Top gun is a Thomas Murcott cape gun 12 gauge, the black case is for this gun,
Second gun is marked Keen and is a 54 cal rifle barrel and 56 cal smooth bore barrel
The bottom gun is a Westley Richard double 12 bore rifle made in 1851, this gun came out of India and would have been used for tiger hunting

 

[H Wally]

Will have to dig out my 16ga x 43 mauser cape gun for the thread.

In the interim, a though I've often had: in the age of large bore guns, emphasis on reliability and redundancy, why did make a 12 gauge sxs with one smooth and one rifled barrel. Seems the best option to me - you could toss slugs in both if you wanted, but could also have bird shot or whatever else in the smooth bore, and the rifled 12 gauge is a lot more accurate than most seem to give it credit for.

 

[mooncoon]

Will have to dig out my 16ga x 43 mauser cape gun for the thread.

In the interim, a though I've often had: in the age of large bore guns, emphasis on reliability and redundancy, why did make a 12 gauge sxs with one smooth and one rifled barrel. Seems the best option to me - you could toss slugs in both if you wanted, but could also have bird shot or whatever else in the smooth bore, and the rifled 12 gauge is a lot more accurate than most seem to give it credit for.

I can't remember the author or name of the book but I read one book by a european who spent 40 years in India working as a forester and who supplemented his income by hunting tigers. He hunted from roughly 1860 to 1900 or a bit after and estimated that he shot about 200 tigers during that time. For the first several years he used a heavy barrel 10 or 12 guage (can't remember) shotgun loaded with ball to hunt tigers with. In later years he seemed to switch to cartridge rifles.

In the case of my Colindian, with shot it might be OK for clearing barrooms but the pattern was pretty open for bird hunting

cheers mooncoon

 

[cigar_man]

I was looking into the Huskqvarna Cape guns in 9.3x57R/360 and 12.7x44

Any comments on these?

They seem to be a bargain.

 

[WR1894]

The H&H paradox was to handle shot not to bad, I have never tried shot in mine so cant comment for sure on this. The Murcott is only cylinder bored on the smooth bore side so again would be a open pattern, I believe it was made before choked barres were the in thing.

I have never seen the Huskqvarna cape guns so cant say much on them but most of there guns were decent quality so can't see why these would be a decent gun

 

[mooncoon]

I believe that Murcott was bought out by Greener around 1875 and choke boring was only just coming in at that time. The reason that my oval bore shoots such an open pattern is because in addition to being open bored, the oval rifling also imparts a spin to the shot as it travels down the barrel

cheers mooncoon

 

[H Wally]

I can't remember the author or name of the book but I read one book by a european who spent 40 years in India working as a forester and who supplemented his income by hunting tigers. He hunted from roughly 1860 to 1900 or a bit after and estimated that he shot about 200 tigers during that time. For the first several years he used a heavy barrel 10 or 12 guage (can't remember) shotgun loaded with ball to hunt tigers with. In later years he seemed to switch to cartridge rifles.

In the case of my Colindian, with shot it might be OK for clearing barrooms but the pattern was pretty open for bird hunting

cheers mooncoon

Apologies for the slight deviation from the thread, though in a way it's still on the subject of cape guns and paradox rifling:


You gave me an idea there - I guess I could just find a decent sxs and put removable chokes in it - one rifled and one for shot. I always dismissed rifled chokes, but maybe they would work? I definitely feel like not having a full rifled bore will hinder accuracy, and was always impressed by the accuracy my rifled 870 barrel gave me, but I do wonder now.... That would essentially give me a paradox rifled cape gun, with even more versatility, at less cost, than a mixed sxs with one rifled and one smooth bore barrel.

 

[cigar_man]

You gave me an idea there - I guess I could just find a decent sxs and put removable chokes in it - one rifled and one for shot. I always dismissed rifled chokes, but maybe they would work? I definitely feel like not having a full rifled bore will hinder accuracy, and was always impressed by the accuracy my rifled 870 barrel gave me, but I do wonder now.... That would essentially give me a paradox rifled cape gun, with even more versatility, at less cost, than a mixed sxs with one rifled and one smooth bore barrel.

Ahhhh, I like your thoughts!!!!!!!!

Google, Poor Man's Double Rifle-Cape Gun.

I have been playing and experimenting with this concept for a while now using Magtech .12 brass, black powder.

I could use a few more interested parties on the bandwagon.

https://sites.google.com/site/mikeharpoon/doublerifle/1.jpg

https://sites.google.com/site/mikeharpoon/doublerifle/2.jpg

https://sites.google.com/site/mikeharpoon/doublerifle/3.jpg

 

[mooncoon]

You gave me an idea there - I guess I could just find a decent sxs and put removable chokes in it - one rifled and one for shot. I always dismissed rifled chokes, but maybe they would work? I definitely feel like not having a full rifled bore will hinder accuracy, and was always impressed by the accuracy my rifled 870 barrel gave me, but I do wonder now.... That would essentially give me a paradox rifled cape gun, with even more versatility, at less cost, than a mixed sxs with one rifled and one smooth bore barrel.

two things come to mind; the first is how accurate were paradox barrels in practice. Also would a 3" long rifled choke tube be long enough to spin and stabilize a paradox slug?

cheers mooncoon

 

[H Wally]

Ahhhh, I like your thoughts!!!!!!!!

Google, Poor Man's Double Rifle-Cape Gun.

I have been playing and experimenting with this concept for a while now using Magtech .12 brass, black powder.

I could use a few more interested parties on the bandwagon.

https://sites.google.com/site/mikeharpoon/doublerifle/1.jpg

https://sites.google.com/site/mikeharpoon/doublerifle/2.jpg

https://sites.google.com/site/mikeharpoon/doublerifle/3.jpg

Thanks for the tip! I knew I wasn't the first person thinking of this

two things come to mind; the first is how accurate were paradox barrels in practice. Also would a 3" long rifled choke tube be long enough to spin and stabilize a paradox slug?

cheers mooncoon

That's definitely the issue I'm working out - I think you're right that a rifled choke won't give true accuracy in comparison to a rifled barrel.

Were I to have sufficient time to practice, I would go down the build-it-myself route and try to set up a pre-existing gun with a single rifle and single smoothbore barrel and regulate and fit it myself.... at this stage though I simply don't have the skill or time to learn and do it. Fitting a gun with removable chokes might start me down that path, and give me something to work with until that time. Plus, if the idea seemed to work, I would already have the donor gun to work with.

I've read mixed reviews on rifled chokes, which seem to suggest they do work, but not as well as I would like - usually it's a mix of people saying they just don't work vs people who have tried various brands and found one that shot satisfactorily through their guns, but aren't getting what I would call really great groups. My personal experience with the 870 rifled barrel tells me that there's nothing inherently inaccurate about a rifled barrel firing a slug, in that it behaves more or less like a standard rifled black powder gun and is capable or more accuracy in a rifled barrel than I've really heard anyone else mention.

This' all my thought at least. I'm still on the quest for do-everything guns, which I admit is a bit of a fool's errand, but it keeps me busy. I can certainly understand why British travelers liked the idea of having one or two versatile guns, seeing as they were going into previously little known areas, encountering all sorts of situations and needed a firearm that could be used for most or all of them with a certain degree of effectiveness.

Anyways, hopefully I haven't derailed the thread too much - I'm off to read about the Poor Man's Double Rifle!

 

[cigar_man]

two things come to mind; the first is how accurate were paradox barrels in practice. Also would a 3" long rifled choke tube be long enough to spin and stabilize a paradox slug?

cheers mooncoon

I have read, Paradox riflings where real slow twists (1/48 to 1/120) and had decent accuracy.

There are a lot of like minded people on this quest for slow twist extended choke tubes.

At the present time, none are made.

All known manufacturers are a 1/35 twist rate.

A very lengthy discussion on the subject here;

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/archive/index.php/t-78235.html

 

[WR1894]

I find my paradox shoots quit well, I have used Unique powder and the original bullets in paper cases and at 75 yards it will keep both barrels in 6 inches if I do my part
Double gun journals have had articles on these over the years that is were I got my load. I have not tested black powder