16ga Pinfire Ammunition?

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tiriaq

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Has anyone ever seen a source for these cases?
Or even brass tubing of the correct size to make them?
 
I have made a couple of batches of them. The ones in the photo, I soft soldered copper tubes into brass bases and the cap sat in a round recess in the brass base. I used silicon bronze ring nails with the rings filed off for pins and put a drop of airplane glue on the outside of the case around the pin to keep the pin in place. The airplane glue dries quickly and shrinks to almost nothing. It is important to glue the pin before you continue loading because once loaded, if the pin backs out even a little and you push it back in, the shell will not fire. The body of the shell I made from 1/2" copper water pipe annealed and expanded on a mandril. I made a couple of steel plugs, oiled lightly and forced them down the tubing using a bench vise. While doing that I had a steel ring on the outside to keep one end of the pipe from expanding with the result that the tube was shaped vaguely like a beer bottle. The neck or small portion I soldered into the brass base. I fired formed them for the last little bit plus had to trim the mouth end of the case to square. It is important to use bronze or brass pins for the shells, to prevent damage to the hammers

What is important is that many pinfires do not have strong hammers and for those it is necessary to have a square recess for the cap to fit into, or they will not fire. Recently I have been experimenting with making shells for a little 30 cal pinfire pistol and the square hole made the difference and the cap did fire. Hole was drilled round then filed square and a thin base soft soldered on. I still have to work on technique with those ones and think that I have to drill the pin hole after soldering the case together. The problem so far with all pinfires is that the pin is extremely close to the base of the shell and the base of the shell is quite thin.

The french shells use an insert that is put in with a small tool. I will have to take a photo of an insert and post that because it is difficult to describe but it does make the shells a lot easier to prime

One problem with shooting pinfire shotguns is that the hammers are close together and even when cocked limit your sight of the target. Centerfire hammers are much lower and off to the side more and most do not obstruct vision

Almost forgot; I tried gluing a plastic shell body in the brass head of the shotgun case but while I recall them working for the first shot, it would need to be reglued with every shot but my memory is fuzzy about the details

cheers mooncoon

 
Wow, I never even knew these existed. Yet another "must have" to my list. Out of curiosity, what would a shotgun like in your picture be worth to buy? It is beautiful!!! Mooncoon, good job on making the pinfire ammo. Very kewl!
 
I was experimenting. Turned some 4130 steel tube to diameter, soldered it onto a turned brass head. Drilled a recess in the center face of the head, then drove a shaped swage into the hole to create a rectangular recess for the cap. I was hoping for a source that would be less time consuming.
mooncoon is right about the cap needing to be well supported to avoid misfires.
 
tiriaq said:
I was experimenting. Turned some 4130 steel tube to diameter, soldered it onto a turned brass head. Drilled a recess in the center face of the head, then drove a shaped swage into the hole to create a rectangular recess for the cap. I was hoping for a source that would be less time consuming.
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Click to expand...

I am wondering if I could make a broach that would square the hole before soldering on the base. Just a miniature version of what I use for fitting hammers to tumbler shafts. The big concern is that it would have to be small and therefore fragile. For small pistol shells I will stick with soldering the base on after forming the square hole.

In the photo below, the square broach is for the hole in the hammer, the other two are for sight dovetails. They are both triangular and the sharply tapered one is just to rough the dovetail out quickly (not really necessary) and the long slow taper is to create something closer to the finished dovetail. They are all made from drill rod then hardened and drawn to about dark brown. My idea is to make a much smaller square broach to cut the rectangular recess in the pifire shell.

cheers mooncoon

 
I just made a punch with a rectangular end. Hollowed the business end a bit so that it would shear when driven into the hole. Cut a usable recess.
 
maple leaf said:
Wow, I never even knew these existed. Yet another "must have" to my list. Out of curiosity, what would a shotgun like in your picture be worth to buy? It is beautiful
Click to expand...

Pinfires range considerably in price; I bought one very plain jane and I think Belgian for around $150, refinished the barrels and traded it off for about $250. I saw a very nice british one in a gun show for about $1000 and was tempted but already had the danish gun above. The british gun was nicely engraved and appeared to have high quality components and its price was probably reasonable for that gun. My gun is danish with high quality locks and is generally in excellent condition as cost more than the british gun. In general there are very few pinfire shotguns around, at least locally. I suspect that many were converted to centerfire in the 1860s and 70s. There is a very limited market for them because of the challenges of loading for them and for that reason the price is often on the low side because of the limited market

cheers mooncoon
 
British pinfire guns are not all that common. The period of production was rather short; centerfire displaced them rapidly, unlike on the continent.
The one I am playing with is Belgian. Have a Brit, Jones underlever, but it isn't a shooter. The chambers seem oversized for the bores.
 
I picked up a William Powell double 16 bore pinfire rifle a while ago and it came with some french pinfire cases and also the guy had used the active plastic shells with the rim turned off, removed the old shotgun primer drilled hole into it and put the cap in the hole pushed the primer back in and had the pin though to the cap. It has been a while since I have shot it but these cases work good
 
I been using IVI/CIL imperial hulls and just drilling right through at pin diameter then drilling one side to take a #11 percussion cap works ok but my gun is has had a hard life and needs some work before I go off and really shoot it
 
 
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