Bought a smith double barrel shotgun from my gunsmith today. We are going to build a custom set of inline black powder barrels to fit the action. The end result will be a traditional double barrel dangerous game rig with not so traditional barrels. Anyways I got a few ideas about caliber, barrel length, twist rate etc. but am looking for imput on how tho maximize power potential without limmitting shootability.
BP dangerous game gun
- Thread starter Smoke73
- Start date
24" barrels .50cal. 1in28"twist. Shoot powerbelts steel tipped lead in one barrel and the 338gr platinum powerbelt in the other. By dangerous you mean the big 5 right? For leapard I'd use a lighter bullet with a massive hollowpoint powerbelt copper series 245gr should be good. Good luck
Why limit yourself to .50? .54 gives you the ability to still use all great bullets in sabots (albeit with slightly less long distance accuracy - not a concern with Big 5 hunting) and allows considerably more mass is maxi-ball rounds.
BigUglyMan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- New Scotland
Go with one of the BPE cases. Self contained metallic cartridges drastically increase shootability.
If going to cartridges, you need to give a lot of thought to the amount of thrust that a given cartridge puts on the breachface and not exceeding the thrust that the gun was designed for. The issue is thrust on the breach face not pressure on the barrel.
Express cartridges tended to use light bullets and a lot of powder. I am not convinced that they qualify for having the most energy of the various choices
cheers mooncoon
Express cartridges tended to use light bullets and a lot of powder. I am not convinced that they qualify for having the most energy of the various choices
cheers mooncoon
achtanelion
Regular
- Location
- Edmonchuck
I'd go with a pair of .58s... cartridge of course. .58 BPE using 24Ga brass shells sounds good to me. Choose your twist rate well and you can go from 315gn to 600gn with off the shelf moulds, not to mention saboted rounds.
I'm with mooncoon on this one. The inline barrels force the pressure to be contained within the barrels. If you look at many modern inlines you can tell there just a break action 410 with a fancy new barrel. Was thinking about .58 but not up to speed on bullet choices available. Don't need another fancy bp cartridge gun, got a custom 45-90bolt action on the way.
