Jungle guns, Cape rifles, and paradox slugs

My oval bore gun makes 1/2 turn in the length of the barrels which I think from memory are around 26". In other words about 1 turn in 52" and it does stabilize the bullets. I think I used a second hand Lee mold for a 58 mini ball as the beginning for making the paradox slug mold and besides boring out the main body of the mold, I also changed the base plug. I think that my limited success in accuracy so far is a reflection on my loading and I am hoping that increasing the diameter of the slug a bit will improve accuracy. I might also try paper patching first and see if that improves things. Wrapping with Teflon tape did help but I did not want to use it because it was not traditional or at least I am sure that Jim Corbet never used it :>)

cheers mooncoon
 
On the oval bore I would think you want the bullet fit tight, on the paradox the bullet is under size to the barrel and then the muzzles are like a full choke with rifling. So my slugs are about .730 I believe and are quite loose in the barrel until they hit the rifling. which is tight about .710 if I remember. It has been a long time since I played with this gun. this is suppose to be one of the reasons for the big groove in the bullet so there isn't as much bearing surface.
John
 
The Double Gun Journal has a lot of articles about getting a lot of those old guns to shoot.

I recall an article about a 12 guage cartridge gun that was way too light to shoot conicals in, until the author, Craig Bodington, realized that the slow twist was set up for round balls. Once he had that figured out, the gun was a long range wonder.

Cape guns were considered the poor farmer guns, because one gun could do it all, and the gunmakers didn't have to spend any time regulating the barrels to hit at the same point of impact. Also, something about the larger "bore" guns were much easier to regulate than the smaller high intensity guns Ie: it took a lot less work to regulate a 12 guage rifle than it did to regulate one in, say .303

If you don't mind paying an arm and a leg for a quarterly periodical, and you're in to old double barrel and single shot guns, then I would suggest getting a subscription to The Double Gun Journal. Pricey, but worth it for the information. They're not set up like one big infomercial like so many of the other gun (and other) magazines out there...
 
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