Paradox Rifling - actually effective?

H Wally

H Wally

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I've been reading up on paradox rifling and was hoping to get the opinions or first hand experience of other board members on here. I've read that paradox rifling was cut into an elongated choke, some 3 inches on average, and allowed shot to pattern reasonably well while still imparting the required spin on a slug in order for it to be at least reasonably accurate.

I'm curious if paradox rifling is actually capable of being a true multi-purpose rifling, or is it a jack of all trades that fails to do anything well?

I'm also curious if the rifling's cut into the finished choke as I suspect is done, or if it's cut into the barrel, which is then honed out behind the first three inches like I've read elsewhere.

Finally, I'm curious if the depth and twist rate of the rifling is different than the standard for a given bore diameter and bullet weight in a fully rifled barrel? I feel like it might be since a very short section of rifling starting so late in the bore might lead heavily, fail to impart sufficient twist or simply strip the bullet without spinning it at all.

Anyways, I'm quite curious about the whole paradox rifling subject - quite a fascinating little corner of british gun design.
 
Stolen from another forum

Just had a long chat with the Tech Director at Hastings. Most of the theory above was confirmed. Hastings took over the Paradox name and trademarked it about 35 years ago, intentionally playing on the H&H Paradox Rifle/Shotgun design and positive word-of-mouth concerning those guns. The early paradox designs, I am told, generally had as standard the last 9" of the barrel with rifling, and the rest of it smoothbore back to the forcing cone at the end of the chamber.
Current production Paradox barrels are rifled full length, and also have a tapered forcing cone section transitioning from the chamber to the start of the rifled bore, to allow for variable length shells. Thereis some thought being given to changing to a fixed chamber lenght without that taper, thought being that some tiny bit of wobble may be introduced in that gap when using shorter shells in these genral purpose chambers.

Oddly enough, there are still "Paradox" style barrels being made today, by Hastings, with only the last 9" of the barrel being rifled. These are made for export to Japan, where fully rifled shotgun barrels by law make the weapon a "Rifle" which is illegal for citizens to own in that country.

These are created by taking a normal rifled "Paradox" barrel and honing out the rifling from the chamber forward to the magical 9" from the muzzle position.

So, if you really feel the need to recreate the old H&H PARADOX GUN, and don't want to spend the $70,000.00 on the task, then a Hastings Export barrel will do it.

As to twist rates, etc. I'm also told that Paradox 12 gauge barrels are all 1/34 twist, and the 20 gauge are all 1/24 twist. Anybody looking for the slowest twist rate in a 12 gauge, which in theory should impart the most spin to the slug due to less skidding in the barrel, should be looking at Mossberg, who uses a 1/36 twist.

Of course, using high speed sabots in an Aluminum frame lightweight pump gun seems to me to be not the cleverest move one could make.

Insider info from high speed photography seems to indicate that slower twist rates actually do produce morespin with increasing velocities, while the 1/24 works best with lesser velocity loads. Seems counter-intuitive, but "them's what the pictures show" Folks at Hastings maintain that their choices of twist rates were made based on analysis of range results with the full spread of muzzle velocities and slug designs available.
Of course every manufacturer has a slightly different twist, so you'd have to assume each Company would have a good story to tell about the choices they made.

There is also 100% confirmation that eliminating rifling length reduces spin which diminishes downrange accuracy. The longer the barrel and the rifling, the more spin, and the tighter the groups at distance. Probably the ONLY 100% predictable result in anything to do with firearms.

We also got into some theory on hammer milling versus button rifling, etc. and land/groove shapes and definition that result from the different processes, but that's fodder for a whole other round of argument...
 
I have a 12 guage Colindian, which is an oval bore 12 guage gun with rifle sights and was designed to shoot both slugs and shot. The twist rate is 1 in 56" if my memory is correct and it will stabilize a 12 guage paradox shaped slug. It will shoot shot but the gun is open bore in the sense that it has no choke and its pattern is pretty open. I would have to say that as a shotgun it is probably limited to about 25 or 30 yards because the pattern is so open. Accuracy as a rifle so far is not particularly good because I have yet to develop a good load for it. I think part of the problem is that I did not know what diameter to make a bullet for a oval bore and decided on half way between bore and groove diameter. I now think I should open the mold up to groove diameter similar to any conventionally rifled gun.

cheers mooncoon
 
As a side note, it seems to me the best style of slug for this kind of barrel would be a minie ball since it would be able to easily pass the forcing cone but still expand to meet the bore - any reason why most paradox slugs seem to be a simple shotgun style slug?
 
I could be wrong, this is from memory. Paradox rifling (last few inches of barrel) was developed in Britain for use in Africa for hunting large, dangerous game. The purpose was to keep pressures down in VERY hot weather as well as rapid firing against charging, dangerous game. Weatherby rifles use to, and may still, have VERY long chamber throats to help lower pressures as Roy wanted to obtain the highest possible velocities. I have a Rem870 and with a smooth bore deer barrel (18") accuracy with slugs is rather poor. A fully rifled barrel delivers quite good accuracy with slugs while using a smooth barrel with a rifled tube on the end (Paradox barrel) gives better accuracy than the smooth, but not quite as good as the fully rifled. The smooth barrel is ok with shot, the fully rifled won't hit a 8X10 piece of paper at 10 yds with buckshot. Haven't tried shot with the Paradox barrel and don't really want to try.
 
I have a H&H Pardox made in 1901 the chokes are rifled and are about 2 inch long, was shot with a 750 grain hollow point bullet and 3 drams of powder, I have shot it with smokelss powder and at 50 yard will keep both barrels in 3 to 4 inches no problem Here are a couple of pictures

IMG_9646.jpg
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Muzzles of the barrels

IMG_9650.jpg
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My understanding and I have someinformation from the Holland and Holland book somewhere that says the barrel were made then the choke rifled and I believe the twist was given with but need to find this again. By the way you can order a new H&H Pardox now and they are making ammo also but I am afraid to ask the price. Mine also has the H&H bulletr mould but not the rest of the loading tools
John
 
H Wally said:
As a side note, it seems to me the best style of slug for this kind of barrel would be a minie ball since it would be able to easily pass the forcing cone but still expand to meet the bore - any reason why most paradox slugs seem to be a simple shotgun style slug?
Click to expand...

My impression is that paradox slugs were solid base and look like the one in the photo below. The shell is a mock up for a Tabatierre cartridge so don't confuse it with a paradox shell.

cheers mooncoon

 
WR1894 said:
I have a H&H Pardox made in 1901 the chokes are rifled and are about 2 inch long, was shot with a 750 grain hollow point bullet and 3 drams of powder, I have shot it with smokelss powder and at 50 yard will keep both barrels in 3 to 4 inches no problem Here are a couple of pictures

bucket.com/user/WR1894/media/Gun%20Room/IMG_9646.jpg.html]http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i160/WR1894/Gun%20Room/IMG_9646.jpg

Muzzles of the barrels

[URL=http://s71.photobucket.c break om/user/WR1894/media/Gun%20Room/IMG_9650.jpg.html]http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i160/WR18break 94/Gun%20Room/IMG_9650.jpg

[URL=http://s71.photobucket.com/user/WR18 break 94/media/Gun%20Room/IMG_9645.jpg.html][IMG]http://i71.photobucket.com/albums break /i160/WR1894/Gun%20Room/IMG_9645.jpg

My understanding and I have some information from the Holland and Holland book somewhere that says the barrel were made then the choke rifled and I believe the twist was given with but need to find this again. By the way you can order a new H&H Paradox now and they are making ammo also but I am afraid to ask the price. Mine also has the H&H bulletr mould but not the rest of the loading tools
John[/QUOTE]

Good to hear about the barrels and choke being made then rifled - just didn't make sense following the idea of rifling the whole barrel then honing out 90-95% of it :p I've read about the new holland and holland paradox guns - in the range of $60-$70 thou :o

Interesting to hear about the performance on the guns. I'm toying with the idea of a paradox rifled flintlock carbine - something unique and fun to experiment with.

[QUOTE="mooncoon, post: 9956244, member: 16543"]My impression is that paradox slugs were solid base and look like the one in the photo below. The shell is a mock up for a Tabatierre cartridge so don't confuse it with a paradox shell.

cheers mooncoon
[URL=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/mooncoon/media/Tabatierecartridge003.jpg.html]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v506/mooncoon/Tabatierecartridge003.jpg[/QUOTE]

Yep, I suspect so as well - I'm curious what the benefits were to a solid base slug, or if accuracy being equal the solid base mold was easier to produce possibly.
Click to expand...
 
A point not always considered is that the term "Paradox" was Holland and Holland's trademarked name for the type.

Other manufacturers made similar guns with different names. As a species they are often referred to as "Rifled Choke Bored" guns..... which is another outfit's trademark for the same thing.

Good information on all of them in "The Gun and its Development" by W. W. Greener (1911).

Guns designed for use against dangerous game usually were made on a heavier frame than the calibre would otherwise suggest. It is not unusual to find a 10-bore gun on an 8-bore frame, with the outside of the (very damned heavy) barrels conforming to the 8-bore standard. Made for 16-pound doubles which would keep you alive if you stood your ground, aimed and fired when Jumbo was coming at you with the intention of grinding you into mush. Touch on the heavy side for Quail, though.
 
The H&H mould makes a solid base bullet but hollow point, but there were bullets that were not hollow points, after the patent expired on the H&H Pardox Westley Richards used the same princpal, called the Explora. They had acapped over the nose of the bullet and of course nitro powder for more speed. Of what I have read the Westley Richard was a acurate gun out to 150 yards were the lead bullet black powder were more of a 75 to 100 yard gun. Other companys uses barrels that were straight rifled until the last 2 or 3 inches then did the twist. I had a oval bored gun also and still work with it but can not get the same grouping with it yet. Another project for this year.
For a all around gun they seem to had a good following
 
I find that my memory was a bit foggy when I said my bullet was solid base; I looked at one this afternoon and I used a shallow hollow base with a thick skirt about .1 inch thick walls and a flat top to the cavity.

cheers mooncoon
 
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