Thread: Black Powder Witchcraft. Regulating a BP Double Rifle

Time we had another dirty Black Powder story.

Recently a 14 gauge Dickson percussion belted ball double rifle came home with me.
Circa 1840s
Quite unusual for me and required some restraint too take my time and check it all out thoroughly before putting some charges in it.
We are talking a 180 year plus rifle here.

So the Dickson belted ball is like a Brunswick belted ball.

The rifle came in a period correct travel case with two different belted ball moulds and a set of 13 gauge shotgun barrels that fit the same frame and locks ( but that's another story ).

One of the moulds is a modern Brunswick mould that casts a superb bullet that is sadly 12 thou over size for this rifle ( but perfect is someone had a Brunswick with no mould ).

The other mould is rather agricultural and throws a belted ball with a sharp belt edge and about 14 thou under bore diameter.

All this confirmed when I took a barrel casting in both to compare with these cast balls



ballmould.com in the UK can make me the perfect mould from these barrel castings, less my preferred patch thickness and allowing from the know shrinkage amount of pure lead

How long do you have, my 450x3.25"bpe took 20 years
of trying with all sorts of bp and projectiles. It only regulated with a nitro for black load from G Wright's book Shooting the British double rifle.

So after methodically working through the safety checks and deciding on loads and hard cards and wads and patches I started some live fire testing.

The procedure is clean the nipples with a cap each.
Powder charge
Hard card over powder
Felt or vege lubed wad
Double patched ball because it's way under size
Place a cap on the nipple
BANG

Too start with I did all my testing in one barrel at a time.
Several shots with the right barrel / front trigger
Then the same with the left barrel / rear trigger.

Things were looking pretty promising at this stage.
My expectations were pretty modest despite the bores both being in remarkably good condition.
The ball looks a fright compared to the beautiful but over sized Brunswick ball

25m from a basic rest

Originally Posted by john m

How long do you have, my 450x3.25"bpe took 20 years
of trying with all sorts of bp and projectiles. It only regulated with a nitro for black load from G Wright's book Shooting the British double rifle.
Attachment 229808

Oh dear your not going to like the next installment then !

So taking my new found optimism for the under sized belted balls and after some experimentation with the charge weight and components I have found a very practical and accurate load for now.

I will get a custom mould made by James Tanner at ballmoulds.com as soon as I post off the casts.

Attachment 229810

Attachment 229810

@bing visited a couple of days ago and was keen for a couple of shots.

He got them both on the A4 paper at 50m but pulled the left barrel / back trigger because the pull weight is 10 pounds. As it should be for the back trigger.

Then I fired front left and back right off hand at 50m as fast as I could see to get back on to target and they were 50mm apart and 100m high directly over the bull's eye

Can't wait to get a correctly sized mould and increase the load a little.

It was bloody good ! I'll be back for more. Needs to be hunted with, close quarters in the bush with a big red.

can you powder coat the funky balls to bring up to closer to size????

[QUOTE=john m;1477570]How long do you have, my 450x3.25"bpe took 20 years
of trying with all sorts of bp and projectiles. It only regulated with a nitro for black load from G Wright's book Shooting the British double rifle.

Only 20 years,it takes some a little longer.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

can you powder coat the funky balls to bring up to closer to size????

A decent thick coat of powder coat only adds a surface cost of 1 thou
So not really

The belted ball moulds James Tanner makes are awesome and the rifle deserves a good mould

Damascus steel barrels with the two belt grooves at 12 and 6 o'clock at the muzzle and about 1:60" twist rate

Old school

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

can you powder coat the funky balls to bring up to closer to size????

@Micky Duck I cringed at the description funky ball as that mould was made one Saturday morning on a machine made to turn commutators using measurements taken with a steel rule and no gun present so to me it was a marvel of engineering.
It is not a target rifle and got the gun shooting.
Also after more than 40 years of shooting it David pointed out several features I had never noticed before such as the fact that left and right barrels had left and right twist damascus and the twist in the barrel mirrored each other at the muzzle.

Well I like to look at things very thoroughly and do a lot of checks before I live fire a 185 year old rifle.

I actually sent bore castings and patches to James Tanner at ballmould.com in England this morning.
He will make a perfectly sized belted ball mould allowing for the patch thickness and pure lead shrinkage rate.

I have also researched the Dickson barrel numbers with Dickson and sons in Scotland as they have the full Dickson Ledgers since 1820.
They do have a record of these barrels and they even have a record of them coming to NZ and that the original owner returned from NZ in 1866 but did not return with the rifle.
That is all the information they would allow without the payment of 55 Pounds.
Dickson's also hold the ledgers for a number of other sadly departed Scottish Gunmakers and provide historic records for a charge.

I will get the Dickson double and my Alexander Henry rifle records done as both are worth the time and money to research.

Technically you have to marvel at the skills of the designers and craftsmen that made these rifles 185 and 150 years ago respectively.
The Dickson barrels are in perfect shootable condition and I would rate them 7.5/10
My Alexander Henry left the workshop 150 years ago next month.
Yes it left the workshop in August 1873. It is in mechanically perfect condition and the bore is 9.5/10

Show me a rifle made today that you might expect to be mechanically 100% in 150 years ?