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.

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 !

[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.

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

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????

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

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.

Originally Posted by Tedz50

@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.

my apolagies if I have caused offence..... when looking at these large projectiles I cant help but think of the black cloud shotgun loads that made a revolutionary change to bird shot by putting a ring like saturn has around round shot to make it cut better and fly crooked,opening patterns LOL,,,( insert something about reinventing the wheel here) your tone would suggest you had a hand in making that mould???? maybe you could restore faith by doing so again and making next one a flyturn larger??? now the "shrinking qualities of purelead" was mentioned in calculations..my warped brain doth wonder if something with slightly less or more shrinkage inclined ,may indeed make one or tother indeed much closer to ideal...climate change does induce much shrinkage to certain appendages on these frosty morings

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

my apolagies if I have caused offence..... when looking at these large projectiles I cant help but think of the black cloud shotgun loads that made a revolutionary change to bird shot by putting a ring like saturn has around round shot to make it cut better and fly crooked,opening patterns LOL,,,( insert something about reinventing the wheel here) your tone would suggest you had a hand in making that mould???? maybe you could restore faith by doing so again and making next one a flyturn larger??? now the "shrinking qualities of purelead" was mentioned in calculations..my warped brain doth wonder if something with slightly less or more shrinkage inclined ,may indeed make one or tother indeed much closer to ideal...climate change does induce much shrinkage to certain appendages on these frosty morings

No offense was taken merely pointing out tongue in cheek it was basic engineering to fill a need.
I acquired this gun in I believe 1979 and it did not come with a mould so I made one and although it looked crude it worked I later bought a Brunswick mould but found it was made for the military Brunswick musket.
I am in awe of David's skill and am watching this gun get a whole new life.