The Firearm Blog

When I posted a link to the American Rifleman double rifle “plinking” video I did not realize there was an accompanying article to go with it.

American Rifleman have reviewed four different double rifles, all with a starting price of about $10,000! The double rifle has a special place in the collective psyche of hunters. I can think of few things in life that I want more than to hold one under the hot African sun in the pursuit of Cape Buffalo.

“the double rifle is a weapon of romance … [it] connotes ivory hunting, long lines of safari porters, drinking sundowners beside a fire of nyombo wood while lions roar on the veldt, affairs of the heart with comely lady leopard hunters.” – Jack o’Connor in Complete Book of Rifles and Shotguns, 1961

Holland and Holland double rifle in .375 H&H Magnum. From Wikipedia.

At the bottom of the article there is a PDF link to view the entire article as it appears in the print magazine.

Hat Tip: The Unforgiving Minute

Those hardworking boys at American Rifle have been plinking African style with a double barreled rifles chambered in .470 Nitro Express.

A spectator shouts “Fix bayonets!”

A question to those who know more about these things than me: I noticed that the first rifle shown in the video featured ejectors while the other two rifles did not, Is there any reason not to have ejectors on a dangerous game rifle? In a real-life situation a fast reload could be the difference between taking home a trophy or being taken home in a coffin so I would have thought ejectors would be standard.

Hat Tip: Ed @ Tell Me Why?

Master gunsmith Steve Zihn, who made the huge 2 bore rifle I have blogged about before, emailed these photos of this magnificent .54 caliber flintlock rifle he built.

Look at the trigger blade. Beautiful.

It has a 44″ swamped barrel.

The rifle along with a matching custom made knife is being raffled off to raise money for the Cowboy Church in Riverton, Wyoming. Tickets for the raffle cost $10 each or 3 for $25 and can be purchased from CJ Vandermuehlen. He can be contacted at 1-307-851 8829 or at the below email address.

Colin Stolzer, who owns Stolzer & Son’s Gunsmithing, emailed me photos of a custom 8 Bore Boxlock muzzleloader he was recently build for a client. It is a true work of art.

Click to expand the photos (the small thumbnails do not do it justice):

8 Bore (.835″) 1:104 twist Octagon to wedding band transition then straight tapered round to the muzzle.
Jeff Tanner Ball Mould (.805″).

The finished rifle weighs right at 11 pounds.

The Action is a Pete Allan Boxlock Casting, it is representative of the 1860’s Edwin Wesson Boxlocks. The metal finish is rust blued.

The Ramrod is Rosewood w/ a steel button on one end and a threaded steel tip on the other for accessories.

It has a full length underrib to add a little weight.

The Stock is rock maple, stained with a dark walnut stain and then oil finished and then waxed to a sheen.

The forearms has an ebony tip, all the pipes, underrib, front sight and sight base were custom made in my shop.

The action was also reshaped, and the original triggerguard was removed and replace with the more elegant and classic one in the finished pictures.

The butt plate is a wide English style plate. The checkering is flattop.

I asked Colin to email me some photos to give a sense of scale to large bore size.

8 bore balls. These would weight 875 grains is they were pure lead.

A nickel on the barrel.

Many thanks to Colin for emailing me this photos. If you are wanting a custom muzzleloader designed I am sure Colin could make you one. His contact info is on his website.

The Azerbaijan Ministry of Defence Industry has recently developed a new anti-material sniper rifle called the “Istiglal” IST-14.5. These photos are from the Ministry’s website:

The rifle was on display at the IDEF ‘09 arms show in Turkey a couple of weeks ago. I could find very little information about this rifle. The Azerbaijanis may be known for oil, but websites (and photography) they are not

It is said to weigh 20 kg (44 lbs, but can be broken into two part for transport), has a range of 3000m (1.8 miles) and is usable in mud, snow, dust and temperatures ranging from -50 degrees Celsius (-58 F) to +50 degrees C (122 F).

Other than that all I know is what is pictured above. It has a side mounted scope, iron sights, bipod and a two baffle muzzle break.

Photo from trmilitary.com

The potent 14.5×114mm round it chambers was developed by the Soviets at the beginning of WWII as an anti-tank cartridge and later as a heavy machine gun and anti-aircraft round. Compared to the .50 BMG it is up to 60% more powerful!

From what I can make out from Azerbaijani websites they are interested in creating a viable defense export business. Other items on display at IDEF were machine gun suppressors and Armored Personal Carriers jointly produced with South Africa.

Last year I wrote about a massive 2 bore rifle, that was not yet fully complete. Colin Stolzer, of Stolzer & Son’s Gunsmithing, contacted me with some additional information and photos of the completed rifle. Colin build some of the parts of the rifle while he was an apprentice of Master Gunsmith Steve Zihn. Click to expand all the photos.

Colin also forwarded on an email from Steve Zihn. I wondered if it was a true rifle or a paradox gun (part smoothbore, part rifled). Steve confirms that it is a rifle:

it’s a real rifle, not a paradox gun. 36″ barrel , but it only came to 22 pounds. If I ever do another one I am going to make a recessed breach because you can’t get your hand around anything larger. that’s why it’s “only” 22 pounds. If I were to use a barrel that would get it up to 30 pounds I’d still have to wrap a stock around it. Then no normal man (even with big hands) can grip it and the recoil will cause it to jump out of you hands completely.

You can tell them about yourself 6′ 5″ tall, and 240 pounds . You shot the 4 bore and it was enough to cause you trouble. So you can just imagine what a 2 bore would be like (4X the recoil at the same scale) It will make a good post for you. then tell them about the 8 bores you are building. If there ask anything more I’ll chime in later and endorse you.

Colin says:

Back when I was apprenticing in his shop he was commissioned to build a 4 bore Muzzleloader in a similar style as the 2 bore.

When it was nearly finished and needed to be sighted in I got the pleasure of helping do that job. The 4 bore exerts 255 PSI at 32 FPS of felt recoil(if I remember the number correctly), and I can tell you that at 6′ 5″ and 240 pounds and being very experienced with big bore guns, it was still more than enough to push be back a quick two step. And after 2 shots left me black and blue for about 5″ around my shoulder area(part of that was because the rifle was built for a smaller statured person so it really didn’t fit me). But the owner of the 4 bore shot it once and sent it back to Steve to sell.

The man bought more gun than he could handle, and I believe it was more painful than he wanted to ever shoot again(speculation on my part).

Heh, personally I am pretty recoil sensitive. As much as I want to shoot one of these *big* bores, I think I would rather watch someone else shoot them

I asked Colin why these types of big bore guns are never seen with a muzzle brake:

In a smokeless powder rifle of these calibers a muzzlebrake would be a necessity but with blackpowder, which is what most of the big bore guns are, the powder doesn’t convert to gas expansion rapidly like smokeless so the benefits of a brake would be minimal.

And then you run into the aesthetics, the guys who buy these kinds of rifles are typically traditionalist and putting a muzzlebrake on a classic African rifle would be a sacrilege to most of them, so it just isn’t done. I’m honestly not sure a guy could build one of these is a smokeless configuration, by the time you got enough steel into the action to hold the pressure, you wouldn’t be able to hold the gun up, and even then the recoil would probably be literally lethal.

I’ve read pretty much everything I can find on big bore rifles, and almost every one of the classic dangerous game hunters wrote of the 2 and 4 bores giving them headaches, spinning them around(Sir Samuel Baker said his 2 bore would try to spin him around like a “weathercock in a hurricane”) nosebleeds, and concussions from the recoil. Sir Samuel Baker ended up with permanent nerve damage from using the 2 bore that effected him in his declining years to a point were it left him basically punch-drunk all the time and his wife had to care for him.

This type of rifle starts at $4500 and then goes up depending on what wood , engraving, checkering etc. you want.

Colin is currently specializing in building custom muzzle loaders, including double rifles and big bore 8 gauge/bore rifles. He can be contacted at his website Stolzer & Son’s Gunsmithing.

Billll @ Billlls Idle Mind took some photos of a friends’ 2-bore rifle.

More photos and load info here.
Later in the week I will be posting a heap of 2 Bore photos I have gotten from a gun maker who specializes in big bore rifles.

Newton Arms have revived the Leverbolt rifle that was invented by the famous gun and cartridge designer Charles Newton in 1929. The design borrows element from the Springfield, Lee Navy and the Winchester lever-action. By utilizing a lever the bolt can be cycled faster than a traditional straight pull bolt action.

Click to expand.

According to my copy of Bolt Action Rifles (4th Edition), the story of the Leverbolt is a sad one. Charles designed the rifle after this business, Newton Buffolo Rifle Corporation, folded in early 1929. Unbeknown to him, and everyone else, the stock market would crash in October of that year heralding the beginning of the Great Depression.

Newton approached Marlin who agreed to limited production only if he could secure at least 500 orders. The cost was a $25 downpayment and an addional $35 on delivery. He failed to secure the neccessery orders and once the market crashed any chance of the rifle being manufactured was gone. Charles died a few years later aged 62.

Mehul, a moderator at nitroexpress.com and expert of the topic emailed me information about the Newton rifle:

For a straight pull action that is much sleeker than any of its competitors today (the Blaser R 93, Strasser RS 05 and the Heym SR 30 are three popular designs that come to mind) the Newton Leverbolt is especially interesting because it comes with a controlled feed and extraction system that would make it ideal for dangerous game. The speed of reloading and getting repeat shots off would also be ideal for an African rifle – with a 5 shot magazine in calibers from 375 H&H to 458 Lott this could be much better than anything else available today.

I am not sure of pricing or availability of the rifle at this time.

A big thanks to Mehul for the info.

I have blogged about the S&H 2 Bore cartridge before. The problem is visualizing such a massive cartridge with no reference. I asked Jay at Schroeder & Hetzendorfer if he could take a photo featuring a 2 bore and a common cartridge and he kindly obliged.

9mm Parabellum vs. S&H 2-Bore. Click to expand the image.

9mm rifle cartridges are considered big bore, for example the .375 H&H*, yet the the caliber looks minuscule compared to the mighty 33mm (1.326″) caliber 2-Bore!

Individually the S&H 2-Bore Blackpowder Express cartridge cases sell for $49.50 each.

For more information and ordering visit Schroeder & Hetzendorfer.

A big thanks to Jay for the photo.
* Technically the .375 Holland & Holland Magnum uses a 9.5mm bullet.

Ruger and Hornady have teamed up to produce the new .416 Ruger cartridge which will be available next year (2009).

The round is basically a necked up .375 Ruger and offers performance comparable to the classic .416 Rigby in a standard length cartridge. The Ruger M77 Hawkeye bolt action will be available chambered in this cartridge.

Hornady claim on their website that the 416 Ruger offers the same performance in the compact 20″ barreled Ruger M77 Hawkeye Alaskan as the .416 Rugby in a full length rifle.

416 Ruger cartridge delivers the same performance as the fabled 416 Rigby, but does it in a shorter 20″ barreled Ruger Hawkeye rifle that is extremely compact and easy to carry.

I am skeptical about this claim. It will be interesting to see what results firearm magazine writers get when they test the ammunition.

Ruger M77 Hawkeye Alaskan (20″ Barrel)

Ballistic infomation:

Click to expand.

Product Video (there are a couple of video snippets at the start of charging elephants being shot. Really crazy stuff!):

The .375 Ruger has proved to be popular and I think so could the .416 Ruger. The standard length action is a compelling reason to choose this cartridge over the .416 Rigby and .416 Rem. Mag.

More info at Hornady.

Bill emailed me a photo of a friend’s 2-bore rifle and another of the 2-bore balls. The first photo really gives a sense of scale.

Click to expand the image

I assume the bigger balls are for the 2-bore
and the smaller for another gun

The guy in the photo is apparently a big guy (so you get the sense of scale)

The rest in the above photo came with the gun.

A big thanks to Bill for the photos.

More 2 bore goodness:

- S&H 2 Bore Blackpowder Express
- Cost of big bore ammunition
- 2 bore rifle photos

Have you ever wondered how much big bore ammo cost? Here is a list of cartridges from a few manufacturers. It is not a scientific sample, I have not taken into account quality of the brass or bullets. I am sure by hunting around you could find cheaper prices (ha, no pun intended).

The reason many are very expensive is that they are not mass produced, unlike the .405 Winchester and .375 H&H.

* Cost of bullet+brass unloaded, includes shipping cost.

Sources:

Winchester
The Firearm Blog
Kynoch Ammunition

There is ‘big bore’ and then there is the 2 bore. Schroeder & Hetzendorfer make a cartridge called the S&H 2 Bore Blackpowder Express.

These photos are amazing

.700 nitro express next to 2 bore and 3500 grain bronze solid

.500 S&W, .45-70, .700 Nitro Express, 2 bore

The caliber equivalent of 2 bore (’bore’ is generally interchangeable with ‘gauge’ in regard to caliber) is 1.326″ or 33.68mm! The bronze solid bullet weights 3500 grain / 1/2 pound / 226.80 grams!

While technically fired from a rifle these are more like massive shotgun slugs: a heavy projectile at a low velocity. The 2500 grain bronze solid leaves the barrel at 1500 ft/s and with 17487 ft·lb of energy.

Apart from the nerve destroying recoil, heavy rifle, heavy ammo and expense these big bullets slow down dramatically after entering the game and hitting bone. A problem when hunting elephant.

They even come bigger than this. The 1 bore has a caliber of 1.67″. The A Guage/Bore, about 2″, was used for punt guns.

More info at Schroeder & Hetzendorfer.

ACE has an interesting article on the 4 bore.

UPDATE

Jay Schroeder emailed me the pricing for for the brass and bullets:

Cartridge Cases are $495.00 per 10 pack shipped.

Copper FN Solids are $295.00 per 10 pack shipped.

All components are USA made by Americans from American material.

Although it may seem expensive, you are probably not going to purchase more than one set of brass.

Winchester will be launching a new line of Safari ammo. They will be offering it in calibers 375 H&H Magnum, 416 Rigby, 458 Winchester Magnum and 416 Remington Magnum cartridge and will be using Nosler Partition and Nosler Solid bullets.

The new ammo will be available later this year.

They have not yet updated their website with the details.

The Press release:

When Africa calls, so does the need for being equipped with the proper ammunition to take down the game on your hunting list-and being prepared for game that may not be. Winchester’s new Safari Ammunition line was engineered to not only tackle the toughest game in Africa and the rest of the continents with supreme confidence, but to provide performance and versatility in virtually any situation.

Offered in the venerable 375 H&H Magnum, 416 Rigby and 458 Winchester Magnum, as well as the 416 Remington Magnum cartridge, the new Winchester® Safari line makes the most of these popular and proven African cartridges by pairing them with the finest bullet choices available-Nosler® Partition® and the new Nosler Solid™.

Nosler Partition bullets-with copper alloy jackets and lead-alloy cores-have long been favored around the world for accuracy and terminal performance on game. The new Nosler Solids-featuring a unique design and homogenous lead-free alloy construction-provide spectacular penetration and an impressively straight wound channel on large, thick-skinned game.

According to Glen Weeks, Winchester Centerfire Product Manager, “The Safari line was developed to meet the most demanding hunting needs. Each of the cartridges in the line provides the energy and knockdown power needed for the largest and most dangerous game. The Partition offerings are ideal for dangerous, or large thinner skin game, while the Solids will offer maximum penetration on the toughest hide and bone.”

Winchester Safari Ammunition features nickel-plated cartridge cases and is packaged in reusable 20-round plastic boxes with labels featuring recently discovered vintage Winchester artwork. The line will be available summer 2008.