The Firearm Blog

No other shoulder fired firearm throws a bigger mass of lead than the mighty 2 bore rifles. Ever since learning about the existence of these monster arms I have been fascinated by them. Sir Samuel Baker, the famous British adventurer, wrote about his personal 2 Bore rifle named, ironically, "Baby".

I was afraid to use it, but now and then as it was absolutely necessary, it was cleaned after months of staying loaded. On such occasions my men had the gratification of firing it, and the explosion was always accompanied by two men falling on their backs (one having propped up the shooter) and the "Baby" flying some yards behind them. This rifle was made by Holland and Holland, of Bond Street, and I could highly recommend it for the Goliath of Gath, but not for the men of A.D. 1866."

- Sir Samuel Baker -The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin Of The Nile, 1866 pp.138

Colin, of Stolzer & Son's Gunsmithing, apprenticed under Master Gunsmith Steve Zihn. I have previously covered the amazing 2 Bore that Steve built. Colin assisted Steve with some of the parts for that 2 Bore and recently has been building a 2 Bore himself and chronicling the build in detail on his website.

8 bore ball (middle), approx. 3500 grain 2 Bore ball (right)

He had two main design goals. The first was to slim down the profile of the pistol grip so it was easy hold. This was achieved by building a solid steel boxlock action with dimensions similar to that of an 8 Bore (.835″ in caliber vs. the 1.326″ of a 2 bore¹ ), but which could support the massive 2 bore barrel.

Note the beautiful animal's head hammer.

The second goal was to reduce the recoil as much as possible. In pursuit of lower felt recoil, Colin tried to make the weight of the rifle as close to 30 lbs as possible. By the time it was finished it weighed 24 lbs. For comparison that is more than a loaded M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW)! A recoil pad was added, something purists of these guns avoid (for reasons I cannot fathom).

Adding lead to the stock for weight and balance.

The finished rifle is a beautiful work of art and engineering.

The stock was made from a piece of American Black Walnut cut on Collin's own property.

Colin made matching accessories.

This blog post has only scratched the surface of the detailed documentation, photos and videos that Colin made while building the rifle. I highly recommend reading Colin's account of the process.

Colin told me that he plans on selling his creation. I do not know how much these custom rifles are worth, but I am sure he will discuss it with you if you are interested. His contact details can be found at Stolzer & Son's Gunsmithing.

A big thank you to Colin for providing me with information and letting me use his photos.

Knight Rifles have recalled the Revolution or Revolution II because of concerns that it could discharge when closing the action. Only the trigger assembly needs to be returned.

Knight Rifles has received a small number of reports from the field of Revolution muzzleloading rifles accidentally discharging as the user closed the action. While there were no reports of personal injury, we asked those customers to return their rifles to us for inspection. Although we were unable to duplicate the claimed accidental firings in most of the rifles, we have instituted this recall for ALL Revolution and Revolution II rifles to allow us to inspect and repair the trigger mechanisms. Even if you have never had a problem with your Revolution or Revolution II rifle, you should not use your rifle until you have returned it to us for inspection and repair under the recall program. This recall only applies to Revolution and Revolution II rifles, and does not apply to any other models of Knight muzzleloaders.

If you own a Knight Revolution or Knight Revolution II you should immediately stop using your rifle(s) and discontinue any further use until your trigger assembly(s) have been inspected by our designated Knight Rifles factory personnel and returned to you by Knight Rifles. This recall ONLY requires that your trigger assembly be returned and inspected.

If you own more than one Knight Revolution rifle affected by this recall, click the “Add another rifle” button and indicate the model and serial number for each rifle. The form below should be filled out completely. When completed the “submit” button will initiate a process whereby a trigger assembly return kit (complete with prepaid return labels and all required packaging material) will be sent to your address. The trigger assembly return kit will be sent to your address by USPS and should arrive 7 to 10 business days after the date when the return request was received. When this trigger assembly return kit arrives please follow all of the included instructions.

Thank you for your cooperation,
Knight Rifles

More information available here.

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.

Traditions Performance Firearms have developed a new muzzleloader called the Vortek.

The rifle utilizes a break open action and has the proprietary Accelerator Breech Plug installed, which allows the user to quickly dump an unfired load. The barrel is ported 360 degrees to reduce muzzle rise and has Williams fiber optic sights installed.

MSRP ranges from $390 for the blued, standard stock model, to $470 for the soft touch camo stainless model.

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.

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

Leupold have launched a new scope called the UltimateSlam for shotguns and modern muzzleloaders. The SABR reticle can be adjusted to match your load.

SABR: Sabot Ballistics Reticle

Leupold’s® all-new UltimateSlam™ riflescope is the ideal combination of flexibility, accuracy, and durability for today’s modern muzzleloaders and shotguns. As an example of accuracy, using Hornady SST 2-pellet, 3-pellet and 12 gauge shotgun loads at up to 300 yards, the maximum error of the UltimateSlam is less than 1″ as compared to a 14″ error from the leading competitor.

UltimateSlam

More info here.