Pedersoli Gibbs "African Hunter"

I am strongly considering one, but Pedersoli guns often have extensive, crudely done, and very large markings on the left side of the barrel, and for $1500 I'd rather not put up with it. So far, I can't find any pictures of the left side of this gun. Has anyone else seen one?

Well, fat bunch of help you lot are.



Sorry about the poor quality shot, but the gun showed up on my doorstep this evening and I'm not set up for decent photography after dark.

The gun is interesting to me because there are so few British style muzzleloader replicas available. I have taken several hard looks at Pedersoli's big-bore double rifles over the years, but the "regulation" of the barrels has always put me off. As far as I know, that leaves only the rifles from October Country/The Gun Works, and a few custom builders. Prices tend to start at $2500 and go up quickly...

So I'm looking forward to shooting it. Quality is the usual for Pedersoli; good but not great. Wood-to-metal is adequate, but could have been better. The rifling is quite shallow and gives me some concern. The case-coloring is quite nice; better than on any of my guns but for my USFA SAA revolvers. And they didn't put the gigantic markings all over the barrel! I suppose if I could change one thing at this point it would be the steel butt plate. I know it's historically correct, but the thought of a .72 caliber round ball with 120 grains of FFg is already making me wish for a Decelerator...

I will print a range report when I can, Mykeal.

For some reason, StrawHat, I really like the absence of the ramrod. I plan on carrying a folding wiping stick in the field, and I much prefer a long, heavy steel loading rod for the range.

I'm trying to become less concerned about the rifling. The lands and grooves are quite wide and quite slow. I think they were trying to emulate Forsythe rifling but at 1-75" it's still a bit too quick. Maybe they were afraid nobody would understand or buy a gun with a 1-100" twist. At any rate, it's certainly a ball gun and that's all I ever intend to use. I just prefer a rather loose ball/patch combo and am concerned that I might not be able to get away with it in this gun. Time will tell.

And yes, I'll be wearing my Past pad on the range! I just don't like wearing it in the field, so may be in for a bruise...

I think the gods will strike you down for shooting plastic wads and sabot slugs in traditional guns.

How did you get $2500 worth of guns for under $600?

Just FWIW, I did finally get to spend a few days at the range with the gun.

The shallow rifling is a limitation. The groove depth is supposed to be .004, but in reality it's about half that. I nearly sent it back after the first day at the range, because it was printing 15 inch groups at 50 yards. I could make it shoot with .719 lead balls and .015 patches, but loading was extremely difficult - pounding on the short starter and leaning on the rod with 50 - 70 pounds of pressure. I know some people find that acceptable, but I don't. An easy solution was to back way down on powder and then use .005 patches - but I didn't buy the gun to use with reduced loads.

After much experimenting with ball diameter, patch thickness, powder load, and lead hardness, I have found success with a .713 pure lead ball (I prefer 1-50 lead-tin for hunting, but no alloys obdurate adequately in this bore) and a .010 patch with an Ox-Yoke wad on the powder. This still loads harder than I prefer (some of my most accurate loads in other rifles can be seated without short starting and with only a few pounds of pressure on the rod) but gives a nice round group of six inches at 100 yards with ghost ring sights. This, of course, is nowhere near the half-MOA muzzleloaders owned by everybody else on THR, but will do what needs doing in the hunting field.

It's also an 8 pound 12 bore with a steel buttplate. When loaded with 4 drams (110 grains) of Swiss FFg you know about it when you pull the trigger. I ended up shoving a wadded-up sweater underneath my PAST pad during an extended bench session.

So overall I'm satisfied, but barely. It's a good looking gun that should do the job I intended for it. But Pedersoli could have made it a lot easier for me to get from there to here...

Final update, if anyone cares...

I sent it back. It just wasn't consistent enough. I could sometimes get several acceptable three shot groups in a row, but sooner or later the gun would park one in orbit. Another, very careful, bore measurement had most of the grooves at .001". The gunsmith at the place where it came from verified that measurement, and then measured the others he had on hand and found them all the same. In his words "They won't be much better than a smoothbore."

So that's a disappointment, as the gun is really likeable in many ways. But "Only accurate rifles are interesting"...