Custom Built 4 Bore Elephant Rifle

[arcticap]

This rifle is for sale by snoutsugar on the muzzleloadingforum:
Custom build.
Shot around 25 times
1 turn in 104 twist
Comes with 2 roundball molds
Comes with one ball-conical mould. In pure lead, cast bullet weighs 2,131 grains, just over 1/3rd of a POUND.
Ball in muzzle is .490 for 50 cal blk powder rifle
Bore .985
To lands 1.052
Around 18 lbs LOADED
Powder load: 360 to 450 grains
$4500 (partial flint trades considered maybe)

Recoil is lite for a 4 bore.
The rifling promotes soft kick. A lot better then real fast twist.
Weight of gun saves you also.















https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/...lt-4-bore-elephant-rifle.123889/#post-1701636

 

[Jim Watson]

Wiki says F.C. Selous shot a 4 bore weighing 13 lbs and, after a double charge experience, wished he hadn't.

 

[whughett]

The ball in bore accentuates the depth of the rifling.
Beautiful curly maple stock. Alas no elephant hunting in my neighborhood.

 

[robhof]

Shot a 10 Ga., 3 1/2" as a teen, old with steel butt plate, even snug planted still left bruise, love the look, but wouldn't want to touch off that critter!

 

[Obturation]

Shot around 25 times

They found 25 different people willing to shoot that monster once?
I'd give it a whirl but if I flinch and miss the armadillo I'm aiming at, I likely wouldn't try again. Plus it doesn't look like it takes glock magazines, so I got to pass...
Dang cool gun though, thanks for sharing.

 

[whughett]

Is bore different than gage. Any one know.

 

[.38 Special]

Looks like an October Country rifle. I had the fortune (or misfortune, depending on point of view) to play with one for a day, years ago. They kick. Saying that recoil is light for a 4 bore is like getting hit by a smallish train and then claiming that it wasn't too bad, for being hit by a train.

Interesting article here.

 

[Patocazador]

(Sir Richard Burton =wrong) As .38 Special points out below, Samuel Baker discovered the source of the Blue Nile. He had a double-barreled 2 gauge named "Baby". A native asked to shoot it and got a tree behind him so the recoil wouldn't be so bad. It broke his shoulder of course. The weight of one ball was 1/2 pound.

 

[.38 Special]

I believe you may have conflated Sir Richard with Sir Samuel Baker. If they both had 2 bores named "Baby" however, I'd love to learn more!

 

[Patocazador]

I believe you may have conflated Sir Richard with Sir Samuel Baker. If they both had 2 bores named "Baby" however, I'd love to learn more!

Thank you for the correction. I have Samuel White Baker's book "The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia" right behind me but 'trusted' to my impeccable memory ... big mistake.

 

[stringnut]

No, nope, no way. You could not make me shoot it.
Very fine looking rifle.
How many drams of powder.

 

[.38 Special]

I'd bet that I probably could still manage the recoil, at least for a shot or two, but I doubt I have the physical strength to hold the silly thing up!

 

[.455_Hunter]

Looks like a no-nonsense piece of ordnance I would be proud to own, current funds not withstanding.

 

[Jim Watson]

Is bore different than gage. Any one know.

In British terminology, bore = gauge.
Greener recommended an 8 bore, either smoothbore or with his "invisible rifling", for extra large game; ball or bullet depending on how large. Soon obsoleted by the .450 Nitro and competitors.

One gunzine writer, maybe Jac Weller, found an 8 bore Nitro double rifle; steel barrels, Alex Henry rifling, nitro proof.
As he put it, made before they figured out that smokeless powder and relatively high velocity jacketed bullets made "bore rifles" obsolete. After fruitless attempts to find or load ammo for it, he had it rechambered and re-proofed for 8 gauge industrial shells.
A PWH declined to shoot it at a paper target for fear it would kick him into a flinch that might get a client eaten or stepped on.

The muzzle rifled Paradox gun was an interesting variant. A couple of inches of rifling would give decent accuracy with a bullet but not scatter shot too widely. Paradox was the Hollands trademark for the Fosbery design. Westley Richards called theirs the Explora except the smaller gauges were Faunettas. I saw a 20 ga Faunetta at a gun show and thought it was the neatest thing ever. The guy would not trade it to me for my 300ZX, though. Said he was holding out for a Jaguar.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Is bore different than gage. Any one know.

Not in vernacular.

Some folks "back in the day" when dealing with a rifle, because although a skirted "minnie" type conicals were available, a lot of the fellows shooting the 8 bores and larger were still using patched, round ball, there was a debate of how bore converted to caliber. So..., would the bore be measured by how many balls fit very close without a patch to the lands in the barrel to equal a pound, or....how many patched ball fit in the barrel to equal a pound? THEN what was the caliber measurement. I don't think it mattered to the cape buffalo when the ball gets that big if the lands were 1.052 apart or not.....,

LD

 

[792mauser]

love it!

 

[robhof]

Not in vernacular.

Some folks "back in the day" when dealing with a rifle, because although a skirted "minnie" type conicals were available, a lot of the fellows shooting the 8 bores and larger were still using patched, round ball, there was a debate of how bore converted to caliber. So..., would the bore be measured by how many balls fit very close without a patch to the lands in the barrel to equal a pound, or....how many patched ball fit in the barrel to equal a pound? THEN what was the caliber measurement. I don't think it mattered to the cape buffalo when the ball gets that big if the lands were 1.052 apart or not.....,

LD

If it's the same as shot gun measure, it would be bore size balls to the pound.

 

[Jim Watson]

there was a debate of how bore converted to caliber. So..., would the bore be measured by how many balls fit very close without a patch to the lands in the barrel to equal a pound, or....how many patched ball fit in the barrel to equal a pound?

I don't know the answer, but down the road to the big breechloaders, there were 8 bore paper case rifles and 8 bore brass case rifles. The chamber was the same, but the thin brass case held a larger diameter bullet, so the barrel bore/groove was larger than for the paper case.
John Taylor illustrated a much reloaded brass case, saying that if used too long, the Berdan anvil would get beaten down to the point of misfires by the hammer and the decapping awl.

 

[kell]

I was gonna buy one of these, but with this ammanition shortage, I couldn't find no bullets.