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Still cannot get this 3-bbl drilling (2 shotgun) idea out of my head

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Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow

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I still want my envisioned 3-barrel drilling, all with 20" barrels (to keep it somewhat light), in a 2 over/1 under configuration as follows:

Top left: .22 long rifle, smoothbore. (Possibly sub out a .22 mag smoothbore here, but I don't think so).

Top Right: .223 Rem, 1 in 8" twist rifling. Stored in wooden buttstock compartments will be chamber adapters for both .223==> .22 magnum, and .223==>.22lr. (Possibly sub out a .22-250 here, but I'm leaning toward .223 rem - either way, 1 in 8" twist)

Bottom Center: 12 gauge 3.5" chamber, with multi screw-in choke tubes, including one extended rifled tube.

Idea is ultimate survival longgun, for surviving by living off the land (hunting, in addition to fishing, trapping, browsing edible flora & insects, etc.).

1. The mainstay meal will by far and away be tweety birds, because they're the easiest to hunt and most numerous, just by sitting still in the woods for 10 minutes. So the .22 smoothbore will get the most use (with .22 shotshells), and provide the most protein sustenance, without destroying much meat. In addition, you can carry/store a lot of .22 rimfire rounds pretty easily.

But for good measure, to supplement the tweety birds, you can also use the following ammo types, for various game:

2. .22lr in the .223 bbl - small game
3. .22 mag in the .223 bbl - medium game (beaver, turkey, pot-shot geese, etc.)
4. .223 rem bbl - long range small and medium game, and with heavy bullets (77s for example) and CNS shots, large game
5. 12 ga with various shotshells & chokes - all manner of flying and ground-nesting birds, both on the wing and pot-shot
6. 12 ga slugs - very large and very very large game, if you're that lucky; Also for self-defense vs. wild critters.

Obviously, this is sheer survival vs. nature; not vs. nature and other humans.

Tell me I'm crazy.
 
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The .22 smoothbore seems kind of excessive to me. Why not just shoot the birds with a super colibri and call it a day? Also, I have never shot anything small with a .223, but there is a discussion on the utility of the .223 round on another forum I belong to right now. There are guys there who shoot small game with it using FMJ rounds - they just punch a clean hole. So you might not even need the .22 LR and .22 magnum inserts.
Last, with chamber inserts, won't that make you need to adjust your sights? One possible solution might be an express style rear sight with a leaf that folds up for the .22 LR or .22 Mag rounds. Or maybe a separate rear folding sight for those rounds - fold the .223 sight down and flip the rimfire sight up. Just thinking out loud.
 
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goon, because when you're starving & cold, making a precise unsupported shot with a colibri on a chickadee/ titmouse/ nuthatch/ warbler/ sparrow/ cardinal/ blue jay/ pot-shot quail, etc. at 10 or 15yards ain't that easy, and so the huge added margin of error provided by the killing area of the rimfire shotshell pattern is all-important to the concept here.

The .22 smoothbore is anything but redundant; in fact, it's the primary raison d'etre of the weapon -- and if I only had one barrel, that'd be it! A centerfire shotgun would destroy your mainstay meal. Anyone who's hunted a lot will tell you that big critters, although they pack a lot of meat, are few and far between. 'Tweety birds', on the contrary, are a dime a dozen in the woods, and all tolled, account for more meat, but more importantly, more *easily obtainable* meat, as they are much much easier to get close to (very close to even) than 'traditionally-hunted' meat, which includes squirrels, rabbits, and the like. :p

The remaining two barrels are important, too, however, and would render this the most versatile game-getter known to man.

EDIT: Now, having said all that, one possibility I've thought of, but I don't know for sure if it will work, is to eliminate the .22 smoothbore barrel (as goon suggests), thread the .223 rem barrel for a screw-in "unspinner" choke tube, designed to make the shot stop spinning (when shooting a .22 rimfire shotshell with the chamber adapters), just like the NEF "Survivor" .45 Colt / .410 shotshell rifle has a screw-in choke with "straight rifling" to "un-spin" the shot. I just don't know if this will work or not and maintain an effective pattern. Anyone know?

Now, if the latter is a possibility, then that would lead us to the question of whether I could take the Rem Spartan (Baikal) 12 ga over / .223 rem under (which I HAVE sitting right here in the safe :) ), and somehow convert it to my idea. I've got 24" of bbl length to work with, so there's enough meat that I could have a smith/custom shop take a few whacks at the .223 bbl unspinner tube threading thing, and still be many many thousands under a real custom drilling cost (and end up with a 20" or so bbl which is what I want anyway). Then I'd just need to have a smith refit/re-install the "endpiece" holding the two barrels together, hope for regulated barrels or otherwise regulate them (OR rig it for two sights, which it already is really - use the irons for the 12 ga over barrel, and a scope on the rail with see-through mounts for the .223/.22/.22 mag barrel**), and get the chamber adapters and a rifled choke tube that fits the existing Baikal 12 ga threads.

**But I'm not sure that will work, as the line of sight of the scope will be sky-high relative to the bore of the bottom .223/.22lr barrel, which is not gonna work with close-range shotgunning with the .22lr shotshell rounds. The barrels would just have to remain somewhat regulated, so that the .22lr shotshells impact pretty close to the same point as the 12 ga barrel at 5-15 yards, and then the scope mounted in the see-throughs could be used for precision shots with .223, .22lr bullets, and .22 mag bullets.

If workable, this 2-barrel idea with an unspinner choke tube is actually slightly MORE versatile than the 3-bbl idea, because you could also use CCI .22 MAGNUM shotshells in the same barrel with the chamber adapter. This would be perfect for pot-shooting quail, pheasant, prairie chickens, grouse, partridge, small ducks, and similar-sized birds. Remember, we're talking sheer survival; damn the game laws here. Taste is irrelevant too as you can imagine. Though I'm sure a roasted blue jay will taste like a filet mignon after 3 days without eating. :)

The biggest obstacles to such a conversion would be:

1. Barrel regulation, and
2. Fabricating a fit-able and effective "un-spin" choke tube for the .223/.22lr barrel, (after "overboring" - while maintaining a crown - and threading the inside of the end of the barrel).

Nevermind, it won't work - the Baikal is a 1 in 12", not a 1 in 8". But it could be *close* I suppose.

Another thought: It would be easier/cheaper to simply drill out the rifling to a slightly larger size (to a smoothbore; say around .30 to .35 cal) to give bullets clearance for the last couple of inches of the barrel, then thread the OUTside of that barrel to provide a vehicle by which to attach the unspin choke tube, rather than trying to thread the inside, which would be difficult at best. Then attach the choke tube, so that rimfire shotshell loads would travel through the rifling, then through a smoothbore portion (expanding during that portion to the larger diameter, while still spinning ), then hit the "straight rifling" to effectuate the "un-spin". In fact, since a .223/.22lr/.22 mag bullet would never even contact this slightly larger diameter smoothbore portion and straight rifling, it could even be made permanent, and work for all ammo types without screwing in and out.
 
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OK, it just now hit me: The .223 barrel will be appropriately fitted with a larger diameter un-spin portion as described for the rimfire shotshells, which makes 'room' for the THIRD BARREL to be chambered in .280 Rem!!!!!! :p :)

Barrel #1 with appropriate chamber adapters: .22lr bullet, .22 mag bullet, .22lr shot, .22 mag shot, .223 Rem bullet, 40 to 77 gr (5 types of ammo, with many subtypes)

Barrel #2: 12 ga 2.75", 3.0", and 3.5" birdshot & buckshot, 12 ga 2.75", 3.0", and 3.5" slugs (even saboted slugs with the extended rifled choke tube)(6 types of ammo, with many many subtypes and chokes)

Barrel #3: .280 Rem, for waaaaaaaay out there! (1 type of ammo)

The gun would shoot 12 ammo types, not counting .22short, .22 long, colibris, floberts, etc.
 
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I am having an issue understanding why the .22 smoothbore barrel is a better answer than a 20-gauge, 12-gauge, or .410 barrel with screw-in chokes or fixed Modified chokes. Choke, not gauge, determines pattern, and plenty of edible birds are shot, and eaten later, with 12-gauge shot shells. Use shot suitable for birds, choke suitable for the distance, and you get edible birds unless you are so close that you have a very tightly packed bunch of shot. You also get a more consistent pattern with the 12-gauge than the smaller gauges as there are more pellets to fill the space in the pattern. The extra shot also helps if one's shooting is suffering from hunger, fatigue and/or the cold.

The other issue is that the shot in commercial .22 shot shells is not big enough to reliably bring down birds like pheasants and grouse. It is too small to reliably penetrate to the vitals.

If survival is the only goal per the post on the game laws, I would want a round I could easily reload or lots of easily available "not able to reload" rimfires. More than likely that means .22 solid bullet loads, as the shot shells tend to be much harder to find. It also implies that you could load your own shot shells for other guns, including pistol-calibers, as was done in an article in one of the Gun Digest books.

Another possibility is a T/C Contender and a few barrels. Not quite as easy to swap which load you shoot right NOW, but very, very useful and a heck of a lot less expensive than a custom drilling. You could also afford spare parts, including whole actions, to handle Mr. Murphy. You might be able to get by with a single barrel with both regular loads and shot shell loads.

Interesting scenario you raised.
 
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This isn't something that you would actually fund is it? 22lr smooth bore is something you would want to survive with? The super surviver gun already has a shotgun wouldn't it be better to just carry a few rounds of walmart target load?
 
farscott and lobo9er:

and plenty of edible birds are shot, and eaten later, with 12-gauge shot shells
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Those are big birds, not little birds - big difference. As I mentioned earlier, shoot a sparrow with a 12 ga (or even a .410), and it's bye bye birdie - literally. You'll have no meat left. Sparrows are a fraction of the size of ducks. This is all about maximum meat preservation, not duck hunting and tossing any chunks of bloodshot meat from your harvest of 6 birds. :)

In thick woods, you often cannot even see the bird until it's within 5 yards or less of you - that's more common than not, actually, where song birds forage and live typically - in thick wooded areas. At 5 yards with a .410 - even a low brass load is gonna blow up your meal.

The super surviver gun already has a shotgun wouldn't it be better to just carry a few rounds of walmart target load?
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Just to repeat: a 'walmart target load' will destroy your meal, I'm pretty sure.

The other issue is that the shot in commercial .22 shot shells is not big enough to reliably bring down birds like pheasants and grouse. It is too small to reliably penetrate to the vitals.
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That's why there's a 12 ga, too. Different tools for different jobs - you gotta have both. What if the larger birds are hunted out or just not in the area? Tweetie birds will never be hunted out and are always present. If that's all you have to eat for protein, then you've got to be able to harvest them.

Don't misunderstand me. Your fishing pole will be a far more valuable tool for protein gathering than the gun, and traps roughly equally valuable or a little less so. But among gun choices, yes, the smoothbore rimfire is indeed the first choice and best choice if limited to one for survival (not hunting). It can always put food in your belly, as the perfect harvester of THE most abundant VISIBLE protein in the wild. There may be a lot of rodents, but you don't SEE them, and if you cannot see them, you cannot shoot them. Luckily, we're not limited to one choice of barrel or chambering. You've got to have the 12 ga or other centerfire chambering for when the deer or other medium-large game comes along. But you've also got to fuel your internal heater with meat & fat until they do, for example, when it's cold. Nuthatch surprise is the easiest way to do that, in my view.

I'm just going by what I witness when I hunt, and I've hunted a fair amount. Maybe in other places rodents run all over the place, and there are no tweetie birds, so if so, that's a horse of a whole nuther color. For example, in New Zealand, where rabbits are a plague, I'm sure that a .22lr bullet launcher or centerfire bullet launcher (rifled) would be the primary way to go. But this drilling or double gun idea covers everything - it covers places like THAT just fine, but it also covers less fertile American woodlands, for example, as well - it covers everything except perhaps the arctic tundra, where you'd just want a plain old centerfire rifle (or maybe a shotgun/centerfire combo).

You could even harvest flying insects lit upon a tree or branch without destroying it with the rimfire shotshell. It sounds hilarious, but the reality is that a fat moth could sustain you for a few hours and a bunch of them even longer. It's getting a little absurd, but the whole idea is theoretical anyway, since the reality is you'd likely never need to survive in the wild - so why not - it's your "chickadee & insect barrel"! :p

oneounceload and others - thank you - yes, I've perused Hofer's works extensively, and that was in part my inspiration. Incredible, amazing, beautiful stuff. Love it, and would love to be able to afford it. I would guess that a 4 or more barrel drilling would be neat, but so heavy as to be impractical for swinging on winged birds with the shotgun. I would think or hope that a 3-bbl drilling of appropriate contour, with short-ish 20" bbls, would be roughly the weight of a 12 ga double barrel shotgun in 28" form.

My guess would be that if you're not rich, but IF you (if *I*) could get into the ballpark of possibly affording a Hofer, that the cost in going from a 2-bbl gun to a 3-bbl gun would be exponential, not linear, due to complication of regulation issues, as well as safety and barrel selection controls issues. Anyone know?

But to answer your question directly, OOL, yes, a little like that.

The bottom one is appealing as being symmetrical. You've got two shotgun barrels side by side, for a second shot on flying birds, then the rimfire (or in my case, the .223 rem / rimfire "combo barrel") in the center, then the larger bore centerfire on the bottom. I'll take mine in .280 Rem, thank you.
 
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Those are big birds, not little birds - big difference. As I mentioned earlier, shoot a sparrow with a 12 ga (or even a .410), and it's bye bye birdie - literally. You'll have no meat left. Sparrows are a fraction of the size of ducks. This is all about maximum meat preservation, not duck hunting and tossing any chunks of bloodshot meat from your harvest of 6 birds.
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I disagree based on my experience. You can use a 12-gauge on small birds and have plenty of meat left; just use small shot, more open chokes, and get some distance. Instead of #6 shot, (theoretically) try #8 or #9. Fox sparrows are about the three-quarters of the size of woodcock, and many people take woodcock with #7.5 shot.

I also have seen what .22 shot shells will not do: kill birds or mice cleanly at any distance beyond six feet. Not enough payload, and what payload there is is too small to penetrate.
 
it's your "chickadee & insect barrel"!
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(LOL)... I like that. It'd be great on those days when the Doves aren't flying and the dragonflies are. I like the last design in your post. The SxS shotgun barrels and vertical rifle barrels. Have the innermost barrel be your "Bugslayer" and the bottom barrel be your "Larger Game" rifle. It would certainly be unique, and I'm sure quite expensive. But what the heck, it's only money. It ain't no fun unless you spend it.:D
 
I disagree based on my experience. You can use a 12-gauge on small birds and have plenty of meat left; just use small shot, more open chokes, and get some distance. Instead of #6 shot, (theoretically) try #8 or #9. Fox sparrows are about the three-quarters of the size of woodcock, and many people take woodcock with #7.5 shot.

I also have seen what .22 shot shells will not do: kill birds or mice cleanly at any distance beyond six feet. Not enough payload, and what payload there is is too small to penetrate.
Click to expand...

Well let's explore that next time I come on, because I may be completely wrong here. Have you eaten some tweety birds? :evil:

There's also the possibility of purposely keeping the tiny game on the "edge" of your pattern, to minimize damage.

Better do some actual work at the moment....
 
I have seen an experienced hunter shoot close tree squirrels with the edge of his shot pattern, but he had years of practice.

Granted a taste for four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie, the advantage of the Tweety Bird barrel is that .22 ratshot weighs a lot less than 12 ga if you have to bug out with what you can carry. Which most shtf and teowawki threads overestimate.

Once upon a time, a Krieghoff drilling could be had with an insert barrel about a foot long for .22 lr, .22 WRM, or .22 Hornet. It went in the right shot barrel which could be fired with the single set trigger normally used for the centerfire rifle barrel. Theirs had adjustments to make the small bore shoot to the rifle sights.

Numrich once marketed a much cheaper little 12 - .22 insert smoothbored for ratshot. Not in recent catalogs, it would not be much trouble for your gunmaker to include one with your combination gun.

If you want to go on the cheap, a Stevens 24 20 ga - .223 with one of those ratshot inserts for the shot barrel and a lr insert for the would do what you want.
 
My friends and I used to shoot songbirds regularly when I was a kid. There were a couple of elderly Italian ladies in our neighborhood who considered them a delicacy and would give us a few pennies each for them (this was around 50 years ago).

I've used .22 shotshells on them and while it often worked I've also seen them just fly away after a 10 foot shot. 'Course I was using a rifled barrel, and maybe a smoothbore is more effective.

The most productive weapon we found was a plain old BB gun. Ridiculously cheap to shoot, accurate enough for close shots, and deadly on small critters.

For an outright survival situation, what's wrong with a Savage model 24 with .22 or .223 over 12 gauge slung over one shoulder and a BB/pellet rifle over the other? Throw in a net with a 4 foot telescoping handle for bugs, frogs, and crayfish and you'd be all set.
 
Because of the expense associated with the majority of European multi-barreled sporting guns I've frequently considered one of the more common over/under (rifle/shotgun) from either Savage or Baikal used in conjunction with barrel inserts and chamber adapters. If neither/none of those options could be had then maybe even something along the lines of Stoeger's Condor Outback over/under (shotgun/shotgun). Also choose and purchase several barrel inserts/chamber adapters and be fairly well set with the proper preparation.

Any of the above guns come set up with rifle type sights that are usually minimally adjustable and will accommodate a variety of the afore mentioned inserts/ adapters. A company that use to go by Ace Bullets and I believe now goes by MCACE (www.mcace.com) can and does produce a fairly large variety of them in a multitude of calibers, barrel lengths, and suitable for a variety of gauges and calibers.

Even though a person would still be limited to a choice of only two quick shots from predetermined gauge/calibers it would only take moments to minutes to change out/replace either of those with something different. They work better than a person might be inclined to believe and generally offer a broad versatility (shotgun/large center-fire/small center-fire/rim-fire/sub-caliber) for a comparatively modest investment.

Years ago (approximately thirty or so) I had purchased an insert chambered for .45/70 which was 14 inches long counting chamber and barrel. It inserted directly into a single shot 12 gauge I owned at that time. All that was required was to insure the rubber o-ring was in place and to line up a slot on the insert with the firearm's extractor. At reasonable ranges it usually would return usably close to zero if inserted the same way each time. And probably the easiest way to insure this was to make small tick marks on both the breech end of the shotgun and the insert, then simply line them up as the insert was seated.

After many years in the military and many moves back and forth around the globe I no longer know where the insert now is. Mcace has gone through either one or several ownership changes due to either retirement or death of the original owner since my last purchase with them so I cannot personally vouch for their products at this time. I do intend to change that very soon though. Just a thought or two related to the thread’s subject.

Dave

P.S. I would suppose for someone wanting one that MCACE could and would chamber a .22LR smoothbore in one of his inserts if requested to do so!
 
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As an after thought to the above post I might add another observation. During nine years or so of living in Europe and holding a German hunting license I noticed the above types of systems (multi-barreled guns frequently including multiple inserts) require some fore thought, preparation, and thoughtful employment to insure their success. Frequently when those conditions are met the guns performed very well especially on multi-species driven hunts. They were generally useful as well on other hunts though not as often spectacularly so.

Dave

P.S. I only just visited MCACE's web site again and noticed that apparently he already has at least a couple of adapters/inserts for .22 shot. I don't know all the specifics yet but it would seem they'd be easily made available upon request!
 
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How about just a double, .22 rifle barrel over a .22 smoothbore; that would be much lighter. You would be prepared for the abundant songbirds and the nearly as abundant squirrels, chipmunks and maybe doves.

However, if this is your survival strategy, I see a problem. After the fifth or sixth gunshot, even from a .22, the birds and furry things are going to be pretty scarce for awhile. Are half a dozen sparrows a good meal? I don't know, never tried 'em.
 
shot plenty of 22 shot from a rifled barrel just fine. I just don't think from a survival stand point a dedicated smooth bore 22lr is going to be that important.
 
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