[Bit of a shock trying to get some powder ordered in to my local RFD]

Nitro powders are not explosive. That is why joe public can buy them and keep a decent quantity at home.

 

We transport far more flammable and dangerous materials like petrol and LPG around in huge quantities. Millions of us have ten gallons of petrol in a plastic tank parked on the drive or in a garage.

 

More and more stupid regulations are being chucked at shooters week by week. I phoned a local gunsmith about receiving a shotgun on my behalf from a person on this site who offered to RFD it up here to Newcastle, and the gunsmith said the police were increasing the regulations which meant I would have to send my certificate to the complete stranger so that he could write in the transfer section a line of details. Then he would send me the certificate back and the gunsmith at my end would release the gun to me...... What a lot of old b ,,,,ox. There was nothing wring before when two gunsmiths would arrange the matter between them and my certificate would be filled in at the receiving end. This is just obstruction for obstruction's sake. I checked with the Firearms department and teh guy there admitted the new arrangement would risk certificates being lost and stolen - SO WHAT IS THE POINT? Utter idiocy.

[Newbie question re 65mm cases]

I'm really interested in this. I just bought some pyrodex and primers at the local gunsmiths and I ordered some shot and over powder wads which haven't arrived yet.

 

So far, I just dismantled a few Lavalle Express 29gm loads and replaced the powder with pyrodex (Just messing while my mail order package gets here).

 

I made a shot / powder measure from a cut down cartridge to handle the measured shot load from the dismantled cartridge and used that to measure the square load of powder.

 

I trimmed off the crimp part of the cartridge by putting a dowel inside and using a sharp knife to run around the edge of the crimp.

 

Obviously, the pyrodex takes up a much bigger space than the nitro powder that I took out, so the plastic wad had to be cut down by removing the foldable legs on it.

 

I placed a hand cut, thin card over the powder and pressed it down with a dowel in the already capped (new) case. I then put in the base seal off the cut down plastic wad and the shot cup. This more or less looked about right for the case.

 

I then poured in the factory measured shot charge and pressed a hand cut card over the top using the dowel from before.

 

The card was glued into the cartridge mouth using white glue.

 

 

On firing, the charge went off as expected. Big bang, cloud of smoke and a surprisingly good pattern at thirty yards out of my half choke right hand barrel. Delighted. Went off to have a go at some pheasants. Had a shot and the desired result was achieved. Came down smartly and expired as I approached it.

 

Unfortunately - my efforts are not satisfactory. After firing the right barrel, I heard the shot running down the left barrel from the second, unfired cartridge as I lowered the muzzles. The over-shot card was dislodged by the recoil of the first barrel firing.

 

Could be the card I had cut was too thin and fragile.

Could be the glue could not get hold of the smooth inside of the new case.

Could be the Youtube, backwoodsmen videos showing how they glue over-shot wads with pine sap, or wax or white wood glue know something I don't.

 

Anyway - this is certainly something I'm going to work on. GREAT fun - even the clean up was fun, though made a wee but easier by firing a cheapo cartridge up each tube at the end of the afternoon. This blew most of the fouling out of the muzzles. (This is NOT an old BP proofed gun).

 

Any advice on how to make a secure over-shot closure without any proper tools will be much appreciated.

 

Something else I am wondering is whether I can use a small patch of crumpled newspaper as a cushion wad on top of a nitro card. There are videos on Youtube showing people doing that. The fibre cushion wads are ridiculously expensive I think. I used to do muzzle loading and used patches of newspaper about 2 or 3 inches square as wadding. It worked back then in the 1980s when I was doing it. If you think that is crazy, let me know.

 

Thanks

[Jeffery, W. J. 215 Kings Street St James's London 12 gauge]

Thanks. That suggests there is plenty of choice of cartridges then. I'll go and look for that thread.

[Jeffery, W. J. 215 Kings Street St James's London 12 gauge]

Just looking at cartridge availability. I've never had a gun with shorter chambers than 2 and 3/4.

 

A millimetre / inch conversion suggests that 2 and 1/2 inches equals 63.5mm.

 

There are plenty of 67mm cartridges in 12 bore and only Churchill seem to do 65mm.

 

Are 67mm cartridges ok in a 2 and 1/2 inch chamber?

 

Sorry if this is a naive question.

[Wanted 16bore Baikal Hammer Gun]

PM sent Brno22rf.

[wood burner kw output to room size]

The HETAS people claim all kinds of woes will fall on you if you don't have them install a flue and the fire. they talk about 'illegal' and stuff like that and talk about insurance claims being rejected as well as problems selling the house if there isn't a professionally installed stove.

 

I was helping an old farmer pal of mine with his stove last week. We took out his old steel chimney liner which was a ten inch stainless pipe he'd installed twenty five years ago for his open fire and he had bought new liner and all the bits to go with his new 8 to 12 kw stove (which seems massive to me to be honest). Anyway - the supplier of the stove put the wind up him that much that he has asked a HETAS registered company to come and do the install and they are charging him £750 cash. I wouldn't care - the brand new liner is already in the chimney, the old guy is supplying all the parts except he needs a new pot and cowl because the old one fell apart while he was dropping the new pipe down, but that seems steep to me.

 

The big difference between a new stove and an open fire is that when you turn it down and restrict the air entering the stove IT WILL GENERATE carbon monoxide. If the flue isn't right, that could leak into the house and do someone a bad mischief or worse. You must make sure that the flue is properly sealed and that there is enough air getting into the room where the stove is. You probably know all this already though.

[Wanted 16bore Baikal Hammer Gun]

Shame you're not closer as I have since bought an English 16 that I use and the Tula has been redundant for over a year

Yeah - Bucks is a long way, but not impossible.

[Wanted 16bore Baikal Hammer Gun]

Put "Tula" into the search bar in the private guns for sale and look at the gun there (T03 63) Can I suggest that you look for one of these because they are simply superb. As per my research, they were a very limited run built by the finest smiths that the factory could muster, Walnut stock, skip cut checkering etc etc and they handle so nicely.

Thanks for the tip. Interesting threads found there, but not since 2015. I'll remember though.

[Wanted 16bore Baikal Hammer Gun]

Thanks lads.

[Baikal Hammer 16 gauge]

Have you still got this gun mate?

[Wanted 16bore Baikal Hammer Gun]

I'd be interested in a 16bore Baikal Hammer gun in very good condition.

 

I live in Newcastle so somewhere near there would be handy, but not essential.

 

Thanks

[Problems getting HMR ammo?]

I've got a Winchester 9417 - that's the underlever Winchester in 17hmr.

 

I bought 600 rounds of CCI 17 grain Hornady a good while back.

 

No complaints about teh ballistics or the impact on rabbits, but I've had a stack of jammed cases that I struggled to get out of the breach in the field.

 

I wish I had reliable ammo for this gun. It is so useful to just put the cross on the rabbit at anything from 40 to 120 yards and kill it stone dead.

 

If only I could be sure that cycling the lever would extract the cartridge. I might get ten good operations, or I might get jams in 2 out of ten. It's a real pain. The gun was brand new when I got it.

[Hammer Guns and Antique Guns.]

A very interesting thread here. Just one comment - I am amazed that any 'reputable' gun trader would suggest a buyer would be OK to run nitro cartridges through a black powder proofed gun. As someone else said up above, it isn't just barrel thickness that counts. I'd walk out of a shop where that kind of advice was given and never go back. Just my six pennyworth.

 

Loved that rack of guns up above. Some very fine history there.

[Osbourne, Charles 12 gauge]

Is this lovely thing still available? Sad thing is it could hardly be further away than it is and still be in England. Amsterdam would be closer, but its a long way in a canoe.

[HMR bullet expansion]

Evilv,

 

I think you need to check your ballistics. The HMR is a lot less affected by wind than the 22lr.

 

Rick

 

The point is, at over a hundred yards on a breezy day, the HMR will be blown erratically since you probably can't gauge how much wind will be blowing on its path. The windage is obviously a lot worse at greater ranges, so unless you're a lot better than me, or live in a much less windy place, your ability to place teh shot correctly on small game will be pretty dodgy at long range in wind. Since the HMR costs about £32 a hundred and .22 about £6 or £7 a hundred, why waste money on the shots you can actually take on a windy day? You can take your rabbit at 50 or 60 yards in the wind for six or seven pence, not thirty-five.

 

Just my opinion.

[Old Side by Side, one hammer hits harder than the other.]

Had the gun out again and it still had one miss fire, but that was at the start and after it shot seventeen cartridges without issue. I think Walker is certainly right about giving it more use. If it continues to have the odd miss fire, I m going to strip the action again and put it in a tank of solvent to get all the varnish off the inside. I called it 'Gum' before, but reading around the subject, I see engineers call it 'varnish'. It is pretty common in hot running engineering stuff like turbines. Mine is just oxidised and dried out oil. I'm not sure what kind of solvent to use on the action. I'm thinking a weakish bucket of caustic soda should dissolve oily deposits. If I put the action in that and then give it a very thorough rinse, followed by warming at 100c in the oven and light gun oil, the sticky striker ought to improve. Any ideas would be appreciated. The gun is in pretty good nick except for this problem so it would be a shame not to sort it, albeit that the cost of professional attention would be more than its value probably.

 

Yesterdays bag... I didn't shoot 17 shots at them. I shot them and then banged away a bit just to ease things up. It was a smashing day out. Great weather.

[Remington 17hmr split case's]

I bought a new winchester 9417 and 600 rounds of Hornady V Max with teh red plastic tips a few years back.

 

While the flat shooting little bullet is great when it is behaving well, and most do, I had a great many which jammed in the chamber and could not be easily got out. Some I could pry out with my car key into the breach, one or two, I had to knock out from the muzzle with a cleaning rod. I got REALLY sick of this, and I am just coming to the end of my 600 rounds. I mainly use 22LR and keep the 17HMR for longer shots on wily rabbits usually.

 

I paid a lot of attention to cleaning the breach to try and lessen the problem but the beggars would still jam quite randomly. Sometimes I'd get twenty rounds through before I got a stuck one, but other times it would happen on the third round fired in a spotless gun. In the end I got to thinking it had to be the ammo. Some of the jammed cases were split after firing at the neck, other stuck ones were not split and looked a tiny bit bulged at the transition from main case to neck. The breach pressures seem to be very high for such thin brass and maybe causes distortion

[HMR bullet expansion]

I've used 15.5 grain Hornady V Max round quite a lot on rabbits and have found it very destructive at under about 90 yards. I've seen rabbits literally without a head, just a flap of skin like a ragged, bloody glove, and others with massive neck wounds. I've seen one rabbit shot instantly dead with the splatter off a rabbit a couple of feet in front of it that was my intended target. Out at 120 and 130 yards they are hit a lot less hard with much less damage. These rounds are very penetrating. In the spring, I shot a crow 40 yards off that was sitting by a gate. The bullet went right through the bottom steel bar on a new steel gate at 40 yards. I was surprised at that to be honest. It is a very powerful little round in my opinion.

 

Maybe you are shooting your rabbits pretty far off when the bullet has lost energy.

 

The only bad thing about the round for small vermin is the way the wind carries them away ona breezy day. If the wind is blowing, leave it at home and use your .22lr at 60 yard rabbits.

[storing family members shotgun]

Some time ago when the specifications of cabinets changed, my cabinet was deemed not suitable for storage of a shotgun (although it had been fine for twenty years before that). I arranged with the local firearms department to keep my shotgun at a mates house around the corner. There was no problem about this, since as we both only had shotguns at that time, and since you can posses a few of these on a certificate, as long as the police had a record of where the gun was, and as long as they had confidence that it was secure and only accessible by a person with an appropriate certificate there was no problem. Around here, the police have over more than forty years with only one exception, been extremely fair and reasonable in dealing with nay requests I have made.

 

The only exception was about 28 years ago just after some lunatic ran amok around a local suburb and shot two policemen with his father's licensed shotgun. Then as I was renewing my firearms certificate, we had some trouble with a particular officer, who was rude and objectionable to my wife, demanded access at 11 o'clock at night to my gun cabinet OF MY WIFE when I was away on business which she refused and could not have lawfully done anyway, and he actually wrote and said he was going to refuse my certificate on grounds that shooting once a fortnight in summer and once a month in the bad weather, was not good reason for possession ...... I wrote back to him quoting the firearms acts and threatening court action if he refused and the certificates duly arrived a week later.

 

This was the one and only case where I had anything less than courteous, sensible interaction with the police over forty one years of mixed shotgun and part one firearms possession and use.

[Old Side by Side, one hammer hits harder than the other.]

Thanks for the input Bruno and Walker. As I said above, I've had the moving parts out except the strikers which are as tight as can be and I don't have the three pronged spanner thing to get them out. The cocking lever and hammers had gum deposits on them which are now removed. I put solvent into the strikers and worked them back and forward a hundred times with a small punch and a small panel pin hammer. This has freed up the dodgy side a lot. Whereas before if dry fired, that dodgy striker pin only came out about 1mm, now it comes out 2mm, same as the other one. Whereas doing the 2p test before the cleaning as outlined above, the good side bounced the coin off the ceiling, the bad side used to fire the coin only one foot up. Now it will hit the ceiling 2 out of three times, though nothing like as hard as the other one which actually marked the paint on the ceiling :( .

 

So - I'm sure it will fire now. The only thing I haven't done from what you advised is to really scrub out the action body which still has some gum inside. I hate that three in one oil!! When I was in my twenties (now 65 and wiser) I didn't know what rubbish it was and used it on this gun. If I get more trouble, I will take it all apart again and boil the beggar in a suitable solution to clean it off. To be honest though, I'm keen to leave well alone if she works ok. I've oiled the pivots and greased the pressure points and I'm looking forward to walking up some more pheasant maybe tomorrow.... Happy days.

 

Here is my little bag from last week.... Enjoyed those birds. Did them in a slow cooker with bacon over the top of the birds and in a sauce made of a bottle of home brewed pale ale, garlic, pepper and cream.... Went down a treat.

 

Since I started out on this project with the old gun, I have discovered that the 'Essex' brand were made by Laurona in the seventies, and that the proof mark date (R*1) dates it as 1973, so it wasn't old when I got it. I had thought it was built in December 1970 because it has a mark in a cartouche showing {12 70}. I now know that means it is a 12 gauge with 70 mm chambers... LOL.

[Old Side by Side, one hammer hits harder than the other.]

Thanks Gunman.

 

 

The hammer noses are not bad, and little different. The striker shaft was gummy with old 3 in 1 oil residue and is now clean.

 

The most noticeable thing about the way the action is operating is that with the bottom plate off it is clear that the two sides are not cocking in the same way. The little used side (back trigger) cocks to a point where the hammer is about 3mm further back than the other one. The strike is correspondingly weaker on the dodgy side because the spring is less compressed. The hammer springs were side by side identical and felt the same when I pressed them down.

 

Anyway - I'll be taking it out next week to put some shots through it, now it has been cleaned and lubed and reassembled. I had a right old palaver compressing the hammer springs to get the hammer pin through the action. I had to make a special lever to do it. With the right kind of tool it is easy. Without, it is a menace.

[Old Side by Side, one hammer hits harder than the other.]

Hi.

 

Back here after a long time away.

 

I have an Essex side by side Spanish boxlock non ejector that I bought as a young lad in 1975. Not an expensive gun. It was about five years old when I bought it, and I used it a fair bit for about thirty years as my main gun. It's been in the cabinet for about ten years until recently while I've been rifle shooting mostly.

 

I never had it serviced, but now and then I took off the bottom plate and lubed up the sears and cocking levers. Sad to say that in the early days it was lubed up with Thee in One oil which gums up and you can see varnish on some of the parts where the oil dried out.

 

Come the other day at the start of the pheasant season, a farmer pal of mine asked me to come up and shoot some pheasants for him. :).

 

I was pleased to oblige, but had a couple of missfires from the open choke barrel which is the one that has done probably 95% of the shooting over forty years since i had the gun. I could see that the firing pin wasn't working right and have cleaned the gum off it and it is working better now. Looking at the way the action works by firing it with the bottom plate off and holding a two pence piece on the firing pin (in lieu of a cartridge) as I depress the sears one at a time. The much used side of the lock hits FAR less hard. I've since stripped it and the springs seem about equally strong when I hand squeeze them. Nothing looks worn, but the more used side of the lock certainly doesn't pull the hammer back as far as the other side when cocked. The used side cocks more easily and holds the hammer less far back.

 

Is wear on the sear a likely cause of this? I'm thinking that if the sear was a few thou longer, it would not lock up until the hammer was further back. This would make it hit the cartridge much harder.

 

It all feels safely locked up by the way when it is cocked, and I have never had any issues with the safety or the gun going off unless purposely fired.

 

Thanks for any advice from people with 'gun smithing' experience.

[AYA 12 gauge]

What is the stock like on the other side? I think these photos are all of the same side.

 

Good luck with the sale.

 

I'm looking for a cheap spare gun as mine has just developed a firing pin problem. If I had not arranged to see another one this weekend nearer to me I'd be after this one.

[Max Clifford CHARGED]

Emm,,, so their you have it when its your turn and you get that knock on the door at early am or late late pm ,what you need is a well dressed ,smart and good looking defence barrister ,someone who engages the jury with well laid out facts and a excellent understanding of the case !!!!!!! Now is their a insurance for this sort of thing ?

 

Riptide

The jury system has always hinged on how much of a star the barristers are.

 

I see that Bill Roach has been nabbed for 'rape' of a girl under sixteen in the 1960s. The questions for me are these:

 

1. Did he know she was under sixteen at the time?

 

2. Did she appear willing to 'engage' with the famous and handsome young actor when the act occurred?

 

The problem for people like Roach who were putting it about a bit (in his case putting it about a lot) is that eligible young women were all over them. Of course a girl under sixteen can not consent and is raped if sex occurs, but how could he know she was unable to consent if she apparently looked eighteen and was as keen as he was?

[Max Clifford CHARGED]

Did Clifford get up to mischief thirty years ago? Who knows? But I'll tell you this much; in the atmosphere we have now post Savile, he has as much chance of getting a fair trial as he would have in China. There are people in high places now who are saying stuff like, 'People don't make up accusations like that.' Don't they? They do it all the time. High profile people like Clifford are open season now, for every woman they ever went out with who has some kind of grudge. What's more, there will be plenty of cash for anyone who claims she was abused if they are found guilty. I'm all for banging up rapists and molestors, but you can't go back thirty years and accuse someone of something they can't defend themselves against.

 

I know it is a really difficult call. No one wants the likes of Savile to get away with what he seems to have got away with, but now any bloke who was a successful man about town in the 1960s and 1970s and has made a pile since, is in the sights of someone - be sure of it, and whether they were willing or not at he time, he's a goner.