chicken or the egg

[tucker]

Now this is doing my head in !

Me and my mates had a debate over how shotgun guages were developed. One of them explained it to me the same way as this article.

 

Amaze your friends - explain this at your next social gathering The gauge of a shotgun barrel was originally determined by the number of identically-sized lead balls that have the same diameter as the bore, and weigh one pound. In other words, 12 lead balls, each with the diameter of a 12 gauge bore, weighs one pound - 20 equally sized balls, whose total weight is one pound, would identify the 20 gauge. The .410 is the only exception, it's not even a true "gauge." It's bore is the actual dimension of .410 of an inch, and therefore improper (except in hunting camps where language skills are excused) to refer to the 410 as a "gauge" (or you can take the other route, and ask your dealer for a box of 67 gauge shells).

 

 

But what I can,t understand is that they must have started with a bore diameter or a barrel length to determine the size of the ball. i.e. 12 balls = 1 lb fit in 30" barrel length or 28" barrel.

I can understand that 8,10,12,20,or 28 equal size balls weighing one pound, would

give you a size. But where did they come up with the idea of one pound of lead !

And why make the barrels to fit the balls, instead of using standard size pipe and making the the balls fit.

I,m now on a mission to find out, searching the web for the history of the shotgun bores :< . So what came first Pipe diameter (chicken) balls (egg) and WHY

 

TUC.

[M ROBSON]

Tucker,

 

Think of it like this:

 

A ball of lead 1/12th of a pound has the same diameter as a 12bore shotgun barrel. 1/20th of a pound for 20 bore, 1/8th of a pound for 8 bore etc.

 

Nothing to do with the number of balls or barrel length. I believe it originated from firing round ball shot bullets.

 

Mark.

Edited April 5, 2005 by M ROBSON

[tucker]

Hi Mark.

So on that reasoning they must have had a bore diameter to start with,

and just had to make the balls to fit .

That is my point, all the rest does not make sense. And why did they start with a pound of lead ?.

Beats me.

TUC.

[Devilishdave]

This is a stab in the dark but Most guns were smooth bore at some point and in military use would mostly have fired a single shot. The army would have specified that they wanted 12 shots per pound because the soldiers were going to have to carry tha ammo for long distances so for instance for 5lbs of weight they could carry 60 musket balls. It has been a while since I have done any theory on weapons designe but as I remember it the weapons should be built around the ammunition and not the other way around. What they were doing 3 - 400 years ago I dont know.

 

Dave

[M ROBSON]

tucker,

They made the gun to fire a ball of lead 1/12th of a pound in weight and called it a 12 bore. The barrel diameter was made to fit the lead balls diameter.

 

Mark.

[Gemini]

Actually it wasn’t all that accurate in days gone by, as my old hammer gun will testify. It began life with a bore somewhere @ .700 and is therefore a 13 bore, which it has stamped on the barrels.

G.M.

[Country_est]

Also probably comes from the old use of the cannons and how heavy a shot they would fire came to give them their size's

 

ie 25 pounder, ect ect

 

Just my 2p worth.