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calendar   Wednesday - January 19, 2011

Enough Gun, Maybe

One of the nice parts about being an American is the guns thing. The old Second Amendment. “2A”, “RKBA”, ”A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”.

But once you get beyond the “Oh goody, gonna get ma’se’f a gunnn” stage, once you’ve acquired a small collection beyond the point of specific “need” for different shooting situations, you find out that there are all sorts of firearms out there. Military surplus, “tactical” (I hate that word), competition, collectible antiques and rarities, you name it. 7 or 8 styles of repeaters and at least as many styles of single shot models. Pneumatic firearms from BB guns to ones you can hunt buffalo with. Smokeless and black powder. Cartridge and muzzle loading. Centerfire, rimfire, percussion cap, flintlock, wheel lock, inline, pistol, rifles, shotguns, ... the list is nearly endless and the variations are infinite. Which means no gun collection is ever complete, really.

My own personal taste in long arms tends towards orphan calibers and large calibers. I like the pretty ones with graceful lines, well carved nicely figured wood, and nicely polished deeply blued metal. I like a bit of engraving if I can afford it, but those guns that are solid engraving and gold plate turn me off. Not that I’d turn down a new KSG bullpup shotgun, if I had the cash. Pure awesomeness, and so ugly and practical that it’s beautiful.

So anyway, I get this email today, telling me that the Italian gun maker Davide Pedersolli has shipped a new supply of their Gibbs Hunter rifles over to this side of the pond, where they are sold as the Pedersoli African Hunter model.

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Ain’t that a beaut? Pedersoli makes such pretty guns. This one is a reproduction of English gunsmith George Gibbs’ 1865 design: it’s a forward hammer, pegged barrel, half stock, 1/16 octogonal, 15/16 round barreled percussion muzzle loading firearm. This one just happens to be a rifle, although a nearly identical shotgun and a heavier smaller caliber target rifle are also available. Actually it’s a carbine, because it’s only 45.3” long.

The thing that makes this one a tad unusual is it’s caliber. Almost all of the muzzle loading hunting rifles for sale in the USA are 50 caliber. A half inch bore. There are a few 45s and 54s, but they aren’t that common. Most of the Civil War reproduction rifles are 58 caliber, but I don’t know if they get used for hunting; a full length 19th century military arm is a bit long to go dragging through the bushes. The Gibbs rifle is 72 caliber. Yup. That’s the same diameter as a 12 gauge shotgun, and it fires bullets. Well, it fires round lead balls.

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Holy Hole! That’s a whole lotta bullet to fill that thing up!

What use is this thing? Well, here’s the thing. Black powder is an explosive. A weak one, but it’s still an explosive. As such, it only generates a certain amount of gas and a certain amount of pressure. It turns out that one way to get more power from a black powder gun is to use a heavier bullet, which often shoots a bit faster than a lighter bullet with the same exact powder charge. Another way is to use a bigger powder charge, but you need a heavier, stronger gun to contain it, and a longer barrel to get the most from it. Today’s black powder rifles - I should say muzzle loaders, since very few of them ever see any actual black powder, because the modern smoky stuff is a) much cleaner, b) much safer, c) much more powerful, and d) actually a rough nitrocellulose (smokeless) powder recipe; they are not actual charcoal/salt peter/sulfur mixtures, which is what real black powder is - anyway, today’s muzzle loading rifles use modern high powered shotgun primers, saboted modern bullets, and quite large charges of the modern propellants, which can push about 300 grains worth of bullet downrange at around 2000 feet per second. This makes them about equal to a modern .45-70, which is plenty enough gun to hunt deer or elk out to 150 yards, which is about as far as most people can hunt, shoot, or track game with any accuracy.

But it wasn’t like that in the old days. And for the same reason that all this modern development went on with this antique kind of firearm: even a 54 caliber round lead ball doesn’t pack enough whack to drop deer in their tracks at longer ranges. The old school solution was just to use a bigger bullet. Bigger in terms of caliber. And that’s why the Gibbs rifle is 72 caliber. It shoots a .715” lead ball that weighs 550 grains, at the same velocity and lack of aerodynamic efficiency that a 50 caliber Kentucky style rifle would shoot a 177 grain .490” lead ball. So it packs a lot more power, and makes a much bigger hole in things. Roughly 3 times as much power and more than double the hole size. Pretty impressive, and with it’s 9.5lb mass, recoil won’t be too evil from even the maximum 120 grain powder charge, which might push that big soft lead ball at 1500fps. The recommended 100 grain charge should drop deer or smaller elk in their tracks out to about 100 yards. Better than that. It should just about splat them.

All this for only $1450. And it’s a near guarantee that none of your smoke pole shooting buddies will have one. Uniqueness - “I’ve got the only one around” - is another enjoyable aspect of that old 2A freedom. It’s why I own orphan guns and do all my own ammo reloading.

And this is just the beginning of this post ...

See More Below The Fold

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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 01/19/2011 at 05:27 PM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
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