Dago,
I will not shoot monolithic solids in my vintage English double rifle. I have personal fears about them damaging the bores. At the velocity I shot my 55 Cord rifle, I don't need a monolithic solid. Woodleigh Weldcores and Woodleigh solids serve me well. If North Fork made a .408 I'd consider them as well.

As far as using monmetals in a new modern double, especially those that are sub caliber with driving bands to caliber, I should suspect they would be great. I have no personal experience with them. There are those on the forum like Ray Atkinson, who I think, has used them.

I have used GS Custom and Bridger solids in my Searcy double and they shoot very accurately. Mr. Searcy says that his doubles are designed to withstand whatever additional stresses the shooting of monometal solids causes. Personally I think that the Barnes brass solids cause the most stress of any solid out there, and people shoot those in Searcy doubles all the time.

And I agree with Mac that I would not shoot a typical monometal bullet (like a Barnes X or Barnes brass solid) in a vintage English double. But I would shoot a GS Custom driving band solid in a vintage double. It actually takes less pressure to engrave the rifling on a GS Custom solid than on a Woodleigh solid, making the GS Custom kinder on your barrel.

Thank you, that was a great explanation and good background on bullet changes over time as well. I appreciate it. Now I had better win that lottery so I can buy a Searcy 470 and try some of these bullets out. ;-)

Red

Red,

The original bullets for which vintage doubles were designed were made by Kynoch of England. The bullet had a thick copper nose and lead core. From the nose, the copper jacket tapered to become progressively thinner and was quite thin at the base of the bullet. This design allowed the bullet to obturate to fit bores of somewhat varying dimensions as the science of building rifle barrels was not as precise then.

The Woodleigh solid today has a copper jacket surrounding a steel liner which in turn surrounds a lead core. It takes a lot more pressure to push a Woodleigh down a rifle barrel than to push an old Kynoch bullet. Nonetheless, most people with vintage doubles use Woodleigh bullets.