Got the new Rifle Magazine yesterday. The CZ-Ruger price gap has just widened...new Ruger DG magnums are now $1975 retail. I guess it was spendy to add the 338 Lapua to the line up. Still no 505 Gibbs or 510 Wells. Have handled two new CZ 550's in 416 Rigby this week, one at $799 and the other at $750. The Rugers are marvelous rifles, but the cost to own one now would buy me the CZ in 505 Gibbs, or 550 Magnum and dies, or the pair of 416's, or get a double rifle built on a Browning BSS or Beretta Silverwing 10ga SxS.

It is a VERY nice looking rifle though...

Rich
DRSS-wanna-be, will-be in 2007

What type of double can you have built on the Browning or Beretta? How much would it cost? I am always looking for a low cost double rifle

you can have any caliber you want on a bss .

searcy used to use the bss before he started making his own action.

i had one of his 470 built on a bss and you couldn't ask for a better shooter.

approx cost of 12 ga bss - $1,000 - $1,500
20 ga bss 1,500 - 2,000

price of sleever bbls from me to install after you cut off old bbls $160 each
double rifle top rib $90 includes quarter rib and front sight ramp
bottom rib $48
you supply sights.

someone to assemble bbl set - $600 - 700 or less
regulating by jj $400 plus ammo & return shipping.

so you can get into an affordable double rifle at much less than you probably thought.

yeah! what Tomo577 said. Also check Jason Simpkins thread here.
In phone conversations he quoted me areound $2K plus appropriate shotgun. I found a 12ga 3" magnum Browning BSS and talked about the work needed with Butch. Also found a 10ga SxS Beretta that would work.


Rich

Idaho Sharpshooter & tomo577
You mean this?
A Berretta 470 SxS

right church...wrong pew.
The key to success, building a DR from a SxS shotgun lies in checking the proof marks and making sure you have a stout platform to build on. Butch Searcy build his first doubles on Ruger Red Label 12 and 20 gauge o/u shotguns, if memory serves me correctly. Then he moved up to the Browning BSS because Browning would share heat treating information. When I asked, he told me that he "spot" heat treated the BSS and he had no qualms re building anything up thru the 3" .500NE. When he had the rep and the $$$ to design and produce his own action, he did so. He also told me that the key, obviously, is pressure expressed in PSI and casehead thrust on the face. Bigger caseheads spread the pressure over a wider area. The brits found the answer 120+ years ago. Use a long, fat case, and keep the pressures down below 40,000PSI. A big bore delivers the blow harder with same weight bullets, and at lower pressures.
I have an opportunity to buy either a 12ga 3" magnum BSS or a Beretta 10ga SxS...same kind of $$$. I want to build a 550 Gibbs double, and shoot 750-800gr bullets at about 2000-2100fps, lead bullets! That will kill about anything I can imagine, at reasonable pressures, and just be a rip to shoot at "stuff". It is the only "likely" scenario for me owning another double big bore rifle

Rich

Very interesting thread. I have a friend who had a Searcy rifle built up on the Browning. I think it was either a 470 or 500 and it was ordered about 92 or 93. He was tickled pink with the rifle and said it would cut the same bullet holes at 100 yards.
That being said, has anyone here recently had one built off the BSS or Beretta?
Am looking for firsthand reports and finished price.

Pull up the post cheap double rifles (IIRC) by Tomo577. Jason Simpkins in Denver is building them. He does complete guns for $2500 or thereabouts. He will also take your double, if he deems it workable, and $2000 and will build you one that way. jsimpkins@yahoo.com

Jason has an interesting approach; he sleeves your original barrels. If I undestand him, he profiles barrel blanks to the shotgun barrel ID. Starts with a chamber size breech section, which tulips down just in front of the chamber, until about mid barrel point. He then tapers back up to bore size, but makes an egg-shaped eccentric/cam area. Then back down to nearly the muzzle. He mills the choke out, and makes the barrel that size, and about an inch longer than the barrels.

A slot is milled into the barrels. He inserts these profiled barrels into the shotgun (like a set of Briley-style sub caliber inserts, ie 20 ga in a 12). He then load tests until finding a load that shoots sub-4" three (?) shot groups at 100yds from each barrel. The genius part comes next. He puts a T-spanner into the muzzle slots and gently turns them, one at a time, until left-right. left-right, left-right goes under 4" at one hundred yards. I may be off on the accuracy level he gets; maybe 3" groups. Talk to him about that.

Last thing, I think he removes the barrels inserts and slathers them with slow setting epoxy. He then re-inserts them indexed to a point, and shoots and adjusts them back to regulation. Let the epoxy set up, mill the inserts flush to the muzzles, and you are good to go.

Do not take this as gospel, it is all if I understood him correctly.

Rich