Is there anyone reading this who has loaded for a 10 bore DR using black powder. I have experance with 8 bores but the 10 is new to me. I have just acquired a H&H DR and plan to hunt Buff in Northern Mozambique next July. Time to start gathering supplies and working up a load. Sorry no pictures until the "New Lady" arrives here in Canada.

Do you by some chance have the original mold? It was shaped much like an acorn with a flat base. Seriously, the cast bullet looks like an upside down acorn with a flat base.

I am sitting here looking at one. They were loaded both with round ball and the conical. Find Cowboy CS here. He is building me a Paradox Rifle in 10-bore. He has a source for RB, and I think I have him or his buddy convinced to make me the conical mold.

You might be able to convince him to build two while he is at it...

The RB load he has developed in about 2" or a bit larger group for four shots at 50yds. 160gr of 2F with wads.

Rich

Thanks Rich, no I do not have a mould but I should be able to source cast bullets for $1 each. I have some here to start with, as you say like upside down acorns these weigh 1015 grains. The load you mention 160 grs is approx 6 dram, a "working load could be 8-10 dram which would be 216 to 270 grains. I can,t load untill I have brass machined and I will have to ask John Miller to make me dies. Do you have the velocity from that load? Cheers

Handloader #287 December 2013

Gil Sengel, author, 3-page article "10-Bore Rifle" might be interesting, pretty thorough on the obscurata, rimfire and centerfire, paper cases and brass cases, and so on from antiquity to present.

Comments accompanying a cartridge drawing include:

"Bullet Diameter ..................
Smooth Bore .775 Rifled Bore (Max) .791
(700-grain roundball shown)"

???? What the heck does that mean?

Possibly that .775 bore and .791 groove did occur, and others?
Like the original Rigby "775 Rigby":

According to 1996, 50th Ed. Gun Digest, Jim Dickson article,
"It's a 775 Rigby (The 10-bore rifle is alive and well in London.)":

Land/bore diameter was .764" and groove diameter was supposed to be .774" in the Rigby double rifle.
Twist was 1:70" for the old blackpowder 10-bore rifles.
Later ones like the Rigby were 1:41" for the conicals.

A 900-grain, steel-cored, hard lead conical at 1500 fps, was driven by 60 grains of Blue Dot, with solid brass 2-7/8" cases. Turned brass, I reckon.
The case was made with some sort of recess/counter bore in the thick brass walls, so slug seats on a shoulder in the case.
A 1/8" thick plastic obturator "made in Italy" holds the powder in place against a modern magnum rifle primer, but there is air space between the obturator and the bullet.
The smokeless shotgun powder is supposed to deliver velocity at lower pressure than the blackpowder load.


Slug your barrel yet?

Back to Gil Sengel:
"Ten-bore cartridges are seldom shown in ammunition maker's lists, because rifle owners usually ordered from the maker of the rifle
since only he knew which combinations of the above variations the rifle was built to fire."

Will the Federal high brass, plastic 3.5", 2-oz. slugs chamber in this H&H piece?

You are getting RMC or other turned brass made?
What length case?

Gil Sengel's Cartridge dimensions show 3.250" overall length for a brass case, thin drawn brass with a ball crimped in mouth.
About like a 3.5" plastic hull with a roll crimp over the slug, or folded crimp over shot.
Maybe loading your own high brass plastic hulls with 700-grain balls and a roll crimp would be possible for plinking?

I sent this link to Cal Pappas. I know that 'OmnivourousBob' has some loads of his in Cal's book about Bore Rifles.

John you should be able to get the original regulation load prescription from H&H directly.
Use real black powder, I use goex 2f or swiss 1-1/2f and have done well with every bore rifle I've loaded for.
Balls of groove plus a few thousandths diameter should do the trick - I'd start with the roundball.



Cheers
Tinker

Twist and groove diameter?
The ball is certainly a sure bet for a starter.

http://brooksmoulds.com/order.php

Brooks makes nice moulds.
1432-grain soft lead slug for 12Ga From Hell came from him, lighter in Linotype:



RMC brass for 12GaFH:

quote:

Originally posted by John Hipwell:
Is there anyone reading this who has loaded for a 10 bore DR using black powder. I have experance with 8 bores but the 10 is new to me. I have just acquired a H&H DR and plan to hunt Buff in Northern Mozambique next July. Time to start gathering supplies and working up a load. Sorry no pictures until the "New Lady" arrives here in Canada.

What is your caselength?. Borekaliber in the barrel?.

J.

Case length is 3 1/4, she is marked for an 8 dram load so from my initial research she would appear to handle a heavy" 10 bore load. Until she arrives I can,t provide twist or bore dia etc. I am just doing my early research. I plan on using a Fosbery style bullet for Cape Buff as I had good results on Ellie with this style in my 8 bore, but I will try some round ball as I am very curious how they will perform. I will also get some custom brass cases as I will be reloading with black powder in camp. I plan to stick to # 209 primers as they always ingnited 10 to 12 dram of black powder in my 8 bore with no problem.

Thanks for all the imput.

If it is a genuine Holland & Holland why not contact them? They'll be delighted to know that the item is still out there and going well and will be most happy to see pictures of it AND they will also be happy to tell you the exact load that it was regulated for.

When I saw the post, I was going to advice you to contact John Hipwell, the master of black powder double rifles. But I guess that wouldn't help here :-)

quote:

Originally posted by enfieldspares:
If it is a genuine Holland & Holland why not contact them? They'll be delighted to know that the item is still out there and going well and will be most happy to see pictures of it AND they will also be happy to tell you the exact load that it was regulated for.

I certainly will contact H&H as I always like to research any old firearm that come into my hands. I have found that the 8 bores have been very forgiving as far as regulating goes. I am hoping that the same will hold true with the 10 bore. I know there is a big differance in the performance of old BP compared with what we have to use today but then a lot of us here have no problem in getting vintage old DR that were regulated with large Berdan primers and Cordite regulated with modern primers and powders. There is just a lot more info out there for NE rds than for the BP bore rifles. As I wait "impatiently" for my new 10 bore to arrive all I can do is start my initial research.
Cheers

quote:

Originally posted by John Hipwell:
Case length is 3 1/4, she is marked for an 8 dram load so from my initial research she would appear to handle a heavy" 10 bore load. Until she arrives I can,t provide twist or bore dia etc. I am just doing my early research. I plan on using a Fosbery style bullet for Cape Buff as I had good results on Ellie with this style in my 8 bore, but I will try some round ball as I am very curious how they will perform. I will also get some custom brass cases as I will be reloading with black powder in camp. I plan to stick to # 209 primers as they always ingnited 10 to 12 dram of black powder in my 8 bore with no problem.

Thanks for all the imput.

My Manton is marked for 8-10dram with a 3,25" brasscase. You can find it in the boreriflebook by Pappas.
I have used Swiss 1½Fg which have proved to bring a 900grain ball up to 1735 ft/sec using 10dram. A full 8dram with likewise powder ought to give you at least +1500 ft/sec. The standard bulletweight from Mantons was 980grain which is a bullet I have also tried, but only with BlueDot(62grain). The 10bore paradox from H&H weighed about 912grain.
Looking foreward to see pictures of your H&H 10bore
Here is a similar..

http://www.rockislandauction.c...item/aid/60/lid/1770

quote:

Originally posted by Biebs:
When I saw the post, I was going to advice you to contact John Hipwell, the master of black powder double rifles. But I guess that wouldn't help here :-)

Thank you for those words, I take that as great compliment to receive them on this forum, but I still have lots to learn. I do intend to hunt Buff with this rifle, the hunt is booked with Jumbo in July. This is the hunt that was auctioned to help Stu Taylor, not sure at this time if I will be hunting with Stu or Ryan. Anyway the hunt is only 6 months away and I have a lot to do in order to get a BP load worked out so very grateful for all advice.
Cheers

quote:

Originally posted by jens poulsen:

quote:

Originally posted by John Hipwell:
Case length is 3 1/4, she is marked for an 8 dram load so from my initial research she would appear to handle a heavy" 10 bore load. Until she arrives I can,t provide twist or bore dia etc. I am just doing my early research. I plan on using a Fosbery style bullet for Cape Buff as I had good results on Ellie with this style in my 8 bore, but I will try some round ball as I am very curious how they will perform. I will also get some custom brass cases as I will be reloading with black powder in camp. I plan to stick to # 209 primers as they always ingnited 10 to 12 dram of black powder in my 8 bore with no problem.

Thanks for all the imput.

My Manton is marked for 8-10dram with a 3,25" brasscase. You can find it in the boreriflebook by Pappas.
I have used Swiss 1½Fg which have proved to bring a 900grain ball up to 1735 ft/sec using 10dram. A full 8dram with likewise powder ought to give you at least +1500 ft/sec. The standard bulletweight from Mantons was 980grain which is a bullet I have also tried, but only with BlueDot(62grain). The 10bore paradox from H&H weighed about 912grain.
Looking foreward to see pictures of your H&H 10bore

You have a good looking Manton there, I have Cal,s book beside me. Your load data is great, exactly the results what I was hoping to find someone was achieving. It would appear you are using large rifle primers, correct? Have you experanced any ignition problems?

I have so far not have had any ignition problems with either BP or BlueDot.
Today I use NEI .790-980 bulletmold. My rifle has .793" bore. I use 9bore feltwads as filler when using smokeless powder.
I use shotgun primers from Winchester and RWS.