Well, here's my latest oddball idea. Saw a Baikal 410 SXS at a gunshow, looks sturdy, had nice wood(just needed serious slimming down). Could I build a 9.3x74 double rifle out of this?? Has double underlug lockup.

Complicated way to get the same gun they already sell as a double 30-06 or maybe soon 45-70.

I would bet that the shotgun actions are too soft as-is. That's based on the trouble Bakail had getting the factory-made double rifle right for mass production.

Old standards, shotguns work at around 15,000 LUP (lead units pressure) while most smokeless rifles work in the 35,000 CUP (copper units pressure), so while your gun might hold up a while, "how long?" is the question.

Mr. Ackley wrote of rebarreling an 1897 Winchester pump to .30/'06 and firing many, many surplus cartridges... A product of the Russias for export? I would not bet on it.

If it has been re engineered for .30/'06, one of those should stand up. '06 works at .45,000 CUP, old system... Factory .270 always bested it. They worked at 55,000 CUP from day 1. HAPPY HOLIDAYS.

Ah, an excuse for a color case treatment on the action. Good. And the 9.3x74 is used in some drillings I've seen with seriously thin barrels, so I believe it's a much lower pressure than the '06. The 410 barrels are thicker than my Marlin 45-70 already-maybe a rebore to 45-100?

I once made a double .30-30 on a Brazillian .410. It actually fired and functioned correctly. I spent so much time on it that in the net analysis I could have bought a real double rifle and had a nice one.

Mine (being my first) was a horrible job showing every lesson learned in spades.

I re-attached the .410 barrels and sold it but I kept the .30-30 barrels for a paperweight.

If you want a 9.3 just buy one.....it costs less and you get steel for the job!

Well, the 410 was going for $400. Two 9.3 barrels, and a rented reamer, another $400, maybe less. Propane for my rust blue boiling tank, $20. Color case farm out-$75. Time?? I got more time than money.

Terrible idea you have for several reasons.

1. the Bakail is one of the last shotgun actions I would use for a double rifle. Design and execution are on par with the old Belgian doubles imported into the country over 100 years ago. Today we call them JABC-Just Another Belgian Clunker. There were garbage when made, and after minimal shooting became inoperable.

2. I would say 99% of the drillings with a 9.3 barrel are for the 9.3x72, which is very much a different beast than the 9.3x74. Imagine .30 Carbine vs. .300 Win Mag.

3. what is the Bakail action made out of? I would want the specific action in question, as I sure do not trust Bakail to have a consistent source and treatment of materials. Just basing that on problems I hear about with them as a shotgun, plus my experience working in parts of the former Soviet Union. Case coloring eveyrthing today is a fad and will pass, though none to soon for me. People are CC'ing all sorts of things that should not be CC'd now, just because the colors are cool in today's fashion. The only Bakails I have sen in person were blued, leading me to believe the action was some sort of tool steel. Definitely should NOT be CC'd.

4. If you were bound and determined to use the Bakail, i would not build even the anemic 9.2x72 on a .410 scaled action. Not enough beef, especially for a company that has problems keeping their guns held together with factory shotgun loads.

If you want to build a double rifle, then go ahead and do it. I would just hate to see you build it and have it come unglued in the first few shots. Pick an action more suited to it so it isn't money thrown away.

Do you have the book "Building Double Rifles on SHotgun Actions?" If not, then I would get it. It is not a perfect book (none are), but there is plenty of good info in there and it will help you come up with some ideas on how to tackle different problems in the process.

Good luck, and please keep your fingers stuck to the end of your hand!

Where is your info coming from about Baikals having troubles with shotgun load pressures?? And how does a blued finish indicate "tool steel"? And yes the 9.3x72 designation does ring a bell, way back in my loose brain. I will do more investigating, and do a Rockwell test on the monoblock, and action of the Baikal. It's a far better gun than the old Savage/Stevens 311 doubles, and the amount of steel seems on a par with the NEF single barrels, and they seem to hold together. It's pretty hefty for a 410 action, not a liteweight.

Read shotgun boards and you will see what I mean. Did you really examine the gun you saw? Did anything about it say "quality" to you? I am serious, you need to ask yourself that question.

If it were a fairly simple carbon steel, it would need to be case hardened. Remington also knows that case coloring is cool for this time in the gun world. Very few break action guns now manufactured are NOT tool steel recievers.

What is the distance between the firing pins on the .410 action? What was the width of the breech balls? How tall is the detonating? How thick is the steel at the junction of face and water table? you better have this figured out beforehand.

Did you take a close look at the gun you saw? Those Bakails are really, really, really low on the gun quality totem pole. Please note I never tried to disuade you from your double rifle idea. I only made some observations and commented, based on your asking the question. For $400 you can get a shotgun that is many times better than the (expletive deleted) Bakail, and it just may hold up to a few rounds without coming off face.

You do whatever you want-doesn't matter to me. I just answered the question you asked. THis is not a trivial exercise you are talking about. YOu really need to do some homework. I am not trying to put you down at all, but you need to learn a good bit more before you attempt something like this. If you don't know the difference between the 9.3x72 and 9.3x74, then you need to start reading. I have never met anyone who knew even the basics of a double rifle who did not know the difference between these two very common cartridges used in break action guns. You could be the one exception to my life experiences, but I seriously doubt it.

Your four item "spreadsheet" of costs is a little sparse and show a lack of basic understanding of doubles. YOu will learn one of two ways here. THe easy way is to spend a year or so buying and reading books, talking with people who are experts at working on double guns, getting your hands dirty by messing with doubles, THEN attempting to make a double rifle (which happens to be about the most difficult gun to build).

Or you can learn the hard way. This would be you having pieces of a shotgunthat no longer make up a shotgun, pieces of a rifle, and a fair chance that peices of your left hand will be on the ground around you when the smoke clears.

You say you have time but no money. THis is the perfetc situation. You have plenty of tiem to learn! I am serious, take advantage of the time you have and learn the ins and outs of doubles. THEN do a project such as you propose. When you know soemthing about doubles, you will not be looking to make a .410 Bakail into a 9.3x74. You asked, I answered.

A 9.3x72r loads to 25500 vs 49300 for the 9.3x74r. Call it 18.5 grs of 4227 vs 60grs of rifle powder.

Marc is right. Problems with adequate strength are part of the reason that it's taken Remington so long to get the Baikal/Spartan DRs debugged and on the market, and at least those are built as DRs. A conversion on a Baikal .410 action couldn't be a worse choice.

You really have a lot of research to do.

quote:

Originally posted by xs headspace:
Ah, an excuse for a color case treatment on the action. Good.

Bad.

quote:

And the 9.3x74 is used in some drillings I've seen with seriously thin barrels, so I believe it's a much lower pressure than the '06.

You've gotta be kidding. Do you really determine the pressure of a cartridge by looking at the barrel wall thickness? The 9.3X74R is one of the highest pressure flanged double rifle cartridges (just under 50,000 PSI, vs 15,229 PSI for a .410 shotgun), and is actually higher pressure than the .375 Flanged Magnum. It is NOT appropriate for just any old double gun action.

quote:

The 410 barrels are thicker than my Marlin 45-70 already-maybe a rebore to 45-100?

If you go ahead a do a conversion on that action, as long as you have the gun properly proved, it will be entirely safe - since it probably won't survive a properly conducted proof, you won't have to worry about shooting it.
-----------------------------------------------
"Serious rifles have two barrels, everything else just burns gunpowder."

I just looked and you are the guy who asked about converting a Beretta double to a double .45-70 a few weeks ago. You obviously have taken none of our advice or done any of the research and educating that was suggested.

What's the deal? Are you going to keep posting about potential projects on different guns until someone here says, "You have a good idea this time!" Just do what you want to do. No one here can make the decision for you.

I guess what I am saying is that I am totally at a loss here. Several folks spent time to help you. THen you go through the same gyrations a few weeks later and again, several folks take time out of their life to help you. Brainstorming and bouncing ideas off of folks is a GREAT exercise and this site is an awesome resource for that. Lots of folks with lots of different kinds of experience can help you, me, and everyone else with ideas. God knows I have been helped A TON by the great folks on this site.

I know it can be almost impossible to judge the intended tone when reading words on a screen. I can assure you I am not mad, writing this in a rant, or anything negative. I hope you understand that in these two posts you made, several folks gave you different versions of basically the same advice. I sincerely hope you take it.

I would be tickled to see you post pics of a double rifle you made in a couple of years. Right now you are not even at the crawling stage, much less the flying at supersonic speed that is required to build a double rifle. If you start a project now, you do not have nearly enough knowledge and skill to do it. But if you learned a lot for the next year then you could possibly have a rifle put together two years after that.

What makes the most sense is to take the time you say you have, and make more money so you can then go buy a real double rifle. But folks rarely take that path.

If you were to use the above mentioned donor. Here is a list of better options for chambering.

38 Spc.
32-20
22 Hornet

Smaller case head sizes, lower pressures, cheap to shoot.

Keith

ps: Take tiggertate's advise, just buy the Remington/Baikal in 30-06

quote:

Originally posted by Marc_Stokeld:
.... You obviously have taken none of our advice or done any of the research and educating that was suggested......

Maybe there's a reason his handle is XS Headspace?

Hey, thats what I was looking for, opinions from guys that have been there, done that. I've fitted replacement barrels to double shotguns, and even done my own bone charcoal case coloring. Enough to know I don't want to do it again. And yes, I confused the old 9.3x72 with the 74. Haven't looked at metric loadings for awhile. I just have this leftover yearning for a double rifle left over from reading too much Robert Ruark when I was a teenager. But back to the 45-70....have you ever looked at the area of the locking contact of the Marlin bolt?? This is WAY less that the area of the hinge pin on a Baikal. Steel thickness at the face end of the watertable, is an unknown, I'll admit. But Krieghoff makes a 9.3x74 with an aluminum frame!

I had an imformative post explaining how doubles (apples) lock up and what you are missing when comparing it to lever actions (oranges), but I just deleted it instead. If you have not listened to this point, I doubt if any more info would have sunk in either.

Good luck, and most importantly I hope you don't hurt yourself. THere is a wealth of information out there at your finger tips. Hope you learn it and put it to use to make adouble rifle one day

Hey, I didn't buy the 410. Will buy the book. I may be a little crazy, but not stupid. And I stayed awake in Strength of Materials 101, even though I was getting an EE degree. Bethlehem Steel was right next door, then.

Rick Stickley used to use a Browning BSS in 20 gauge to build double rifles. He had made the conversion many times. A side by side can be used for a double rifle but it has to be up to the task.

You have to cut the barrels off and bore the monobloc to receive the barrels. Fit the barrels, fit it to the action, fit the ribs, regulate the barrels, solder the ribs and install and adjust the sights, blue the barrels and do the stuff I forgot. Now do not go thinking that I know how to do this because I made a list. Far from the truth, I just understand the process.

quote:

Originally posted by ramrod340:
A 9.3x72r loads to 25500 vs 49300 for the 9.3x74r. Call it 18.5 grs of 4227 vs 60grs of rifle powder.

Another comparison is to think of the 9.3X72 as a 38/55 which is firing a slightly smaller diameter bullet using a nitro-for-black load.....

quote:

Originally posted by xs headspace:
Hey, I didn't buy the 410. Will buy the book. I may be a little crazy, but not stupid. And I stayed awake in Strength of Materials 101, even though I was getting an EE degree. Bethlehem Steel was right next door, then.

I can sure understand your desire for a double rifle! I bought a pair of .45 cal barrels from Dixie Gun Works to build one, but it was to be an SXS flintlock. I did get the barrels soldered together, then obtained a stock blank of nice curly maple. Next, I moved from TX to NY, and somewhere along the lines the set of barrels disappeard. So I saved my meager funds for three years, and bought an old J.P. Sauer SXS in 8X60RS. Loading for it has proven a lot easier than trying to build one from another gun......