Double rifles??

So my original question has, by reading what the more knowledgable have to say, lead to my enlightenment: at least a little.

I'm still not convinced that it's a bad idea even though it might be a expensive one. You'll forgive me if I remain sold on the idea of a light, short, stainless, O/U, chambered in a reasonable woods cartridge suitable for deer and the wild hogs we have here in North Florida. So it costs a couple of thousand? I've friends who spend that on rifle/scope combinations that they will sit in box stands over corn with a couple of times a year in Texas. What I'm thinking of will spend dozens of days being lugged around the woods during our almost 3 month season.

And a question. I noted that someone mentioned the pressure issue. Well how much pressure, reasonably, would say a Ruger Red Label action handle?
 
A couple of thousand?
Surely you jest. A 5 lb high quality bolt action hunting rifle costs more.
The Pedersoli Kodiak IV hammer double is now up to $3250 for an 1878 design.
The least expensive plain Chapuis built to a plan nearly as old is $5500.
Kreighoffs start at $9500, Merkel at $10,600, again for well understood designs made in modern factories.
You want a new model made out of materials not previously applied that way. That's going to be expensive, I think you are talking in the London Best range of $50,000 and not near as pretty.
 
Baikal makes a o/u 30-06. I believe it is the izh94 express model. Its not stainless though. Its in or below that price range though and good quality.
 
Robert, the cheapo "Remington" double is made in Russia by Baikal.
EAA was the previous importer and they advertised those things for years and never had any to sell. Remington says "end of the year." Don't hold your breath.
 
OK, so the knowledgable among you have tossed cold water all over my parade. Thanks a lot!! But at least I learned a thing or two which makes up in some small measure for the reality check.

I'll be hoping for advancements in materials/methods/technology/design that will eventually make the production of such a individualized idea less expensive........ In the mean time I hope I don't get to old to want it or use it when it becomes available!!!!
 
Robert, the cheapo "Remington" double is made in Russia by Baikal.
EAA was the previous importer and they advertised those things for years and never had any to sell. Remington says "end of the year." Don't hold your breath.

Jim, thanks for the clarification. I knew it was made overseas, just couldn't remember where.

As to buying one - a double gun in .45-70 might be fun! Still, I'd rather a Marlin guide gun instead...I certainly don't need one today!
 
Interesting you mention a Marlin. My favorite woods rifle, the one I've used almost exclusively for the last three years, is a old Glenfield model. It started out with a short magazine tube and a long barrel, chambered in .35 Rem.

We took a air driven cutoff wheel and shortened the barrel to about 19 inches, crowning it ourselves with a large drill bit. Then shortened the stock on a power miter saw. After removing the shiney varnish from the stock and rubbibng in some linseed oil and mounting a red dot sight the trip to the range was a relief. We expected that it would have to go to a real smith to get the barrel corrected but as it was going to cost the same before or after we tried it ourselves we thought what the heck. Besides that we weren't doing anything that could cause other than a dimuniation of accuracy as the bullets tumbled from a improperly crowned muzzel.

We got lucky and it still shoots 3 or 4 inches at a 100 and the holes are all round, displaying no signs of wobbling. The stock looks better, mind you not great and the 200 gr slugs out of that .35 Rem have worked well on a dozen or so hogs and 4 deer at the short ranges we usually encounter. None over about 35 yards and most under 20; yes under 20, even the deer.
 
http://www.baikalinc.ru/eng/prod/rifle/izh94express/

I was a proud owner of this gun in 9,3x74R . It is suprisingly cheap for double rifle. It is a pain to make it shoot right. You need boxes of expensive ammo and it is still not a precision device.But the good thing is that you don't need gunsmith to do it-this is very important because I've seen many very,very expensive double rifles that shoot almost 20 inch groups at 60 yards.Only thing that can help is very expensive gunsmithing.
I believe that this Russian double rifle would do better in .30-06 because of its flatter trajectory-but the downside of .30-06 is that you need to pick empty shells from the rifle with your fingers.

Cheers
 
Smiljko,

I was looking at the rifle and thinking I would be more likely to get the 7.62x54R than the 30-06 if the rim is necessary for ejection and if I could get enough brass easily? I used to worry about how flat a rifle's trajectory was, but when I took the rifle class at Gunsite, Jeff Cooper pointed out that within two hundred yards or so, any centerfire rifle will stay very close to being within a theoretical 4 inch or 100 mm circle without changing the sight setting at all. This is providing you set the sights so the bullet strikes about two inches or 50 mm high at 100 yards or 100 m (not enough difference to matter which you use). That is what Cooper does setting up a rifle. Then he doesn't make any sight adjustment or elevation allowance between point blank and 200 yards. It works very well for deer-size game and should be fine for most game with a kill zone about 8 inches wide, after allowing that the shooter and gun add something to that 4" circle.

If I apply Cooper's theory to this Russian rifle with 600 mm barrel, using H4895 as the powder for all three chamberings, including your 9.2x74R in QuickLOAD, I get results that are charted below. The 9.2 mm gun you owned has only about a 10% reduction
(20 m) in extreme range within the four inch circle under these conditions, and it does so while firing a much heavier bullet.

If you fire the bullets horizontally, the difference in flatness stands out. But if you fire them with a bit of sight elevation, a lot of that adantage is less apparent until you shoot at long range. Certainly it makes no difference at the ranges you get in most woodlands. I would strive to time the barrels for parallel trajectory of the bullets and not to cross paths at some arbitrary grouping range. Remember which barrel you are firing and adjust aim accordingly if you can hold the difference?

Nick

3006762x54r92x74rb9wd.jpg
 
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Unclenick, the rim is not necessary for ejection because rifles in 30-06 have little tooth on the extractor which pulls the cartridge out of the chamber,but also makes quick reloading impossible because empty shells don't just fall out(like the rimmed cartridges).

Making both barrels to shoot parallel?-that would be great if you could do it,and have the luck to buy the rifle that could do it - on mine it was impossible. I wanted to shoot 232gr norma vulkan because on good experiences I had with it in 9,3x62.But I realised(after 3 boxes:( ) that it can't be done-rifle didn't hold it.After consulting the gunsmith he reccomended me heavier bullet and I bought 285gr sako twinhead and bingo - I managed to bring the barrels to shoot 2 inches from one another at 60 meters -but horizontally.
I must mention that adjusting system adjusts both barrels at the same time-it brings them closer together,or further apart-no fine adjusting.
Overall - it is OK rifle with excellent price for its category, but if you want to make it shoot and look right you need to give lots of money to the gunsmith,but it would stil be cheaper than competition, but if you don't want the hassle cash out 3000$ for some cheaper Chapuis,or used Krieghoff.

Cheers
 
Bswiv,

CDNN is advertising the EAA-Baikal O/U double rifle in .223 or .30-06 for $300. It is a good deal heavier than you want, but it will give you something to play with while you save up for Holland-Beretta to make you a featherweight.
 
Thanks for the heads up but if I'm stuck with ugly and heavy then the old .35 Rem, which I trust, will continue in service while I wait for a miracle.
 
Smiljko,

Sounds like the barrel adjustment has little value. I suppose I would use a pair of the spud-type laser bore sighting tools to try to get the barrels parallel as a starting point. I have to put those devices in a 4-jaw chuck on a lathe, dead center the beam axis, then and turn a custom pilot in-situ to get them really true. Much bother, but afterward they are capable of excellent precision.

The other question I have regarding the over-under is how much difference the firing order makes? With the lower barrel's bore axis being more straight back into the shooter, I pressume it tends to rise less than the upper barrel. I don't know how you would compensate for that and maintain a parallel trajectory other than magna-porting the upper but not the lower, or some such strategy? It depends how much difference it makes? It is an argument in favor of the side-by-side.

Speaking of side-by-side guns, have you heard anything about the MP-221? The web site says it is still pre-production. At just under 7lb in 45-70, that is almost "handy".

Nick
 
Unclenick,

I didn't noticed the difference regardless which barrel you shoot. But I zeroed it in for close range - 50-60 meters(it was my brush gun for wild pig hunting),maybe it is noticeable at long range.
As for MP 221- it looks realy nice, but The caliber choice is realy unusual for double rifle-I mean where the heck are 7x65R,8x57IRS,9,3x74R,or russian 7,62x54R:confused:

Cheers
 
Smiljko,

Yes. I wondered the same thing. I notice the 30-06 and .45-70 listings are asterisked as subject to market research, meaning only the 7.62x51 is a certainty. Perhaps if people write in requesting more European chamberings than just the NATO round, they will be made available? The .45-70 would be a good choice for brush, if they don't, and that is why I singled that one out. The next question will be how strong the action is and how far it would allow you to safely load that old standby up?

Nick
 
I guess the "preproduction status" on the Baikal site is the reason EAA never delivered any double rifles over the several years that they advertised them and why Remington has not come up with any real guns yet.

Remington says of the .45-70 version:
† NOTE: For Use with SAAMI Compliant Loads Only (28,000 PSI / 28,000 CUP Operating Pressure).

Of course Remington, as a member of SAAMI, pretty much HAD to say that.
The adventurous handloader could figure casehead thrust by head area times chamber pressure for .30-06 and see just how far he could soup up the .45-70. I don't want to soup up a 6.5 lb .45-70, myself.
 
Jim,

Yeah. I was re-thinking that idea; visions of Nitro Express rifles dancing in my head. Realistically, any pig a SAMMI-pressure .45-70 can't dispatch is a pig I don't really want to take on from close range. I've noticed, however, that even the standard commercial .45-70 loads vary a good bit in perceptable recoil. The 300 grain Winchester JHP recoils noticably more than the 405 grain Remington soft-point load. I expected the reverse to be true, based on bullet weight. I bought some pressure testing gear this year and hope to have a look at what they are really doing? Maybe I'll get time when Camp Perry is done for the season?

Nick
 
A friend has a .450 BPE with steel barrels and has loaded it with black, smokeless and duplex behind the lightest .458 bullets he can find. Doubt that is much different from the 300 grain .45-70. I can shoot it only about a "pair and a half" - three shots - before I get the shakes.
 
A double rifle (s/s) is perhaps the most elegant, most extravagant and most costly firearm on the market. And this with good reason: to make a good DR is considered to be the peak of gunsmithing, and this has to be paid for. It is not enough to just put two barrels together like a s/s shotgun and to assume it will shoot well. It won't. About two decades ago Valmet of Finland, a high class company with a good reputation (they also maufacture the Boxster for Porsche) tried to market a medium priced combo with o/u rifle barrels, but with very limited success. Quality and accuracy problems.

The DR is a high end firearm, and once you forget the price you paid for it, you will just enjoy it. My 9,3 x 74R was custom made in Austria (Ferlach) in 1938 and it shoots like in its best years. As the construction of a DR is much simpler than that of a bolt action rifle, it was thought to be more reliable and hence preferred for big game hunting in Africa. And shooting out of the move, it outclasses any bolt action or semi auto.

I would never recommend to go for a caliber with rimless cartridges (such as 30-06), although they are offered by most maufacturers, simply because the pressure is to high for this type of weapons. This is one of the reasons why reliable calibers also come in a somewhat softer "R" variant (e.g. 6,5x57 R, 8x57 IRS). In my view the purchase of a DR is only worthwhile if you hunt bigger game on the move AND if you have a first class gunsmith who is able to perform the necessary jobs, esp. mount a scope or disassemble the barrels and get it shooting again.
 
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