Most painful rifle kick you've personally experienced

Wyosmith, great work of art. Thanks for posting.
And I'll happily remove my name from consideration to firing that beast and stick to my 'wimpy' .50 Cal.
 
That two barrel is insane yet beautiful, thanks for posting. Im with ya on the 3" magnum Brian, really packs a wallop.
 
I would shoot the 2 bore after I saw you shoot it. FWIW my worst kick is from a Yugo 24/47 Mauser shooting very full house Romanian milsurp (the good kind from the 70s that would shoot near 1 minute and wasn't corrosive). Shooting that from the prone much would knock fillings loose from your teeth (yes literally). And I've shoot the medium magnums (7mm, 300, and 338), a good bit of 50bmg, and 45-70 from a guide gun (pretty sure the rounds were downloaded some as recoil was much milder than I expected). None were as bad as the 8mm out of my rifle.
 
Holy bouncing bodies, bat man that two bore belongs in doom or quake!

Let me make sure that I get this.

THAT DOg THROWS A HALF POUND BALLL!?
 
Two things I'd consider doing with it.

First, I'd try sending it around to the biggest, greatest gun shows in the country, taking $500 for a shot. Only a completely trustworthy handler.

Second, I'd offer it up to safari hunters, again, sending a trusted bearer handler, and collect five to ten thousand for the trip and expenses.

God almighty, the cost of just taking big five game, that is added on to the cost of the safari trip is breathtaking. A guy who is ready to spend thirty thousand or so to hunt buffalo might not even flinch at the opportunity to use the epic, iconic two bore black powder rifle. Elephant? I've read that a successful hunt, including harvest costs may run over fifty to seventy thousand dollars from your front door back to your front door.
 
I'm guessing that the charge is going to be less than ten percent and you velocity will run over one thousand, give or take?

Will it go through a four to six inch timber? I'm guessing not... worst possible SD and penetration. I've seen black powder balls bounce back from oak trees.
 
Nope Braindg.

The 2 bore is only ever fired with what are effectively "squib loads" with velocities on about 600 FPS. Reason?
At 600 FPS the owner was pushed back over 4 feet and he weighed 420 pounds.
the gun can take a real charge of powder and give 1500 FPS but the recoil would be so heavy that no one could use it.
It was commissioned by the owner so he could have bragging rights, nothing more. He was not even a hunter.
But the idea that it won't go through a 6" timber is WAY off base.
In fact at only 600 FPS it went through a 35 gallon trash can full of gravel.

I made a 4 bore that we did shoot 1500 FPS loads from. It went through 5 feet of green cottonwood. And it would be 1/4 as powerful as the 2 bore if velocities were the same.

Remember that the swivel guns on the bows of of gunboats in the War of 1812 were about 2 bore and they would sink other ships. Other ships made of heavy Oak. The barrel of my rifle is fully capable of holding the same charge and ball. I know, I tested it with that amount. At 1550 FPS the ball generated over 18,500 Foot pounds of energy.

And yes it was bespoke.
:)
To the best of my knowledge I am the first man in history that ever made a sporting 2 bore. My old student Colin Stolzer has made several since, but according to the records we have been able to find, no one ever did a true 2 bore as a sporting rifle until I did this one.
This doesn't mean I am for sure and certain the 1st one to do it. It just means we could not find any record of anyone doing it before me, and no examples are known to exist anywhere before my gun was made of a SPORTING rifle made in 2 bore.
 
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I'm not surprised that you run "squibs". It surprises me that a lead ball could cause that much damage, I've never heard of cannon much smaller than a six pounder.

He bought it just for fun? Good God.
 
most painful kick you have personally experienced

In my case it wasn't a rifle. I had for years used a 20 gauge Ted Williams (Sears) pump shotgun. I had some nice, light 3/4 ounce loads developed for handling snakes and nuisance animals around the farm. Well, I went off to school and when I returned a few years later the 20 gauge was gone and my father had a New England Firearms 12 gauge single shot.

So, one day I needed to dispatch a sizable cottonmouth so I grabbed the 12 gauge and one of the shells my father had in the box next to it, loaded it and rather nonchalantly drew it up to my shoulder and fired without having it well seated.

With my old 20 gauge this would have been nothing, but with that light single shot I got a whack in my shoulder that I wouldn't soon forget.
 
"Samuel Baker had one made by Holland and Holland back in the 1860s.
He called it "Baby".
Pete


Well no actually. Baby was a 4 bore bullet rifle that fired a shell that also weights the same as the 2 bore ball, but it was not actually a true 2 bore.
Not that it matters any, I am sure it was still horrid to fire.
 
If I'm remembering correctly, baker was kinda nuts anyway. If he was bored he would go hunting butterflies in the garden.

This information was gathered pre-internet so it must be true.
 
Sure there are. It's a valid, registered bore size, so to speak. It would be a "small" punt gun. It's also possible that some entity created one-bore cannons.

There is a reason why we use bore/gauge standards, it's because anyone, anywhere, can figure it out.
The bore number corresponds to the number of pure lead balls of the bore size weigh one pound.

A gunsmith can just use standard measurements, but in the beginning, we simply created a set of standard sizes.

The metre is set by the speed of light in vacuum. A metre is the distance that light will travel in approximately 1/300,000,000. Bore is standardized with lead balls.
 
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