Indians For Guns

Hi,

Yesterday i had the opprtunity to examine a H & H 30 super (.300 H&H Flanged Mag) double rifle in the royal model.

I must say i have never seen such a beautiful gun. Since it is much less powerfull caliber than the .375 H&H Falonged mag, the rifle. can be made significantly lighter, and boy does that make a joy to hold.

I was unable to shoot it as the owner had only a few rounds of ammunition.

anyway i have made up my mind - 30 super double rifle is the rifle is for which i am saving up.



rajat

Hi Rajat,

I too love double rifles but I for one have never seen the logic in using a "medium" calibre double. To me a double is a stopper - either for dangerous game or for use in beats where the ranges are short - and double rifle calibres to my mind should be a minimum of .375 H&H

A calibre like the .30 Super cries out for an accurate scoped bolt action rifle so that one can use it to its full potential.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not spoiling for a fight or anything like that - just my 2 cents for whatever it's worth.

Cheers,

Marc

hi,

well if you check out the feet-pound energy figures of a 30 super cartridge, its about 2000 + at 100 yards. thus i think such a rifle would be ideal for hunting from a machan or while riding an elephant and thats how a lot of hunting was done in india by the maharajas in the past

also usually a 30 super was purchased as pair, the other gun in the pair being a 375 magnum.

in fact its quite rare to find a matched pair of 375 mag's. the usual combination is .375 mag + 30 super or 375 mag + .22 Hi power.

so purchased as pair along with a 375 mag i think the 30 super made a lot of sense to the hunters back then.

of course now since hunting is banned and getting a license for one rifle is very difficult. let alone two. the basic appeal of the 30 super lies in the beauty of the rifle.



rajat

Rajat,

Like I said I too love and appreciate doubles. Nothing feels as good as a well made double unless it is dressed in frothy lace and silk.

If you are getting one just to admire and play with believe me you cannot get a better toy and I'll envy you for it.

I however still reserve my opinion about the minimum calibre for a double.

Also remember, Foot-pounds don't tell the true story, if that was the case the 7x57 Mauser and the .30-30 would be long dead. Consider me old fashioned if you will but I prefer a long, heavy for calibre bullet at a medium-fast velocity any day over a light superfast bullet.

If hunting were allowed in India today and we were only allowed one rifle mine would be a .318 WR or a 9.3x62 Mauser.

Cheers,

Marc

cauvery-cowboy wrote:

I too love double rifles

i'll second that!

and double rifle calibres to my mind should be a minimum of .375 H&H

my words exactly!

A calibre like the .30 Super cries out for an accurate scoped bolt action rifle so that one can use it to its full potential.

pretty much the best way to go with the .300 H&H

just my 2 cents for whatever it's worth.

priceless advice buddy!

hi,

as i said before a 30 super double rifle was almost always sold as a pair. so i you "if i could have on rifle only" argument is pointless coz the owner of 30 super usaully had a 375 mag double as well.

experienced hunters of old prefered guns with similar action type so as to not create confusion during a critical moment i.e if they owned a bolt action in a light caliber and a double in a heavy caliber, there was always the possibility of trying to "work the bolt" on the double for the second shot or trying to "pull the second trigger" on th bolt action.

i have seen this happen many times with my own eyes, expericened shotgunner who are used to double trigger side by sides often end up pulling the "second trigger" on a single trigger over under for the second shot. Usually this happens when they are trying to make a quick shot on game.

So a person who has used bolt action rifles all his life and has become good at it, should choose a bolt action rifle even for dangerous game.



rajat

p.s - in india if you asked me to choose one rifle, i would choose none and rather have another shotgun.

The double was NOT made as a dangerous game stopper alone. It was intended as a fast handling rifle for use on game that would need to be shot in the thick of action - driven game at formal hunts being the main quarry. Of course, when the quarry was tigers shot from howdahs as was the case in India, the shotgun type handling characteristics of the doubles suited the sport ever more admirably.

In Europe and in the UK the double rifle was made in a number of small calibres - the 455 Webley pistol round was chambered by Westley Richards in some of their rifles as were the 250-3000, the 22 Savage Hi Power etc. These days several French and Spanish gunmakers make double rifles in lever action rounds like the 444 Marlin and also popular deer and boar rounds like the 30 R Blaser because there still are driven game hunts in Europe on some of the old, aristocratic properties.

There also have been problems with the doubles because of their basic design that made them much less popular in Africa than in India where access to skilled gunsmiths was easily available in the old days. The double is NOT perfect as far as extracting rimless or belted rimless cases are concerned. There also are problems with firing very high pressure rounds out of a double - only Marcel Thys, as far as I know, was successfully able to make double rifles that shot very high pressure rounds like the 378 Weatherby without fancy mechanisms that made the rifle resemble an artillery piece. Thys was also, in many experts' opinions, perhaps the only gunmaker who could make doubles for rimless or belted rimless rounds with foolproof extraction/ejection though all of the best British names made rifles for these rounds at some time or the other before giving them up. These days, the big British names do a considerable amount of business rechambering some of their post war rifles in 458 Winchester to the 450 No 2 or similar rounds because the flanged/rimmed rounds extract flawlessly while the earlier belted ones didn't. It is a silent admission that the double has a focused niche and cannot be easily adapted to something different from the earliest purposes that it was designed for.

I love the way doubles handle and shoot - Ernie Stallman of Badger Barrels and Sheriff Keith Olsen of the Big Game Rifle Club of North America have been more than generous in giving me several of their rifles to shoot and few rifles handle better than doubles do. But, even if I could afford to have several, I would have one fine double rifle and the rest of my rifles would be bolt guns.

Cheers!

Hi,

why do americans keep wanting to fix things which are not broken. This crazy trend of trying to put in all kinds of high pressure cartriges in double rilfes is just beyond me and if thats not bad enough they want to use only rimless rounds in doubles, and some enough some american will come up with a double meant for long range shooting. I mean whats the point of it all. I you want to shoot high pressure rounds well, then get a bolt action or maybe some kind of strong single shot design and if you want to do long range shooting well lots of guns are available for that as well.

But why do you want to make a "cargo truck from a sports car" or even the other way round.

I mean the americans did invent the 30-30 and the 30-06 (both 100 years old now) so where has all the sense gone now.

I think the really problem is that game animals have not evolved enough in the past 100 years. What the american public need is not more new caliber but bullet proof vest for deer and all the others game animals. I mean if some one could come up with some kind of armour that tanks have, but suitable for game animals then perhaps their may be some justification for all the "dislocate your shoulder" type of magnums that the american have produced in the past 20 years.

rajat

Rajat,

There is a context to the high pressure rounds problem though today's obsession with monster bores is madness in my opinion. That said, if someone wants to spend their hard earned money on something phenomenally powerful, it's their money, I guess...

After WW-2 when Indian orders began to dry up and several British gunmakers were struggling, they had no option but to look for markets in other parts of the world. The USA was the first big market that they found and they had to offer their rifles for rounds available there. Kynoch's going out of business also meant that there was no real source for ammunition for many of the old double rifles. Winchester came out with their 458 magnum, a round designed to fit in a 30-06 length action and they wanted to make it perform like the 450 No 2 with a 500 grain bullet leaving the barrel at 2150 fps. To get this performance they had to load it to very high pressures. AT this time, Roy Weatherby, an insurance salesman who became a marketing genius extraordinaire decided to make the world's most powerful round, with his 460 Weatherby which fired the same 500 grain bullet at 2700 fps. He had to sell it with a muzzle break, though, because it was capable of seriously injuring the shooter without one. Then came the whole madness of ever more powerful rounds - the 475 A&M Magnum based on the 460 Weatherby case and the later 585 Nyati, 577 T-Rex and other monster bores.

There is some sanity these days, though - Weatherby load their 460 down to 2600 fps and the fact is that the big bore guns that are made usually are on the market second hand with very few rounds fired. The old standard 404 Jeffery is more popular than ever in bolt action rifles and in doubles the superb 450-400 has been brought back. I do think that many have seen the light after being blinded by the smack of a monster gun in full recoil.

As far as Marcel Thys' efforts were concerned, he was the head of a school of sporting arms design and is one of the greatest gun designers alive today, though he has sadly retired and closed his firm down. His sons did not take the business up after him. Thys took up the challenge of building double rifles in the very high pressure rounds to show that he could do it and still have a double rifle which was the same in profile as the guns of old and which handled as well. It was a design challenge which he took up and I would say hat's off to him for his work. Other designers like Claude Bouchet have also designed their own rifles but the average Bouchet rifle looks like a huge cannon and probably weighs as much as 15 Kg or more. His work is not a patch on Thys'. Others like Harald Wolf have also made these guns though Wolf only makes his trademark 500 Jeffery rifles these days.

Mehul

I too had the pleasure of handling the 30 super H&H double, lovely feel to the rifle. So much nicer than the heavy doubles. Some of the other medium rifles which I enjoyed handling/using were two .303 doubles, one by H&H the second by Purdey, a 270 double by Westley Richards.

I am told in the old days a nawab from Lucknow had a .22 hornet Double H&H. Wonder if this is true?

Sat

hi,


22 hi power h&h doubles are very common, but never heard of a 22 hornet double by H&H



rajat

Rajat,

I am sure that there were 22 hornet double rifles made by several gunmakers both in Britain as well as on the Continent. As a matter of fact, the smallest double rifle that I have heard of was a Lebeau Courally made in 22 lr a few years ago. Having said that, I am sure that you would find someone commissioning one in 17 HMR or 17 HM2 to have an even smaller one very soon.

Cheers,

Mehul

PS Sat, good to see you post regularly. Do keep visiting as often as you can.

The point of a double rifle is to be able to deliver a second shot very rapidly and with 100% reliability. For use in a dangerous game rifle the cartrisge should always be rimmed to allow for reliable extraction. The prohibitive cost of contemporary double rifles has led to the adoption - almost exclusively - by PHs in Africa of the Mauser 98 action with its` controlled feed facility.
There is no reason why a double rifle shouldn`t be used for general game hunting and rifles were - and are - produced in a wide range of calibres. Side by sides sre generally limited to closer range shooting but O/U doubles are capable of remarkable accuracy. Fabarm guarantee barrel-to-barrel groups of 50mm ( 2" ) @ 100 metres from their `Asper` O/U rifle using the factory recommended ( RWS ) ammunition.
Some Continental gunmakers have offered doubles in .22 Hornet and they are not uncommon in UK gun auctions. Otherwise calibres from .222 upward are available. The Wild Boar hunting rifle of choice in much of Europe is a double in 9.3x74R.
With the accuracy of modern O/U doubles they can be used for most types of game and have the advantage of shotgun type handling and the ability to be taken down like a shotgun.
Anyone that needs more than two shots to despatch a quarry animal needs to learn to shoot.

Grumpy wrote:The point of a double rifle is to be able to deliver a second shot very rapidly and with 100% reliability... Anyone that needs more than two shots to despatch a quarry animal needs to learn to shoot.

John, as some one put it along time ago, if Custer and his men were armed with double rifle's, there would have been no little big horn!

Asif,

If there had been no Custer,there would have been no Little Big Horn. What do you say to this,"USA is the first country in the world based on ethnic cleansing" What happened to the native Indians would be termed as genocide by todays defenitions.But I digress.

If you are familiar with a bolt action rifle,you can work the bolt fast enough to get a second shot befor you become a part of the local tourist attraction(Foolish hunter hunting with a bolt action rifle instead of a proper DB rifle got killed by a lion/elephant/rhino here) . Perhaps Mehul can shed some light on this(I have no experience of DB rifles)


Take care,
penpusher