Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. -- MaxedOutMama

I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. -- Kim du Toit

The most glaring example of the cognitive dissonance on the left is the concept that human beings are inherently good, yet at the same time cannot be trusted with any kind of weapon, unless the magic fairy dust of government authority gets sprinkled upon them.-- Moshe Ben-David

The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes see themselves as the individuals who have been "liberated" to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it's because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it's because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem. -- Sultan Knish

All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war. -- Billy Beck

Friday, January 13, 2012

So You Like RECOIL, Do You?

The posts about the .700WTF and the .950JDJ drew a LOT of hits, so apparently this is a popular topic. On that last post, one commenter said:
Can we get a 1.000 OMG? Going once… going twice…
Which was followed by:
Screw round numbers.

Make it the 1.001 OMG just to break the barrier firmly.
Already been done, boys, in a rifle you actually fire from the shoulder, not off a bench. The 4-Bore double-rifle:


According to Wikipedia:
The name derives out of an old English practice of bore measurements in gunmaking, meaning a perfectly round pure lead ball that exactly fits the bore of the weapon would weigh 1/4 lb -- that is, 0.25 lb (0.11 kg) (see gauge). The 4 bore was made to fire roundballs of 1/4 pound lead, or approximately 1750 grains (1750 gr.) and approximately 1-inch (25 mm) calibre (more precisely, 1.053-inch (26.7 mm), when shooting pure lead bullets). This varied greatly as in muzzle loader days shotgun gauges were custom made and often differed from the actual bore measurements. Commonly, 4 gauges were closer to .935-.955 calibre, pertaining to a 1400 gr. alloyed lead ball and closer to 5 gauge.
So it's hard to say without actually examining a 4-bore, but it could indeed be 1" or greater. Continuing:
The cartridge brass case was around 4 inches (100 mm) long, and contained three types of loads: light at 12 drams, 14 drams at regular, and 16 drams of powder at heavy load. (Note: 1 dram = 27.34375 grains in the avoirdupois system, since 256 drams = 7000 grains = 1 pound of powder. Shotgun shells are still rated in terms of the same archaic dram measurements, relative to their equivalence of smokeless powder load to a blackpowder load weighed in drams.) John "Pondoro" Taylor mentioned in his book African Rifles and Cartridges that the 12 drams (328 gr., 3/4 oz.) charge would propel the projectile at around 1,330 ft/s (410 m/s). A double barreled rifle that would fire such a calibre would weight around 22-24 lb bare, while the single-barreled version would be around 17-18 lb.
John Ross, the author of Unintended Consequences has one of these beasts. Here's a sample ballistics table:

With a "heavy" load of 440 grains of black powder under a 1743 grain projectile, the free recoil energy of 262ft-lbs. is very much in the same class as the .950JDJ, only the JDJ rifles weigh between 50 and 110 pounds and are fired off a bench. The 4-bore doubles weigh about 25 pounds and are fired standing, from the shoulder.

OUCH.

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