It's up and running. I had the small "First Fire" ceremony a while ago. Attendance was limited.

I tested it with buckshot. First must clarify this was "not" Hornady buckshot. You may wish to wipe from your memory, the issue of Hornady discontinuing their single O buckshot (32 caliber). I contacted them, on several occasions. Sent them some pics of highly carved and engraved guns, that had been made with their buckshot in mind. I received a YAWN heard round the world.

Being neither inclined, nor able, to lay in a lifetime supply of discontinued stock from various hardware stores worldwide; I did not. Therefore; I have no Hornady buckshot. In fact ... I don't want any.

Taking pity upon my nearly homeless position, a friend researched and found another manufacturer of O buckshot. He had to order about a ton of it to get some. And, he sent me a big ole bag of it. That was very kind of him. It is, however; not nearly so spherical as the previous Hornady product. The numbers in my testing, will reflect the random engagement as to how the buckshot entered the breech. I'll be testing the accuracy potential later.

Those who scoured the warehouses, and now sit atop their pallet of Hornady O Buck, can rest in the knowledge that your archived stash will most likely perform better than my humble gifted product.

And now ... without farther humiliation ...



This will do nicely. Barnes slugs and Pellets are another option.



Gary



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/2011 05:06PM by barnespneumatic.

Pic of Mahogany stock being inletted.

Gary

Hi Gary:

It’s so nice to see a new Barne’s air gun come to life. Good luck on your following testing phase.

Julio

Thank you, my friend. I appreciate you saying so!

Gary

Love'em. Victory pistols that is.

Lon

Hi all. I do quite a bit of field testing work here in the UK for Bowkett. I don't know if this information is of any help for those seeking really good accuracy with commercial balls but here goes. Bowkett used to make big bore air and CO2 rifles going back to the late 1970s. He always used H&N round ball wherever possible if he didn't want to use special bullets or pellets. Over the years I shot many of his pistols and rifles using H&N balls and can confirm their accuracy. Once past 75-80 yards bullet and pellet shapes started to have the edge. The H&N balls were very black and dirty looking a bit like some Crosman pellets. They shared the latters unexpected accuracy though. The balls were not perfectly round but Bowkett told me they were treated at the factory using a process which put a series of flats on them a bit like a golf ball. He once had a batch of 9mm balls that had to be returned because they had not been through this process. They were all shapes but most resembled rather odd looking eggs. My findings were that accuracy was far superior using these H&N black golf balls than when shooting Hornady swaged balls which looked perfectly round and were a nice light grey colour. Hope this adds a point of interest to the discussion.

Welcome aboard El Caro! Interesting point indeed, I don't think I've ever seen the H&N "golf" balls.

Thanks for the welcome matey. They are readily available in Europe for smokepole shooters but I don't know if H&N have a distributor/importer for this sort of thing on your side of the pond. I spoke to Bowkett this morning about a new toy and have some further information about the .50" pistol Mr Barnes shot. It dates from the middle 1980s by the way. - Vic.

Good Morning El Caro,

Welcome. I'm glad you have joined us.

The information you have provided, is a fine addition. Thank you. I'd be interested to try these round ball. I'll have to research a supplier.

Years ago, I experimented with "screening" round ball. There were several approaches, but the basics were rolling the ball, in a random pattern, between two screen covered blocks. This imparted a uniform (if done truely random) surface texture of shallow cuts. It made the ball appear to be "knurled". One effect was to "upsize" the ball ... as the surface cuts displaced lead and made the overall ball fatter. The second idea was that this knurled surface was easily engraved by the rifling. Third, was the "golf ball effect". My testing suggested improved performance in the screened ball. Perhaps mostly from the "up-sizing" giving a longer rifling interface. Seemed to work. I have not done it for some time. Perhaps I should try it with the alternative buckshot I have here. In fact, I shall. Thanks.

Another technique I tried, to round out ball; was to roll them inside a precision ground ring, of the desired diameter. Rolled between two ground plates. The resulting ball had the high spots knocked down - was far more uniform. Several at a time could be rolled inside a ring. Fiddly though, and really a research project, rather than a recommended normal proceedure.

Nice to have the info. on the Bowkett pistol as well. I enjoyed shooting it. Was nice of Tony to make it available. Hello to Mr. Bowkett from all of us. Well wishes.

Gary



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/01/2011 02:12PM by barnespneumatic.

Thanks for the welcome. I'm afraid I'm more interested in shooting and don't pay much attention as I should to the technical side but your description of screening was interesting and beneficial if it adds to accuracy. Bowkett tried to duplicate the golf ball look of the H&N balls by putting balls in a stout plastic container with some large steel ball bearings and then playing the maracas for thirty minutes. It worked but the results were not as uniform as H&Ns' results. Perhaps German gourds or beans are different, hehehehehe. The H&N balls have flats rather than cuts in them so I suspect Bowkett was on the right track and H&N tumbled them in a drum along with steel balls. I will pass on your regards to JB when next we speak. - Vic.