British Shotguns and Slugs?

[WAB]

Beautiful weapon scrummy! The live pigeon guns and waterfowl guns were also quite heavily built. My friends uncle was quite a shot on the live pigeon circuit. His gun was cross stocked as he was left eye dominant. It is on display in one of the major British museums. Quite an interesting piece.

 

[Scrumbag]

WAB, yes those live pigeon guns were often solid pieces.

I wonder with a 10b 3.5 single lead ball recoils like...

 

[Red Leg]

I have three golden age pigeon guns. One is a stunning German guild gun, the second a William Cashmore "Nitro", and a Gebruder Merkel OU. All are proofed for 1 1/4 ounce loads. I normally shoot 1 1/8 ounce from them in the ring unless it is a large purse. All have 32" barrels choked tight and tighter. I would never dream of running buckshot or a slug through any of them.

 

[WAB]

Totally agree, I was just making the point that they are more stoutly built than typical game guns. Beautiful guns by the way!

 

[Scrumbag]

Lovely guns, Red Leg

 

[Major Khan]

For English game guns of the period with 2.5 inch Chambers , this cartridge was in existence .
Below , is a photograph taken from the internet for reference.
The brass length is only 10 millimeter and it is a " low charge cartridge " . The ball is of 16 calibre , and weighs exactly one ounce . It was designed to be fired through the tightest of 12 calibre chokes without causing damage . These were not designed for serious hunting , but rather for those users of traditional English game guns who occasionally ran into a wild boar or a 4 horned buck in India and wanted to take it .
I used these cartridges extensively in my career as a professional shikaree ( as well as when hunting in my personal time) . Initially l used the factory cartridges as is . However , l was unsatisfied with the lack of penetration and so after 1965 , l started removing the ball from the 2.5 inch Grand Prix cartridges and loading them into 2.75 inch Eley Alphamax cartridges by removing the shot from them and replacing them with the ball
( I will detail the process in a future article on this site )

Eley Grand Prix spherical ball cartridges .

 

[perttime]

I have three golden age pigeon guns. One is a stunning German guild gun, the second a William Cashmore "Nitro", and a Gebruder Merkel OU. All are proofed for 1 1/4 ounce loads. I normally shoot 1 1/8 ounce from them in the ring unless it is a large purse. All have 32" barrels choked tight and tighter. I would never dream of running buckshot or a slug through any of them.

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Firing a slug through a "tight" choke is a bad idea in any case.