Cutting edge bullets in prewar double rifles OK..?

[Pondoro]

Have any of you used them in older double rifles..? Or are they too hard..? Opinions here..?

 

[Altitude sickness]

Hopefully Michael458 jumps in. But if I understand his prior posts. He tested barrel strain on the banded solids (CEB) and they produced LESS barrel strain than conventional solids.

 

[michael458]

Hopefully Michael458 jumps in.

Jumping in! LOL.............

Have any of you used them in older double rifles..? Or are they too hard..? Opinions here..?

I am in no way a double rifle expert and or can't recommend one way or the other, for any given design or what have you. What I can tell you are the findings we did when designing the bands and bearing surface of the CEB and we also had excellent results with the North Fork bullets as well. Both designs gave much less "Barrel Strain" than all other bullets across the board in 3 different calibers, .474, .458 and .510. I have pressure equipment here, and my best friend and test partner is a Double Rifle fanatic, having well over 2 dozen different guns, all ages and makes. He of course wanted a bullet that would be safe in his double rifles. So we took a strain gage and put it 4 inches back from the muzzle so we could measure the amount that a barrel expands at that point, giving us the amount of barrel strain any particular bullet might exert on that barrel.

Our first test run was 470 NE in a double rifle. We were still learning at that time and used full loads to do the test. At the point of the strain gage we were still getting left over chamber pressures, causing the numbers to be higher than normal. But the end results were the same. We consider the Woodleigh Soft as the Benchmark Bullet... Considered Safe by historical standards. So anything that came in UNDER this would be considered Safe, and ABOVE that, well to be considered?

In all other tests for Barrel Strain we used reduced loads so that we did not get left over chamber pressures giving the higher numbers.

Below is the 500 NE Work done; Remember, the Woodleigh Soft is the Benchmark, below that is considered Safe in our minds anyway........

I decided to carry it further with 458 caliber, and since the strain gage does not know what kind of barrel it is attached to, I used one of my 458 B&M bolt guns to measure barrel strain and conducted several tests on many different days with it, results almost always the same in Ranking. Again using a reduced load so as to not interfere at the muzzle. I even had some special CEB bullets made with 3 and 4 bands, and coming in different diameters.

Overall we learned Two Main Factors effect Barrel Strain...... Bearing Surface and Diameter. Material the bullet was made from made a difference as well, almost all the Cast lead bullets gave extremely high strain numbers, in some cases higher than anything else. There were some differences in brass and copper that had the same bands, but minor compared to the lead bullets. Brass has more lubricity than copper.

This was a typical Trace with any bullet that gave lower barrel strains, this is what the curve looked like;

And this was always typical of a bullet that gave sharp or unwanted barrel strains;

Consistently across the board CEB and North Fork would always be substantially lower than most all other bullets tested. On occasion there would be an anomaly, for example a Barnes tested extremely low in the .458 tests, but when the bullets were measured they came in at .456, well under standard diameter. Most full metal jacket bullets came in very high.

What is safe and what is not? I can't answer that completely or decisively, what I can tell you is that if you believe the Woodeigh Soft is safe in your gun, and you have been shooting that in your gun, then yes, the CEB and North Forks will also be safe in your gun. Less barrel strain speaks for itself I think. I don't own a double rifle. Sam has a truck load and that is all he shoots in his guns. Some are old guns as well. We have tested and shot many doubles here for load data and barrel strain. We did not break any or cause any issues with hundreds of rounds fired.

Hope that helps you guys out...............

 

[MacJenkins]

I shoot them in all my doubles except one, new and vintage. My 450/400 is a prewar Westley Richards that I think has one bore slightly larger than the other. Every other bullet other than a Northfork I have tried I get roughly 150fps difference between barrels. I think the Northfork with their numerous small bands somehow seals the bore better. With their solids and CPS bullets my speeds are very close.

 

[zephyr]

Because of Michael's work I have been shooting them in my 1902 Gibbs 450NE since 2011-2012

 

[Aaron N]

Are they easy to get regulated?

 

[MacJenkins]

Are they easy to get regulated?

I have had zero issues getting them to regulate. They are the most accurate bullet I have shot in a double.

 

[Hunter-Habib]

James Purdey & Sons considers them (and indeed, all monometal bullets) to be unsafe in even their modern wares. Of course, Purdey being Purdey… they’ve always been staunchly conservative.

But then, Mark Sullivan is currently using Cutting Edge Bullets 825Gr Safari Raptors (loaded to 1862 FPS by Superior Ammunition) in his 1914 made .600 Nitro Express John Wilkes boxlock extractor. He shot a number of feral hogs with it over the last one month (getting warmed up for next hunting season in Tanzania). So far, he hasn’t reported any issues. Neither has his gunsmith, JJ Perodeau (former employee of the now defunct Marcel Thys gun making firm in Belgium).