Feature

Return of the 4-Bore

Part One
By John Millar

This story has its beginnings in another century when Big Double Rifles firing huge lead bullets were more common in the African bush. It was these famous stories read in my younger impressionable years and a love of gun-making that planted the idea to build one of these great rifles.

A 500/465 Nitro Express H & H compared to a 4-bore.

he building of a double rifle is not a project to embark on without doing a lot of preparation. To choose the 4-Bore double would compound the task greatly as just gathering data on them - the rarest of all the firearms used in my favourite time period - would prove to be a monumental task. Tracking down the existing few that

have survived and gaining access to them was time-consuming, but I met many interesting and knowledgeable people on this quest. Many hours would be spent on this project between October 1985, when it started to take shape on paper, to September 1998 when I carried it in the Zimbabwe bush. At the time I started on this, my wife, Jan and myself, operated a

machine shop in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada, which is probably as far from Unit One Matetsi as you can get on this planet. I began by machining out lead bullets of varying diameters and shapes and comparing them to pictures in old ammo catalogues. The so-called 4Bores bullet diameters varied widely in the cartridge versions usually around .935 African Hunter Vol. 5 No. 4

Page 20

to .955 with the true one inch size normally found only in the old muzzle loading rifles. The 4-Bore size being an old reference measurement of 4-Balls to the pound of lead, which computes out to 1750 grains of weight. The cartridge rifles usually fired projectiles weighing around 1850 grains. I settled on a bullet diameter of .962, a weight of 1600 to 1850 grains and a case length of four and one quarter inches, which were the dimensions of Holland and Hollands one and only Nitro loaded 4-Bore that they built for a Maharajah. The barrel tooling was made up and the bores cut to 12 grooves one turn in 66 inches. Brass cartridge cases were machined from solid stock, a bulletmould cut out and a heavy steel test jig was fabricated. It was now January 1988, and on a mild 25 Degrees Fahrenheit day in the far north when we packed all this rigging outdoors to touch off a few rounds. Over the next six months, many pounds of powder and lead were consumed in testing and gathering data on 4-Bore cartridge loads. The general opinion seems to be that, Those old cannons werent accurate... they just made a lot of noise. Very early in testing loads (through a 110 lb fixture that slid on a steel-plate, two and half feet during recoil) it was obvious that excellent groups were possible with the right components and loadings. The best groups obtained during these bench tests, measured one and half inches centre to centre, five shots at 50 metres. The big question was still unanswered, could this be built into a rifle and could you come close to accuracy when the human factor, the weight of the gun, and the recoil were brought into the picture? At this point, I had yet to handle a real 4Bore or talk to anyone who had actually fired this calibre double rifle. Even the gun writers show photos of the 4s, but fire the 8s in their articles, limiting the 4s to the photo shoot session. The 8-Bore double rifle was the largest calibre to date that I had handled and fired. My own 8B Rodda .850 diameter bullet and my friend Neil Crosss Tolley, .890 diameter, both three and one quarter inch cases. So with these guns available for dimensional references to scale up from, I was able to continue on with receiver machining and start barrel contouring until the time that I was able to gain access to a real 4B to get all those subtle little details sketched out on paper so that my gun would look like the real thing. I chose a Jones style under lever, back action, hammer double to base my rifle on. This is the most elegant of all the big doubles and the only style that lends African Hunter Vol. 5 No. 4

itself to the 8 and 4-Bores mass, while still allowing the receiver and pistol grip area to be humanly graspable, and does away with that painful top lever and the certainty of a shattered collar bone from the recoil if your hammerless model ever doubled! I have seen it happen twice personally with lesser calibres. Besides, as it was written years ago, A gun without hammers looks as plain as a hunting dog with no ears, I would take this one step further. I decided now as I had made up so much tooling to machine the rifled blanks and hold and join them together, a second set of smooth barrels would be made up as well as a set of locks. All this would be cased along with a set of ivory handled cleaning and loading tools. After 20 years working in the gold mining areas of the Canadian sub-arctic regions, where Mastadons are occasionally unearthed from the permanent frost yielding some beautiful workable pieces of ivory, which I had been saving up for just such a special day. Now with four years and over 1000 hours and four trips to the Las Vegas gunshows behind me, I had finally shown my little pile of photos to the right person, who opened his gun room doors to me and just at the right time, as all the pieces were ready for final contouring. I think that the first time anyone fires one of these big rifles, that moment is imbedded permanently in ones memory cells. I know that I still can recall that day I carried all these assembled, painstakingly made

pieces outside, and held it up to my shoulder and made the hammer fall on 400 grains of Goex FG and a 1850 grain hard lead round nose bullet. It was October 1989 and it worked. I went back two and half steps, turned half-way around and the barrels pointed towards the sky. As I waited for the cloud of smoke to drift over to reveal the target, I remember thinking That was great. I fired several careful shots that day in October to get a grouping. The bullets crossed at 50 yards so a little unsoldering and wedging was the order of the day - but beginners luck stayed with me, and only this one regulating adjustment was needed to put them in the black. Now it was January 96, and another turning point in the 4-Bore saga. At the SCI show in Reno, I met Campbell Smith, South African PH with North Western Safaris. He had already heard the stories of this guy on North thats building a 4Bore from a mutual friend, DArcy Echols, a respected U.S. gun-maker. Campbell has such a way with words when he said, Why dont you bring that thing to Africa and go after elephant with me? And I said Wouldnt I love to - but I can give you 20 000 reasons why it wont happen and they all have little US$ signs in front. Campbell said Sit down, have I got a deal for you? Would you like to hunt elephant with that big rifle you built? Do you care about ivory? I answered, yes, to question

And Lou said, "What will that thing do at 100 metres!"

Page 21

one and no to question two (at that time I had several hundred pounds of ivory in my garage - prehistoric type). But I sure wanted some elephant hunting memories. He explained that he had a tuskless permit for Zimbabwe and an opening for a hunt, September 1998. It was a done deal and I didnt have to sell my first born to finance it. She would come along and be the film crew and cheering section. That was the good part about having a Dad that takes ten years to build a gun - you can be a little kid when he tests the barrels in the yard, and an adult when its Safari time. As I left Campbells booth, I remember him saying Make sure you do a proper job of putting that gun together and well have some fun. These words haunted me over the next year and half. Now it was a rifle to hunt dangerous game in Africa with, not a plaything to show friends and shoot at the range once a year. There was a deadline now, and a lot of finishing work to do on the gun itself, and shooting and sights to check. I finally finished the final polish and double checked and boxed the pieces to go across the whole of Canada. The metal to Heidi Hiptmayer for engraving and gold lettering and the stock-wood to Ted Girodat for a traditional 1880s checkering pattern. Ted also volunteered to rust-blue the 16lb barrel and baby-sit all the finished engraved metal work to a commercial heat-treater with a vacuum atmosphere controlled process furnace which would enable me to give the gun an old look whilst still having the right heat treatment. The clock was ticking when all the pieces were finally re-assembled into the finished rifle. Now a lot of shooting and walking, and shooting and more walking, was the routine of the day. With approximately 60 rounds fired at the range, I decided on some major changes in powder and bullet loadings. I had three concerns; the legality of shipping black powder loaded ammo even though the rules stated 5kg sporting ammo; reduce the felt recoil a bit so

a second shot would be a viable option; and re-design the bullet to cut a clean hole and maybe step up the velocity. The obvious solution: nitro loads, and I had this information on file. But I guess I really am a man of the 90s - but its the 1890s. The Nitro Load's pretty peppy, but I missed the smoke and they felt different! So along came Pyrodex Select. The bullet mould was recut to add another grease groove and a sharp shoulder at the nose radius to make it a dual dia style. Now to centre in the rifling and the added shoulder made the bullets cut clean in wood and paper (and buffalo hide as we found out). The new combo was lubed with SPG and the fouling wiped out easily. A new batch of brass cases were machined out with a slightly different interior profile and cut to accept shotgun primers to give the handful of Pyrodex a good spark. These eleventh-hour changes produced a winner. They grouped well, they smelled and looked good when fired, they met transportation legalities, a slight bit of the concussion was gone from the 400 grains of black, and velocity was up approximately 100 fps to well over 1400 now. The next item to direct our attention towards was a way to carry this great heavy thing. It became obvious on the first hike - you cant carry a 24lb rifle on a sling, as it gives new meaning to the phrase Cuts off the Circulation. Also both hands needed to be free for glassing game or crawling and stalking. All difficult to do with a heavy object dangling off one shoulder. A shoulder harness and belt arrangement seemed the way to go, and after a few quick designs, one was settled on and cut out of leather. The rifle was attached to the harness with those plastic quick release buckles found on back packs. They worked well, were quiet and could be released easily without having to take your eyes off the game. The rifle loaded and four rounds in the pouch with the weight of the harness totalled 31 lbs. It worked well in the African bush, carrying the gun in close to my body and distributing the weight well off both shoulders.

Make my day! A .465 pales into insignificance next to a 4-bore.

Everything was together now and even the weather co-operated, with the whole last month over 100 Degrees Fahrenheit every day. Just perfect for a two-hour hike up the mountain in full gear - mid afternoon - to get toughened up and fire a few shots each day at the target I had hidden in the deep forest where I could simulate actual hunting conditions: into the sunlight, through shadows or with the target board hidden partially behind branches. These outings were also valuable to check out the rigging - to find out my favourite shirts pocket is too small to accept my compact binoculars or that one pair of shorts had an annoying little flap that hooked the rifle swivel every time I turn around. Hundred break-in miles feels good on your new hunting boots when you leap out of the Land Cruiser for a little hike through the thorns. Your boots are one of the areas that your PHs eyes go to on your first meeting and you can hear a small sigh of relief when he sees that they had been out of the box prior to this moment. The August 28 departure was now at hand, and I released my sweaty grip from the big gun case to let it register on the scales at the local airport at 34kg. Well under the 35kg-limit! I hope the system did work and that the big black Pelican case would meet me two days later in Joburg. I had chosen to fly British Air, so Tracy could join me at Heathrow for the flight to Africa together. The ladies in the British Air booth at the SCI show had assured me that problems in the past with guns flying through Heathrow were just that, Problems in the past. We flew out in the evening and even though it is a long flight, after not seeing each other for nearly a year (as my daughter is now in Edinburgh) the night passed so quickly and the sun came up just as we broke free of the cloud cover and illuminated Zimbabwe and Lake Kariba and the Zambezi Valley on our way to Joburg. Joburg airport was uncrowded and ALL our baggage had made it. A quick stop at the customs counter and then a helpful agent filled out the necessary gun permits - the rubber stamp made a big thump and we were out through the doors to be greeted by a big smile and a hand shake, as PH Campbell had come to collect us and get us pointed towards Zimbabwe. We had flown to Africa three days earlier than our departure day to Zimbabwe, just to allow for any baggage to catch up or the ill effects of jet lag to pass. We therefore spent the time game viewing and enjoying South African hospitality at its finest. In the next issue well look at the hunt and the 4 bore's performance on African game.

Page 22

African Hunter Vol. 5 No. 4