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Thought I might post this as a reference for anyone putting a double together for the first time. It may be something that is overlooked on a first build, getting the overall weight as light as possible (and in the right place) as well as managing the recoil of the chambering. It makes a big difference to the finished gun and how much you enjoy hunting with it.

Like everyone else I've trawled the used gun sites looking at weights of the old British Doubles and they seem to be all over the shop. Doubleriflejack and I touched on this in another post. John Hunter was a well known PH in Africa back in the day. He wrote in one of his books that his favourite gun was a Holland 500NE with 24" barrels that weighed 10lb 5oz.

John Taylor, another African hunter who needs no introduction also seemed to prefer guns that appeared light for caliber. These men wrote that they carried their rifles for a lot of miles and did little target shooting bar sighting in their rifles. Below is a table from John Taylor's book "African Rifles and Cartridges" from the late 1940's which shows the weights of Double Rifles from the various brit makers. The "New Weight" shows that they lightened their guns as new and better barrel steels became available.

RIFLE..................Normal Weight.................New Weight
Caliber................Double bbl.....................Double bbl
600NE..................16 to 18 lbs..................14 1/2 to 15 1/2 lbs
577NE..................12 1/2 to 14 lbs..............11 1/2 lbs
500NE..................11 1/2 to 12 lbs..............10 1/2 lbs
470NE..................11 to 11 1/2 lbs..............10 1/2 lbs
465NE..................10 3/4 to 11 1/4 lbs.........10 1/4 lbs
425WR..................11 lbs..........................10 1/2 lbs
450/400NE............10 to 10 1/2 lbs..............9 1/2 lbs
375 Mag................9 1/2 lbs......................8 3/4 lbs

He also mentioned that Holland built their 465NE to weigh 9lb 6oz when they had access to tungsten steel barrels. No doubt you'd know that you pulled the trigger when that one went off.

Please add any info which you feel may be of use. For those who've built doubles it would be useful to add barrel lengths and profiles you've used and final gun weight if you wish to share this info as a reference for others.

Rhodes

Edited by Rhodes (28/07/13 05:20 PM)

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