Daryl,

I don't know if the bores taper rapidly in the first 3 inches or so like my Alexander Henry rifles or if they are fairly linear. The twist rate really surprised me when I measured it. If you go by the Greenhill formula, it will stabilize a bullet that's over 2" long! The actual bullet couldn't have been that long, I'm fairly sure. I have no idea what bullet this rifle was designed to shoot but hopefully the Holland & Holland records will shed some light on this. The other thing that was a big surprise was the chambers. I had expected that they made this rifle to use longer than normal thin brass two-piece cases like Kynoch and Eley made but I'm certain that those cases would have ruptured in this rifle due to the larger diameters in front of the rims. This is why I'm fairly certain that drawn brass cases were used and I'll bet that these were needed because of the higher than normal operating pressure that was caused by a heavy bullet and 9-drams of powder. Depending on the bullet that was used, the "Bone Crusher" on the case might refer to the shooter's shoulder! Another thing that surprised me is how compact this rifle is. It's only 0.045" wider than my .577-3" BPE Watson Bros. double rifle. It feels like the .577 with a little added weight—not at all bulky feeling like the 8-bore. The Prince must have REALLY wanted this cartridge because it had to have cost a bundle to make those cases. A blanking die, a cupping die, a series of deep drawing dies and a heading die all had to be made in order to manufacture the cartridge cases. I wonder if any other rifles were ever built to handle this cartridge. I also wonder if a cartridge collector somewhere has one of these cartridges in their collection and has no idea what it is… You know that they must have made a decent run of these cases since I doubt that they ever expected to make more after the initial batch.

Regards,

Jim

PS: The cartridge dimensions are really close to that of the .700 nitro express. One of those cartridges would chamber if 0.023" was removed just in front of the rim and 0.003" removed at the mouth. The rim is a bit larger and thicker as well. If drawn cases weren't so expensive, this would be an obvious source for cases to modify.