A friend of mine mounted a rifle scope on his 11 bore English Sporting rifle. It was set up on an almost side mount, with the ocular behind the nipple. Cap flash is almost nil with a properly fitting hammer and good lock. There was a minor amount of fouling on the scope body that wiped off with a cloth.
: With many of the production rifles, weak and or coil mainsprings and poor lock/fence geometry causes much more fouling to issue from the nipple than should be. In that case, I'd think the forward mounting might put the occular lense in jeapardy from high velocity flying debris.
; Steve, nice rifle, except for the scope, but realize the reason and agree with it's addition. Who knows, we may all have to do that some day - hopefully not.
: Some guys I know who cannot see a rear sight any more, have gone to smoothbores and call their game inside 50 yards for the shot. They still fill their tags, every year. The longer barrel of the smoothie allows them to see the silver front sight, and hot having a rear sight to screw them up, do just fine. Too, they can use the smoothie for upland birds, ducks and geese as well. One must shoot a lot with a smoothbore to learn how and where they shoot. Barrel bending to align point of impact is a way of life, sometimes and is easily done. Ball size should be about .030" under bore size, and a .018" to .020" patch used. proper crown, od course.