All,

I figured it would be a good idea to post a follow-up to my recent threads regarding my new (to me) H&H Paradox. The gun is by no means a museum piece, but because of that I was able to purchase this one for a reasonable price. Here are a few pics:

After purchasing a set of plug gauges, I was able to determine the bore measurements at 9" from the breech, those being .739" (right) and .738" (left), so still within proof.

Following load recommendations from various sources, I settled on a starting load of 21.5 grains of Unique under a 785 gr. lead bullet from a Cast Bullet Engineering mould. I used a 16:1 lead to tin mix to try and duplicate the original and close as possible. As for wads, I used a .125" nitro card over the powder, and then three 1/4" cork wads to bring the bullet nose even with the trimmed federal gold medal paper case mouth. The first few shots with this load produced good individual barrel groups, but vertically stacked about 6", and about 4" wide. Back to the drawing board...

After chronographing the 21.5 grain load, I realized that my velocity was quite a bit short of the original 1000 to 1050 fps. After increasing the charge, I settled on 23.0 grains of Unique to get right at 1000 fps. Due to the heavier than original bullet I was using, I decided to stop there to avoid increasing pressures to a dangerous level. Groups with this charge were closer together, but still not what I was looking for. I remembered reading in one of the DGJ articles that some had better luck with more or less wads. So I quickly loaded up 10 more with 4 cork wads instead of 3, and VOILA, some decent groups!

Here is 4 shots (alternating right/left) at 50 yards:

Just to make sure, I fired another 4 at the same target, here is 8 shots at 50 yards:

Now I wanted to test the 100 yard sight leaf, here is 3 shots offhand at a 100 yards (I pulled the 4th shot to the edge of the paper, my bad!):

For a gun that is 125 years old, I'm happy with this performance!