Standardized Shotshell dimensions.
 

I've finally gotten to use my 24" 28 ga. The gun was made in 1900, one of a pair of guns with identical specs, as ordered by Folsom. These two guns were the very first 28 ga. guns made with 24" barrels.
Brian Dudley did a first class job of converting the gun from it's original 13 1/4" capped pistol grip stock, to a 14 1/8" straight stock. Brian gave a detailed summary of this job on his Facebook page, BMD Gunstocks (https://www.facebook.com/permalink.p...69039873863885)
I bought the gun from the grandson of the original owner; his grandmother. She was given the gun when she was nine years old, in 1901.
I never shot the gun before sending it to Brian, mainly due to the very short stock.

So here's the part I referenced in the title, above. It turns out the rim diameter is nearly .010" smaller than my other 28ga VH, made in 1920. This smaller rim diameter makes it very difficult to close the gun, and equally hard to open, due to rim of the hull sticking in the rim groove of the chamber. This will be an easy correction, by using a rim cutter intended for standardized 28ga shells having a rim of .684"
What I am trying to learn boils down to whether early 28ga. shells had a smaller rim than today. SAAMI details the 28 gauge cartridge rim dimension as .687" +.000"/-.017". SAAMI was adopted in 1926, but were shotshell hull, and chamber dimensions different before that date.
As I stated above, the fix is very simple, but I'm equally interested in knowing why the gun was made with such a small rim groove.

I really enjoy looking at Brians work

Not an answer to your question but a related problem occurred with Remington 10 ga. hulls, new manufacture, in which the rims were oversize causing the same problem. The Cheddite and federal i had been using were smaller and worked well but the Remington caused the gun to close and open hard. Filing the rim a few thousands solved the problem.
Looked through my loading room for some old roll crimp 28's i had to measure them but they grew legs and walked off.

Bravo Brian!

Did you reconfigure the original trigger guard or find a replacement?

Terry, please bring that gem to Ernie's in June. It would be neat if we could have 28 ga guns displayed at the cocktail hour in barrel lengths of 24, 26, 28 and 30. Hopefully someone has a 28" and a 32" would really cap the evening off.

I have a 28" also, but my cocktail hour will be within staggering distance of my tent.
Dan, I have 4 different brand hulls here, in addition to a bunch of old ones in my collection. All are .680" and up to .6815"

Daryl, Brian also did a write-up about cleaning up an original straight guard, engraving, and niter bluing it.

I don't know if there's more than a manufacturing reason, but I have some new Magtech 28ga brass hulls. I forgot what they measured, but they drop in just fine.

Edgar, has your staggering distance increased or decreased over the years? Has experience/immunity increased your stagger distance or has age and failing joints taken their toll on what once could have been impressive stagger numbers? Asking for a friend. :rotf::rotf:

...or "staggering numbers."


Incidentally, I have a 24" twenty-eight gauge DHE made in 1908 and modern 28 gauge shells drop right in. I don't believe the rim recesses were ever cut larger.





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Mike, In the 25 years of going back and forth to the UK, roughly 60 days per year, when in London, I always stayed in the same hotel in South Kensington. The walk to my favorite pub was a pleasant 10 minute, 4 blocks over, and 2 blocks down to Old Brompton Road. My walk back to the hotel was a pleasant 45 minute walk back, 3-5 blocks up, 2-3 blocks over, 4-6 back the other way. It usually included 4 or 5 garden watering stops. The origin of leather patches on their sweaters (jumpers) was the crawl home from the local. In the outlying villages in was necessary to crawl using your elbows, so that you could hold a drink in one hand and a fag (cigarette) in the other. I know all this because a friend told me.

Funny stuff Edgar!





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What made that pleasant walk even more dangerous was the constant bombing by the Luftwaffe.:)

Now That is funny, though I took comfort knowing you were defending the realm in your Sopwith Camel.

Edgar's participation in a thread demands you pay attention because you know this is coming, maybe not now but wait it will come.

Edgar, that was CLASSIC!!!! Thank you!! :rotf::rotf::rotf::rotf:

I'd give Daryl the benefit of the doubt. He was probably flying a Spitfire!!

At the Las Vegas show in 2003 I bought a pair of English 28-gauge snap caps for my 28-gauge No. 2 NID and the gun wouldn't fully close on them. Returned them at the 2004 show. The English gun maker stated that early 28-gauges had thinner rims.

My 28-gauge Model 12 Skeet Gun won't quite close on modern 28-gauge rims, but functions like greased lightning with old paper Super-X or Super-Speed shells. It worked fine for years with the early 28-gauge AAs?!?

I seem to recall Babe saying something about having to recut the rim recesses on early Parker Bros. 28-gauges.

Dave, what year was your M12 Skeet gun made?

They weren't bombing in London during my many business trips there but I did get bombed never the less.

Yes is not uncommon for early 28 gauge guns to have extractor rim cuts that are too shallow for later-manufactured shells. Lawrence relieved the extractor rim cuts on both of my early VH 28s.

Early gun from 1937 or 8.

"Shallow" is not the problem. Diameter is the problem. One of our members owns a 28 gauge rim cutter and forcing cone cutter which he lent to me several years ago. It took me about 20 seconds to take care of the problem in two guns. It was much easier than the setup I did on a Bridgeport vertical mill about forty years ago for my first 28 gauge. Let me know.

You're very kind, Mike. I was always taught to respect my elders. Kindness aside, Birmabrite (aircraft Aluminium) had not been perfected for the skin of aircraft at that time. Cotton Canvas was all they knew. I'm certain that's where Daryl learned to appreciate those shorts he sports. Still, he is a legend, and in Churchill's memoirs of WW2, he was bemoaning that there weren't more flyers like 'Capt. Corona' He went on to say how much he appreciated, as a young man, the Captain teaching him how to smoke a fine cigar.

Dave and Kevin, as Monsignor Murphy pointed out, at least in the case of my VH, and his own, that it is the diameter that is causing the rims to stick in the recess. The depth seems ok, but I will be recutting the rim recess this week in any case. It couldn't be more appropriate that I will be using Hayes' personal rim cutter to accomplish this.

But was Hayes’ rim cutter made to the later wider size?





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Just call me Snoopy!

Now that you mention it Mike, my skills do lean towards the sporty Spitfire.:whistle:

Dean, you beat me to it. Hayes' rim cutter may be the pre 1906 model. I hope Edgar isn't too proud to ask me who I borrowed one from. He's a great guy and would be willing to lend it out again. By the way, its a full chamber and forcing cone reamer in one. I checked the price and you don't want to buy one.

Next time I see him, I'll ask. I do know that I loaned to another member who reported back that it was perfect. I do not believe there was a "later wider size" but do know that early rim recesses were shallower.

Yes Bill, I was looking at new ones in Clymers catalog. Like the Hayes tool, the Clymer tool is Just for cutting the rim recess. It is not a chamber reamer.

Spitfires and MGBs are your style my friend!!

The one I used, whether it was a Clymer or a Manson, cut all the way up, including the rim recess. It was a very light cut on the forcing cone, didn't take any metal off my cones.

The DH I used to have 1903 (see Avatar) would have trouble closing on new shells and if it would close, would be verry difficult to open. Some different manufacturers new shells would work just fine, some not. The problem seemed to be the brass rim. If there was a slight radius between the wall and rim, it wouldn't seat right. If it was almost a 90 degree angle, they worked fine. I had the rim cut worked on by Dewey.

I'm way to young to know about those planes.

I have a Clymer 12ga rim recess reamer I got to ream out my DH12 that has issues with Win AA hulls that have out of round rims. It has no issues with Rem STS hulls or old paper hulls. I've never reamed it yet because when you slide the pilot into the chamber and put the reamer cutters against the breech it's clear that the breech is not cut orthogonal to the bore center line as the cutting teeth aren't hitting evenly. This is assuming, of course, that the reamer is properly machined, which is not guaranteed. I can't see where the breech wouldn't be orthogonal to the bore. Anyone ever see this before? My cure for the DH12 has been to never shoot AA hulls in it. My 28ga Repro sticks with AA hulls also, sometimes seriously enough that you can't get it open without gently clamping it in a rubber jawed vise just enough to allow releasing the lever and opening it. So, I don't shoot the newer AA HS hulls in that one either. Vintage paper shells have nice round rims and work just fine.

Does the tool with the chamber reamer actually lengthen the chambers significantly or only to the few thousandths that it deepens the rim recess?






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Dean, It was my understanding that the chamber and forcing cone were cut separately from the rim recess. The original Parker tools cut the rim only, so going in with a modern tool would only just contact the original chamber when the rim portion of the tool had gone in sufficiently. The original Parker tool came with a go/no-go gauge. I am not planning on cutting the rim face, just the diameter. We're only talking about .0025" (.005 on the diameter)

Dean, the reamer I used will cut chamber and forcing cone as well as the rim recess. HOWEVER, the reamer did not take ANY metal from MY particular forcing cone or chamber. It was a very non-invasive reamer at the front end. It is piloted and makes a beautiful cut at the rim. The reason Edgar doesn't believe my description is because Manson and Clymer probably don't make this reamer any more. Not finding it in the catalog doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Edgar should know that.

The Clymer reamer I have has a bolt like shaft in front of the recess reamer section that has a sliding pilot cylinder on it. I'm thinking it just isn't machined properly and that I should toss it. Here's a pic. Does this look right to anyone? I think I remember this was not a catalog item and was 'custom made'....

Bill, What The F'n hell are you talking about? What don't I believe?
And, they ARE still in the catalog, but I don't need either, as I'm going to use an original Parker Rim cutter, not because I have to, but because I don't have to spend $300 bucks for a tool I'll likely never use again. I don't know who your friend is, but if you wanted me to know, you would have told me.

My VHE 28" 28ga "0" frame gun from 1911 had to have the rim cut larger. I used an older version reamer and it just barely took a cut into the beginning of the forcing cone. Has worked great and is one of my favorite dove guns.

I borrowed back the 28ga. rim cutter, part of a set which belonged to James Hayes, now in a private collection. When I owned these tools, I loaned the 28ga. cutter to another member who reported that it worked perfectly, and despite being 100 years old, cut perfectly. I used the darkest hand cutting oil I had and the newly cut surface was great.
It took only a few minutes per side to enlarge the rim recess to .681, removing .003" and .0035".

As you can see, the tool is date stamped '1921' which was common practice for cutting tools. James Hayes, was technically still called a tool maker, though at this time, if I recall, he was Asst. Superintendent.

Edgar, can you show a closeup picture of the working end of the cutting teeth? Am wondering if you keep cutting if it will make the recesses deeper. Is this the kind of tool they cut the original recesses with?

That really tickled me... Here's a guy (Edgar) who owns each and every model of vise that Parker ever made and look at the vise he's using... :biglaugh:





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It IS the tool they cut the rim recess with. The flights are sharpened both on the side and the end. It belonged to James Hayes.