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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