Are Pressure Measurements Useful?

[Bruce Day]

[QUOTE=Austin W Hogan;24199]..... a shot column less than .8 bore diameter was compatable with a frame width comparable to bore diameter, plus a minimum chamber wall thickness.....
/QUOTE]


Austin, nothing said about powder charge at all? Surely that makes a difference and I'm sure King considered that in some manner. Parker designed gun barrels for smokeless powder in what, 1890?, and it was no longer true that a person could just stuff the hull with as much powder as it could take. Bulk smokeless took up less volume than black;ergo, the concept of dram equivalents.

Second, the charts demonstrate that 20ga shells take 3/4 or 7/8 and 12ga will take anything 1 1/8 and lower, but 16ga take 7/8 and are marginal with 1 oz. Looking at Parker ga/shot load table ( Small Bore Shot Gun brochure) Parker shows the 7/8 load for 16's and states 1 oz is not made and not recommended. At some later point, 16ga 1 oz loads began to be made and used in Parkers, but I don't know when, late 20's?? We think about 40% of 16's are 0 frame, 60% 1 frame. Most of the early 16's seem to be 0 frame. So was there a transition to 1oz 16ga loads and when?

Perhaps those charts mean that 16ga 1oz 3d loads are not made but 16ga 1oz 2 3/4d ( DuPont bulk smokeless) are. But even that would be incompatible per King's table.

[Hammer Fan]

Very interesting information. One question I have, is there any consideration as to shot size? Wouldn't 1 1/8 oz of 4's be "longer" than 1 1/8 oz. of 8's? I always understood loads of the same weight, would generate similar pressures regardless of shot size, everything else being equal. Hmmm, maybe this would make for a very good series of articles.