10 gauge loads for a Damascus Barrel?

[Dean Romig]

Originally Posted by Paul Harm

You can get close by using a scale to measure the thickness of the wall where the shell goes in. Measuring the thickness of the walls from breech to muzzles is the ideal thing to do, but sorry to say, I've never done that and have owned over 25 or 30 different Damascus barreled guns. Four or five friends at the club have also owned many Damascus guns and no one has ever measured barrel thickness. I don't measure chamber length either. As for "published data " for the 10ga, Hodgdons has just put out one 10ga low pressure load and then there's Petes' data. That's about it. Low pressure loads to me are more about common sense than anything else. If it'll work in a 12, it'll work in a 10, with lower pressure. I'm not a collage grad, but I think it has to do with the volume the pressure has to work against. The bigger the volume, the less pressure. JMHO

Paul, I'm not picking on you but I don't think that's good advice for somebody just getting into old shotguns, especially classic old side-by-sides.
There are enough of them out there that have been honed nearly to death and the chambers lengthened to dangerous wall thicknesses that are literally "time bombs" and shouldn't be shot with ANY shell. Although I have done the same as you, I would never advocate an attitude of 'just go ahead and shoot it - it will probably be fine' - rather I would give the strong advice to have the wall thickness measured by somebody who knows how to do it...... especially in this case where the poster says "There is a bit of rust in the barrels but nothing crazy." where we have no idea of his definition of "nothing crazy".





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