I’m very interested in the firing pin layout what with the hammer being offset to the side, is it simply angled through the falling block at say 30ish degrees?
@@samholdsworth420 Jonathan has mentioned that that he is not an artillery expert, despite his official title. Of course they must have at least one artillery expert knocking about the Royal Armouries,
@williamlarge69 I was going to say, I'm sure he said that round was around 2500 grains (I think he said 2550, but can't say for definite) and, barring his build, it looked a pretty good match for the size of the display round.
British explorer Sir Samuel White Baker used a 2 bore black powder rifle in the 1860's. This quote gives you an idea of it "Among other weapons, I had an extraordinary rifle that carried a half-pound percussion shell-this instrument of torture to the hunter was not sufficiently heavy for the weight of the projectile; it only weighed twenty pounds: thus, with a charge of ten drachms [270 grains] of powder, behind a half-pound shell, the recoil was so terrific, that I spun around like a weathercock in a hurricane. I really dreaded my own rifle, although I had been accustomed to heavy charges of powder, and severe recoil for some years. None of my men could fire it, and it was looked upon with a species of awe, and it was named "Jenna-El-Mootfah" (Child of a Cannon) by the Arabs, which being far too long a name for practice, I christened it the "Baby;" and the scream of this "Baby" loaded with a half-pound shell was always fatal. It was far too severe, and I very seldom fired it, but it is a curious fact, that I never fired a shot with that rifle without bagging: the entire practice, during several years, was confined to about twenty shots. I was afraid to use it; but now and then it was absolutely necessary that it should be cleaned, after months of staying loaded. On such occasions my men had the gratification of firing it, and the explosion was always accompanied by two men falling on their backs (one having propped up the shooter), and the "Baby" flying some yards behind them. This rifle was made by Holland & Holland, of Bond Street, and I could highly recommend it for the Goliath of Gath, but not for the men of A.D. 1866.
Patrick F. McManus, outdoor humor writer, writes about borrowing an 8mm Label rifle to hunt with when he was a pre-teen. The round it shoots was the first smokeless powder round to be adopted by a military in the world, and still held on to some of the old black powder rifle practices. For instance using large round nose bullets of 232 grains. He describes the effect of a 12 year old boy firing the beast as "folding my shoulder blades like a taco." I think this could be easily applied to the Millennium rifle.
@JaenEngineering I think physically he would be strong enough. Look at Kentucky ballistics shoot the 4 bore. He's built like a brick shit house, and it knocks him around a bit. I assume this kicks even harder, and this bloke is not built like a brick shit house. He looks frail .
I love how everyone in comments is saying Scott from Kentucky Ballistics should come shoot this. Imagine the honor of that. Being an American offered the chance to fire the UK government's largest, most ridiculous small arm
Well, to be fair, if Ian McCollum is honored to review for Forgotten Weapons guns inside the Royal Armouries, Joe from Kentucky Ballictsics could be honored too, if he behaves and not destroy any tables or watermelon time the whole showroom.
16:32 Ian from Forgotten Weapons has done a coverage on a ~true 2 bore i.e the " Double Deuce " made by Stolzer & Sons. Weighs 44 pounds, 1.32 inch bore diameter barrel firing a 3500 grain projectile.
Britain may have lost its ability to design and build enough small arms to equip an army, but it can make absolutely wonderful firearms by three men in a shed.
Excellent video and I would like to specifically commend the editor for a fantastic job, take a bow, the hit markers were nice but the "Joules Jules" was perfection.
The biggest rifle caliber I ever fired in a single shot was the .50 BMG, a buddy of mine attended gunsmith college in Prescott Arizona and as his project gun build required for his graduation he built a single shot .50. The only commercial parts were the trigger group, a target system made for the Mauser system, and the barrel, a reject from a commercial manufacturer where one of the flutes on the outside of the barrel was cut to thin and separated from the barrel. She was a monster, he had a spring system in the buttstock that really didn't do what he expected and to tame down the recoil, he made several versions of muzzle breaks until settling on a nice flat type with 3 vents to channel the muzzle blast to the sides and back not at the shooter, but missing him by a few degrees. It along with the weight of the very thick receiver and long heavy barrel kept the recoil to a bit more then a 12 gauge firing a rifled slug. Uther then that, I did fire a .458 Winchester Magnum and several other magnum hunting rounds in my career as a part time gun smith and full time cop. It was the 50 though that I will remember as the ultimate, I am sure the 2 bore would hurt way more then the .50 BMG ever did. While serving in the US Army when I was a young man, I did have the opportunity to fire the M2 .50 Caliber machine gun off a tripod in Vietnam, we all did familiarization fire with the .50 and the M-60 30 caliber machine guns, and when I was with the 3rd Armored Cav down in Texas, our company commander decided that all his troops must be able to fire every weapon in our company, that was a fun week of hitting different ranges, firing everything from the lowly M1911A1 in .45 ACP to the track mounted 20mm full auto cannon. Because of cost we were limited to 5 rounds of 20mm but it was fun, being inside the track with a telescopic sight firing at 55 gallon drums with the big gun. Sadly our unit didn't have any tanks so we didn't get to fire them. Damn, that would have been a blast. When I served in Vietnam I actually carried both the M-16 and when carrying the PRC77 backpack radios, I was armed with an M1911A1. The only time I got to fire the weapon in any sort of fight, I was out laying wire for an outpost with several other field wiremen when some of the enemy happened to run into our little group. They shot at us and missed, we shot back at them with our .45's and M-16's and missed, they ran and we finished our installation of wire, then went back to Camp Haskins.
I used to live near Giles Whittome in Suffolk. We were members of the same rifle and pistol club in Glemsford during the 1980s and early 1990s. On one of his visits to my home, he brought another of his newly-built, massive falling block rifles to show me. This was his “Mammoth” rifle which was decorated with Mammoth ivory and engraving. It was chambered for .700 Nitro Express, which has a bullet of 1,000 grains, a muzzle velocity of 2,000 ft/second and muzzle energy of 9,000 ft/lb. Giles very generously let me fire several of his large-calibre rifled firearms: a .577/500 double black power express rifle, a .55 Boys anti-tank rifle, and a Holland and Holland 12 bore Nitro Paradox, which fired a 750 grain lead bullet. Of all the many rifles and shotguns I’ve fired, the Paradox was the most unpleasant, with heavy, sharp and painful recoil. I suspect that the original owner had it built on the light side for ease of carrying, and of handling when using it as a shotgun. If he only intended to use the bullets on rare occasions, perhaps he was willing to tolerate the recoil. I have photos Giles took of me firing each of these weapons, other than the “Mammoth” (which I didn’t fire, thankfully); I just have a couple of photos of me holding that one! I also have photos he took of me firing his .577 Black Powder revolver, which had similar recoil to the .44Magnums I owned. I would add that I sold all of my firearms around 30 years ago, and I now only shoot with cameras.
@@patrickwhittome4859 Hello Patrick, how is Giles? We lost touch after we moved from Suffolk with my job. I later took early retirement, and we moved to Dorset in 2002, and then to East Sussex in 2022. Giles is the most interesting person I’ve ever met. I always felt that he really belonged in the time when the sun never set on the British Empire, with the likes of Selous, Ewart Scott Grogan or Sir Samuel White Baker.
He's not good I'm afraid. He's 87 now. Released to palliative home care by Addenbrookes hospital as there's nothing more they can do, and with a do not resuscitate order. He's comfortable and cheerful when lucid though. In a way it's awful but in another it's really not. He's happy.
@@patrickwhittome4859 I’m so very sorry to hear that Patrick. My wife, Jacquie, and I were talking fondly about him only recently, and she’s now saddened to hear how unwell he is. She remembers Giles sitting on our kitchen worktop in Clare, chatting away to her while she was doing the dishes. I have many happy memories of times with Giles, such as when we went to Belgium in his NSU RO80, crossing the Channel by hovercraft to visit a Belgian firearms dealer, and when we went to the Army ranges in Lydd. You were there on that occasion, if I remember correctly. That was when we fired the Vickers gun, the Boys and the Paradox. If it’s convenient and the opportunity arises, please give him our love and best wishes. Every best wish to you, too. Neil
Aside from being absolutely ludicrously overpowered, this piece is fabulously nicely decorated. Thank you very much for sharing! I'm also very thankful that you were able to include some range footage, that was unexpected.
I think Ian from Forgotten Weapons mentioned about the use of "gauge" and "bore" in caliber measurement. If the gun is designed as a scatter gun, use "gauge"; if the gun is designed as rifle, then use "bore".
@@Piploidus The 4-Bore is normally 26.33mm in diameter and 2-Bore is 33.67mm, it's impossible to be a 2-Bore if it's 1.05 inch, and 1 inch is not 4-Bore it's an inch, unless it's measured differently between the USA and the UK.
I see people mentioning Kentucky Ballistics and how he should/would want to fire it. this "2 bore" fires a 2500 grain to Scott's 2150 4 bore so while it would be bigger its not by too much. I would love to see Jonathan Ferguson Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum which houses thousands of iconic weaponry from throughout history join Scott for some shooting
The problem with this comment is that Scott first owned a 600 nitro-express, then a 700 nitro-express. It isn't the miniscule difference in bullet weight, it's the ability to flex having the largest shoulder fired rifle.
This reminded me of a book on old ivory hunters in Africa and one (Walter Bell if memory serves) who used a four bore gun until his nerves got so shattered from having fired it so often that he nearly had to give up hunting. However he'd gotten such a good understanding of the elephants anatomy that he'd figured out he could bypass the elephants skull by shooting through the gap for the ear canal. Supposedly he got so good at stalking and lining up the shot that was able to use .275 bolt action to take a brain shot. Which, considering an elephants brain is the size of a loaf of bread while it's skull is the size of a recliner chair, would have been quite the feat.
Watched the Slow Mo guys shooting large calibre (one inch) weapons just last week. You could see the gun twisting in Dan's hand simply due to the rifling.
I am unsure where the bores stopped in terms of size, but this sort of bore, as a shotgun, was very common in the UK at one time, albeit with a very much longer barrel - punt guns. The original ones were made exactly as a shorgun except that they would have been muzzle-loaders, and with something like a 6 foot barrel. Very obviously not shot hand-held, but tied-in to braces across the punt and fired over the bow. I have not searched online, but I have seen, a loooong while ago, extremely old photo's of cartridge cases for substantially larger bores than this. I would imagine that punt-gunning is still legal, it certainly was in the 1970's/80's although no-one did it except as a once in a blue moon adventure and test of skill in understanding the quarry, the tides and the wind. Back at that time, I was told that one or two people were looking at making new punt guns and had identified JCB hydraulic tubes as potential barrels given the vast pressures that they work at. I suspect that things didn't get much further than plans. This gun must presumably have been shot, at the proof house?
I always thought this type of rifle wasn't primarily for hunting. It was for when you missed with both barrels of your already rediculously huge sporting rifle and now have 7 tonnes of enraged bull elephant with a headache heading towards you at 40mph. At which point you declare "It's coming right for us!", have your manservant hand you your 2-bore and stand-fast until you can see the whites of his eyes.
About 40 years ago I had the privilege of firing a 2 bore muzzle load, black powder shot gun. It was loaded with 7oz of ssg shot. The ram rod was a rake handle. The owner used it regularly on the Solway shooting geese at much longer ranges than our 12s and 10s. It was a real beast ... one I will never forget.
What a beautiful piece! I half expected to see a Trilby wearing James Bond - 007 shooting back with that great shot you gave down that rifled bore. Speaking of beautiful metal, is there any chance of you doing an episode featuring any Doune Steel flintlock pistols? They've long been a favourite of mine & I live quite close to where they originated.
I have built several guns the first was a 2bore muzzel loader. Then I thought no one has built a 8bore over and under. This took some 9months from design to completion; and the first one in the world! At the time. It turned out a real beast with under lever opening and single trigger: firing 3oz backed by 7drms black powder. After testing this on crows I took it to the marsh, where at dusk I shot a greylag with the very first shot at wildfowl. The next gun I built was a 1-1/4" muzzel loading punt gun which I made very short at 2mtrs, so it could be loaded in the punt. The Rusians have made a 4bore shotgun modeled on the 2bore that you show.
@@schiz0phren1cshoulder blades in recoil or weight? The weight in pounds Jonathan listed is not that much more than what I would have carried in the form of an M60 machine gun. Now recall that's a whole different matter. In the past I've actually shoulder-fired while standing a 50 BMG rifle but that was a extended bullpup with the action back over the shoulder.
If it takes two thousand man hours to hand craft, made by one guy, that's one rifle per year production rate, get five or ten people ahead of you in line and you will be waiting five or ten years to get your own.
When I saw that gun silhouette I immediately thought of Kentucky Ballistics 4 bore, its more or less the same shape and mechanism. BTw, kentucky ballistics is a great channel if you just want to see ridiculously big guns be fired. I also figured, an actual 2 bore, is because that would have to be at least a 3500 grain lead projectile, the recoil would actually be akin to a 950 JdJ which does weigh in on average at a 3600 grain projectile. The rifle that shoots the 950 jdj weighs in at 85lbs - 120lbs (39-54kg), and even at that weight produces around 400lbs of felt recoil. Basically an actual 2 bore falling block rifle could not be shoulder fired safely, which is why 4 bore is the largest caliber you can find for a shoulder fired rifle.
These old Bore rifles were black powder cartridges. Much, much lower velocity. Which is why they went through the trouble of making such big rifles in the first place. They couldn't get it done with half inch bullet traveling over 2000 fps like we can today.
@@edwardscott3262 for sure, and to be fair, at the masses of these bullets you don't need to go super fast for it to do what it's intended. More velocity would only help to extend the effective range of the rifle. These big bore rifles were often used as stopping rifles to stop whatever was charging you.
Everyone’s on the same page here. @KentuckyBallistics ears must be burning. And true 2-bore or not, 2,500 grains is still a slightly bigger round than Scott’s 4-bore.
