Smooth bore pistols

[simonrichter]

Are there any types of smooth bore pistols besides the Liberator (and the Gyrojet, of course) featuring a smooth bore barrel? I was just wondering if maybe some of the extremely junky saturday night special pistols were only equipped with a smooth bore barrel since it wouldn't make much difference there...

[Bill DeShivs]

Since 1934, all pistols sold in the US must have a rifled bore.

[simonrichter]

Is that already the "sawed off shotgun" legislature?

But before this time or outside the US? What I'm aiming at is that a rifled barrel is not absolutely necessary for guns that are anyway intended for more or less point blank distances, and an actual barrel is far more cost intensive than a simple piece of pipe with the right inner diameter.

[Model12Win]

Common back in black powder times.

[JoeSixpack]

Originally Posted by Bill DeShivs

Since 1934, all pistols sold in the US must have a rifled bore.

I don't even think home built smooth bores are legal are they?

[g.willikers]

There's the Lemat revolver with a shotgun barrel in addition to the regular one.

[BillM]

Nothing I know of post 1934 that isn't an NFA item besides the two you mentioned.
Lots before that-- Stevens, H&R, Ithaca etc.

There was the S&W QSP "tunnel rat" revolver built on the mdl 29--but it's NFA and
considerably rarer than hens teeth.

ETA: Just noticed your location. No idea WHAT the laws are in your area of the world-but wouldn't be at all surprised if the Belgians didn't make some cheap smoothbores. The Russians had some "special purpose" smoothbores, at
least one of which was purpose built for underwater use.

[Jim Watson]

I don't know Austrian regulations on gunbarrels, the US government does not trust me with a smoothbore modern pistol. Considering just the technology:

The manufacturers are tooled up to make rifled barrels and the rifling process is probably a small part of the cost of the gun. If they could have saved much time and money making smoothbore pistols in wartime, we would have seen them. Not to mention submachine gun "bullet hoses."

A smooth bore would not have the energy consumption of "engraving" the bullet into rifling or the torque to spin it up to stable rotation. A round ball would have little bearing surface, just enough for a good seal, therefore less frictional resistance. I would also expect it to give usable accuracy, much better than a tumbling cylindro-conical bullet, based on what I have seen from muzzleloaders.
I think that a round ball in a smooth bore could generate high velocity with normal chamber pressures and would therefore have high striking energy at self defense ranges.

Too bad I do not have the resources to license and test such a firearm.

[g.willikers]

Somewhere in the back of my pea brain, there's a tidbit of memory about a test of round balls and smooth bore shotguns that was impressive.
If memory serves, the results at 100 yards was about a good as a modern rifle, once the combination of effective components was discovered.
I'll see if the test can be found anywhere and report back if the search is fruitful.

[Jim Watson]

I recall that or a similar article. Great performance vs the slugs of the day but rather finicky to load.

[briandg]

I'm working through my memories, and there are a lot of things that come to mind, but chief among them was that along with other restrictions, banning unrifled barrels made garage gunsmiths from making illegal guns with steel pipe, for example. it required makers to spend more in manufacturing costs, in theory, making a cheap handgun harder to buy.

there were other things considered as well, and some were banned. guns with parts made of plastic, pot metal castings or sintered metals were considered "wrong" but not banned. Unrifled bores were illegal. It only costs a little bit to run a barrel through the machines, but that can only be done on expensive equipment.

The best way to describe this is that it was a "nuisance" law. It caused the larger, "legitimate" manufacturers such as Davis and jennings to spend money on what could almost be called useless or cosmetic features. It made it practically impossible for a mechanic at the gas station to make a gun that he could sell under the counter. It gave the government and police a single, simple object that they could identify with just the naked eye and prosecute clearly and easily.

We can compare this to a car. a firearm is illegal to own or sell with an unrifled barrel, and all you have to do is look down the barrel to have the answer. A car without headlights, seat belts, or other safety features is illegal to use on public highways in many places. Any police officer can see clearly if there aren't headlights, and the unsafe vehicle can be pulled over, examined, and eventually prosecuted for using an unsafe vehicle on public roads.

The owner of the jennings factory once said in an interview that if he could legally use unrifled barrels, he'd sell the equipment for scrap. With millions of barrels, the few cents that it cost to swage the rifling into the tubes was nothing but lost profits. He said that he did anything possible to cut costs and still produce a gun that could be safely fired.

[T. O'Heir]

"...round balls and smooth bore shotguns..." 'Buck and Ball' in a Rebellion era(you'd called it The Revolution. snicker.) musket. Believe it was somewhat common in the early 1860's too.
"...junky Saturday night special pistols..." Most were declared as such by unelected civil servants making law by regulation, but most were rifled, not smooth bores.
The Gyrojet actually used rock propelled projectiles.
The Liberator was designed to be applied to an Axis sentry/guard 's body and fired so the shooter could obtain a real firearm. They were never actually delivered to anybody though. Know a guy who has one. Whole thing except the barrel is stamped.
"...the "sawed off shotgun" legislature?..." Yep. National Firearms Act of 1934.
H&R made their 'Handy Gun' from 1921 to 1934 that could be had rifled or not rifled. Came in .410 or 28 Ga. until declared evil by the NFA of 1934. Rifled barrels were in .22 WCF and .32-20 with unknown others possible.

[Bob Wright]

On the subject of rifled barrels, Thompson Contender once made a .410 barrel for their pistol. To be legal, it had rifling. BUT the rifling was not spiral but rather straight lands and grooves that imparted no spin to the shot capsule.

Bob Wright

[ShootistPRS]

I have cast and loaded round balls in 410, 20, and 12 ga. shotguns. I found that unless you used some kind of stabilizer on them they did not travel straight. I put "comet tails" on the 12 ga balls and that helped a lot. The 410 and 20 ga. were fitted with a wad that was glued or screwed to the round ball and they worked very well. The groups were about half that of a rifled slug at 100 yards but the tails slowed them down pretty fast. The ideal fix would be a shaft with fins out the back but there isn't enough room in a shot shell to properly support the fins.

[simonrichter]

That is interesting about the Liberator. Since it was intended for standard ball ammo and not some special kind of slug load, what would have been the effective range? Only point blank or still a few feet?

[tallball]

"Buck and ball" meant that it was loaded with a musket ball, plus several buckshot.

[briandg]

When the contender first came out, IIRC, they sold a barrel that could fire .410. It was a .45 colt, standard rifling, and there was an muzzle attachment similar to a choke tube. The attachment just had a few ridges that protruded into the muzzle that would grab the wad and stop the rotation.

[rep1954]

Short barrel pistol grip shotguns are legal you just have to pay the tax stamp for it. A pistol that has no rifling except at the muzzle end of the gun is called a paradox and the rifling has no minimum depth set to it at least at the time I looked into making one. The rifling does not require any set twist. A paradox does not require a tax stamp and is perfectly legal for anyone to have or make one. Also federal law allows for both black powder long and hand guns to be smoothbore.

[JoeSixpack]

Originally Posted by simonrichter

That is interesting about the Liberator. Since it was intended for standard ball ammo and not some special kind of slug load, what would have been the effective range? Only point blank or still a few feet?

The purpose is all in the name.
It was designed for close range.. how close I don't know Im thinking 10 feet?

The sole purpose was to airdrop them enmass where at least some could be picked-up by resistance fighters, used to kill a German solider and gain their weapons.

The gun could be reloaded IIRC but that was it's purpose, it was single shot at a time, small, concealable, cheaply made for mass production.
If you made a reproduction it would be called a zip gun these days.

If memory serves the US never actually airdropped any of them.
Personally I think it was a great idea.

[Jim Watson]

If you want to give it a try, there is a repro Liberator. Barrel is rifled for retail sale.

One version I read said that by the time they got some Liberators built, STENs were so cheap and being smuggled in such numbers that Le Resistance didn't have to sneak up on a German to get his gun.

[briandg]

Most of the time, and I'm sure that I'm not alone, i lump NFA restricted arms in with illegal weapons. I don't mean to confuse issues or show ignorance, the fact is that certain weapons cannot be legally owned without a special permit for each weapon. The owner of unregistered NFA registered weapons are still violating laws and face prosecution and penalties.

I understand that manufacturing these weapons can only be done by special permit as well, whether it's the home gunsmith or a large scale maker, and those makers must provide the non standard weapons ONLY to resellers or individuals that have proper credentials.

I don't know enough about laws to go any farther.

I do have something to add, however, it seems that black powder doesn't fall under those restrictions. weapons change a lot of that. A blach powder blunderbuss that would ordinarily be restricted, say because of a short barrel, doesn't fall under those restrictions. I could be wrong, this is second hand, I did not read this directly.

[briandg]

I believe that the liberator came with four rounds in a storage magazine.

It's interesting that they bypassed NFA,so to speak, by not providing them to people within US jurisdiction. Our current system might raindrop them with a bill for $100 and demand that the be registered before using..

[rep1954]

This item can be sent to my front door and needs no tax stamp not even for the stock.
http://www.cabelas.com/product/Peder...tol/740261.uts

This requires a tax stamp.
https://www.impactguns.com/mossberg-...andle-ati.aspx

[briandg]

The howdah is a front loading, cartridge free black powder firearm. There is a difference.

[rep1954]

Yes I guess I took it for granite that when I said black powder that people would understand muzzle loader.