New England Arms Trapper II project

[R J Talley]

OK, so I might be in the wrong group here but what the heck, I don't know where else to go. I picked up this neat little NEA Trapper II SB1 slug gun awhile back. Looking around the shop I also had a can of over 100 full brass 12 ga. hulls. After thinking on it a bit I came up with an idea that might be interesting. What if I got the barrel rifled with a shallow paradox type of rifeling, say 1-32 twist. I could load the brass with 150 grs of 2F and add the correct wads (I already load for several BP cartridges) and top it with LBT's new Paradox 12 bore slug. What I should end up with is a slick single shot 12 bore BP cartridge rifle. So now my question, what problems do you guys see?

[HuntenNut]

Probably cheaper to order the rifled barrel through the accessory program than to have the one you have rifled.

Other than that, should work. The usual concerns with cleaning up BP that Im sure you're familiar with.

There was an article on castbullet.com about a guy who took a 45/70 handi rifle and was loading and shooting cast bullets with black powder.

I'm no expert with BP cartridge, but I do some muzzleloading and I know that hard cast lead doesn't work well with them. You may want to make sure that the slugs you are getting are soft lead.

[R J Talley]

I feel like a dolt!  I later discoverd a web site that listed all of the H&R/NFA guns and what do you know, several were exactly what I was planning on building...at a fraction of the cost too! Thanks for the input guys.  :lol:

[50 Calshtr]

omgb,
    The only problem you might have concerns the difference in the thickness of the brass shells case walls vs the standard plastic cases the chamber is designed for.  Your brass cases are much thinner than the plastic so the wads and slug to fit them will be larger in diameter than the bore of the rifle is designed for.  This could easily be 20 - 40 thousandths, and could present some serious issues pressure wise.  I would use standard plastic cases and hard fiber wads over the BP. Not familiar with the slug you mentioned, I've been using the Lyman 535 gr slug with great  success in my Tracker II.

[R J Talley]

I've pretty much shelved the whole project for now.  FWIW, 11 GA wads are available for reloading these cases thus eliminating the pressure issue. Your concern was valid though. Thank you very much.

[MSP Ret]

omgb, so what do you have, the rifled barrel or the smoothbore with sights? If you have the smoothbore with factory sights and are planning to buy a rifled shotgun barrel I am interested in buying your smoothbore w/sights. I normally hunt in thick stuf with close shots so I would be happy with a smoothbore w/sights. Perhaps we could both get what we want and you could defray part of the cost of a rifled barrel by selling me your old smoothbore barrel, lets talk....<><.... :grin: ( armartin1@comcast.net )

[R J Talley]

I have the smooth bore but am going to keep it. I may change things in the future but not at this moment. Sorry.