Still waiting for Ruger to get my No. 1 back to me (the cracked stock has been replaced and it’s awaiting test-firing now), so I’m picking up other bits-and-pieces in the meantime.

Today’s delivery: ammo and dies. I ordered one box of Hornady’s very expensive ammunition just to use as a reference in developing handloads. At $80/box, I doubt I’ll ever buy another. While the proof will be in the shooting, quality looks excellent. In a nice nod to tradition, Hornady leaves the brass unpolished after annealing; that’s why you see the color of the brass change just below the base of the shoulder. It’s sitting next to a 9mm so you get a sense of scale.

Big cartridges need big reloading dies, and these are almost comically huge. They’re also NOT easy to find; Hornady doesn’t even list this die set on their website. I finally them tracked down at Graf & Sons, who only have one more set in stock as of today. If you need ‘em, grab ‘em NOW. The only other alternative is RCBS at over four times the price.

Damn, this is gonna be FUN!

Most of us are familiar with gauge designations for shotguns, the familiar 12, 16, 20, etc. Knowledgeable shooters know what the gauge number represents: the number of pure lead balls of a given diameter that weigh one pound. The bigger the bore, the fewer lead balls it takes to reach one pound, and the smaller the gauge number.

Some historically-minded shooters also know that gauge rifles were once quite common in England, where they use the term “bore” instead of “gauge”. In the black powder era, a 12-bore rifle was a fairly common big-game rig. Early dangerous-game hunters often used 8-bores or even 4-bores against buffalo and elephant. There’s an excellent article on the big 8s and 4s here.

I’d known about those beasts before. I did NOT know that there’s now a 2-bore, built by master gunsmith Giles Whittome. And yes, there’s video of very, very stupid brave men shooting this monster. Click here and be amazed. Mathematically-inclined readers no doubt realize we’re talking about a rifle that shoots HALF-POUND bullets. Oh, and the rounds they’re shooting in that video are reduced loads. Maximum loads burn 24 drams of black powder; that’s a full ounce-and-a-half or 656 grains!

I’ll stick to my friendly little .416 Rigby, thanks very much.