Patience may well be a virtue, but it’s always in bloody short supply for folks like me. Oh, I’m certainly more patient than my dad ever was to be sure, but that’s an awfully low bar and it comes with ZERO bragging rights. What I lack in patience, though, I make up for with mule-headed stubbornness. A case in point:

Something like fourteen years ago I came into possession of a svelte little Chapuis double rifle in 9.3x74R. She was the epitome of sultry French hotness: beautiful wood, color-case hardening, just a bit of subtle, tasteful engraving. Detachable mounts held a Leupold 1x5 with a thick reticle, while the open sights were a big white bead up front and a red fiber optic rear dovetailed into the quarter rib. For Luddites with my taste, this package could be put up against most everything in North America and a great whacking chunk of what’s available in Africa!



Except for one TINY detail: I couldn’t get the bloody thing to perform for me. Even with the details of the load used during regulation (the process of making TWO barrels shoot to ONE point of aim that MUST occur during the building of any double rifle), I could not duplicate the results shown by the proof target…or even anything close!

Both barrels shot well enough individually, as doubles quite often do…but they didn’t want to play together regardless of what I fed them. Now, a PATIENT man might take a slow, measured approach and scientifically sieve the data for clues. Not me; no, sir. I’d get frustrated and put the rifle back on the rack to be ignored for 2-3 years…take THAT, you French trollop! When enough time had passed and my frustration was once again overcome by the beauty winking at me from the back of the vault, I’d drag her out and start the process once again. And I’d fail…again.

During all this time, though, I was exposed to other doubles that DID behave…and I learned a lot. And primarily what I learned was that most of what I thought I knew about doubles was flat wrong. Anyone with answers to double rifle questions that hasn’t spent time learning their idiosyncrasies (and likely getting professional treatment at the same time) simply doesn’t understand the Gordian Knot that is a double rifle! Early in my oilfield career, I learned the truism that “Everybody has a scheme to make a million dollars that won’t work”…well, when it comes to double rifles, “Everybody has a theory or assumption that’s WRONG”. But don’t despair; as long as there’s folks like Aaron Little, Bailey Bradshaw, J.J. Perodeau, and the recently-retired Butch Searcy, mere mortals like me have hope…and God bless Graeme Wright for writing “Shooting the British Double Rifle” (required reading for folks fond of twin-tubed rifles)!

So recently I drew a line in the sand with this rifle: either I’d find a load that it would regulate with, I’d have it RE-regulated, or I’d sell it outright. The last option would likely involve taking a financial bath, as any savvy prospective buyer’s first question would be “what’s it regulated with”? Answering that query with “It beats the heck outa me” doesn’t exactly set folks aquiver with confidence…

First item of business was to decide what bullet I’d use. Since there would likely be a fair bit of shooting involved, my selection would need to be both available and at least reasonably priced. I settled, finally, on TWO choices: the Hornady 286 grain Spire Point and the 286 grain Nosler Partition, as I’d learned that both bullets grouped well and showed very similar points of impact on target.

Selecting a powder charge with an anticipated middle-of-the-road velocity resulted in the barrels “crossing”…with the right barrel impacting left of center and the left barrel hitting to the right. While not gospel, it is conventional wisdom that while barrels “shooting apart” (where the right barrel hits to the RIGHT and the left to the LEFT) can often be remedied by increasing muzzle velocity, “crossing” may be addressed by reducing velocity. As my early attempts had been with Vihtavouri N-140 and Winchester 760 and I needed to drop velocity, I switched to 44 grains of Varget under both the Hornady and Nosler bullets…and immediately saw significant POI shifts at the 60-ish yard distance I was working. Progress…and enough to warrant moving back to 100 yards for further tweaking.





The two holes on the right are the Hornadys; the other four are Partitions


As with all double rifles, this is a bonafide hunting rig…so I REALLY wanted those Partitions to step up and (for the first time in 14 years) I wasn’t disappointed! They plunked two rights and two lefts into 1 ½” and delivered a pair of the Hornadys into ¾” with the composite group measuring 2 3/8”. That performance earned the little Chapuis an opportunity at nilgai a few days later outside of Falfurrias, and, when given an opportunity, it swatted a young bull cleanly into our freezer. Success was a long time coming, but it sure am sweet!

The little Chapuis after firing its very first shot at game

Congrats Mark, Persistence and perseverance paid off, well don Sir.

Nice write-up Mark, thanks for sharing!

At the last DSC I attended, I stopped to study the beautiful double rifles an English company had at their booth. I don't think they had anything under $10K. I asked the salesman how they got both barrels to coincide bullet impacts (I didn't know it was called regulate). He went into a lengthy explanation which I only half remember now. But I do remember that he said they built the rifles up to a functional shooting point but without final metal finishing. The rifles were then shipped to their own specialist that "adjusted" (shimmed?) the barrels together & then returned the rifles for final locking the barrels together & then the final finishing of the rifle.

Oh yes, regulation of doubles is done "in the white"...and with the ONE load that it was intended to fire over it's lifetime. For the gape-mouthed rifles chambered for "stopping" cartridges and built by the likes of Rigby and Holland & Holland back in the day, this meant factory ammunition from Kynoch...and when they ceased production of ammo back in the '60s it left a lot of the old guns without ammunition. Thankfully, a number of enterprising folks began experimenting with modern powders (instead of the cordite that Kynoch used) and modern bullets to find a way to essentially "back into" regulation for a particular rifle.

I've about come to believe that there isn't anything that DOESN'T matter when finding a load that will regulate for a particular double. Powder, bullet weight, shape, bearing surface and, of course, velocity all combine to be able to deliver hits from two barrels onto one point of aim. And remember that the old regulation standard for the heavies used to be "a right and a left on a playing card" at 50 yards. These days, practical accuracy far better than that is attainable if you want to spend the time!

I very briefly owned one of these about 15 years ago. Nicely built rifles. Congratulations for having the patience to sort it out and whack that nilgai. Rumor has it that Graeme Wright is just finishing work on the fourth edition of "Shooting the British Double Rifle."

I'd seen that. My copy is a 3rd edition but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't welcome a 4th!

The 3rd edition is virtually unobtanium, so I’m confident any new edition would sell very well. Certainly I would buy one.

I’m currently in the middle of load development for a .500/.416 and an 8x65r. I appear to have found acceptable loads for both but I’m angling for a bit more velocity in the .416.

Congratulations on your success on not one but TWO doubles! What kind of velocity are you currently seeing with the 500/416?

Nominal velocity is 400 grains at 2325. My load that converges well is running 2175 give or take a few. I don’t expect 2300, but I’d like to squeeze out a little more velocity if possible. I couldn’t find any Norma 217 or Woodleigh bullets which are likely the components with which the rifle was originally regulated, so I’m working with Hornady bullets and Staball HD. H1000 was supposed to work, but it didn’t play quite right with the Hornady bullets.

We want what we want...but that's not 150 fps that I think I'd argue about!

And see? I'd heard wonderful things about H1000 in those big cases but here's a case where the combo wasn't quite right with the bullets at hand! Folks that think doubles don't have a mind of their own haven't fooled with them much!