Traditional Long Range gun..Whitworth or ???

[mountaineer magic]

Does any one have an opinion on either the Dixie Whitworth 45 cal(.451) or the Parker Hale Whitworth? ( .451 )I believe the Dixie is made by InvestArms. I am interested in a long range target rifle . The Whitworth seems to be the choice of many but I don't find many reviews. the ones you do find seem to indicate rather difficult loading with the standard Whitworth conical. Also does anyone have any experience with the Whitworth Hexagonal rifling or is the Henry rifling as good? Any advice is appreciated. Also :I plan on putting a green Mountain Sharpshooter barrel with a 1:24 twist on my Hawken. Do you think with a long Parker conical that this barrel will come close to matching the range of a Whitworth with the .451 conical if the BC of a 50 cal.conical is high enough or would the mass of a 50 cal give it to much of a rainbow trajectory? This would be for target only , so I'm not worried about ft pounds of energy

[spaniel]

Don't know, but your trajectory will be rainbow either way!! The trick with those big heavy conicals is they still fly well subsonic, so you just need to know the range and your drops and guess the wind well. The real limiting factor is going to be how well you can use your iron sights at long range. You don't want to skimp on the sights.

[cayugad]

I will be real interested to see how well that GMB Sharpshooter barrel works for you. They are supposed to be good conical shooters.

As for long range, I have no experience. Only what I read. For instance the Whitworth required a special hexagon shaped conical. And the barrel had to be basically cleaned between shots. They were very slow loading from what I read but also very accurate. As to whether one brand is better then the other... again, sorry no help here.

Other long range guns were the Gibbs rifle made in England. Queen Victoria I believe it was actually shot and hit a target at 400 yards with a Gibbs during a shooting match. Shooting matches used to be very popular. The Gibbs is a Pedersolli and they too are .451 or I think they come in a .40 caliber as well. I had someone asking me about loads for one once, and I told them if they owned the rifle and had a manual, they had a lot more knowledge then I had.

Another rifle to consider is a target model Sharps. Some of them were able to pull off some extreme distance shooting. In fact after the introduction of the Sharps, many shooting clubs (after the war)wanted them banned from their matches because they felt the Sharp had an unfair advantage.

Long range rifles are fascinating to say the least. That is why that Sharpshooter barrel has my interest. Be sure and post some results on that for us/me.

[mountaineer magic]

Thanks Dave. I ended up deciding on the Pedersoli Gibbs. The Hexagonal barrel of the Whitworth gave me a little concern. I wanted something that wouldn't be extremely difficult to load. The Gibbs will probably be enough of a learning curve. I have never cast my own bullets yet, so that will need to be learned soon.
I am anxiously awaiting the Sharpshooter barrel for the Hawken. I think it will be a real good shooter. Hopefully it will be out in March as scheduled. They are suppose to e-mail me when it is ready. Thanks for the info on Bullshop conicals also
chet

[cayugad]

They will sell just the Sharpshooter barrel without buying the rifle and that tube scope? While another rifle is always cool at my house, and that is a nice looking rifle, it looks like nothing more then a T/C Hawkins, with a GM barrel and that tube 6x scope that would be a gas to sit and shoot.

I read the Bridges evaluation on the rifle. It sounded very good. BUT I always take that, when a person is in some manner being compensated to evaluate something with a grain of salt. People like us have nothing to gain by telling you something is good, bad or junk. That's why the shooters of this forum have such good information for me.

I am waiting to see how it shoots. I thought about getting one of them, rifle, scope, the whole thing. Or I will get something else but custom this time and big caliber. I had one ordered a couple years ago actually and the deal kind of fell through. I am due for a very fine rifle... Maybe sell off part of the collection to pay for it all..