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Old 11-16-2013, 06:55 AM
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Nomercy448
Nontypical Buck
 
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Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Kansas
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If you can find them, European American Armory used to import Baikal side by side shotguns, and you could find after market barrel sleeves for them to convert the 12ga down to .45-70. Whole kit, at the time I did it, cost $400. The shotgun patterns regulated together well at 25yrds, but I had to have a smith resolder mine to get the rifle barrels to regulate together at 100, added another $100.

I'm about 80% sure that the Remington import doubles were actually Baikal made (The Remington Spartans).

I had a few Baikal shotguns and rebuilt a dozen or so of them for cowboy action shooters. Eh, it is what it is. Nothing fancy, works well enough.

I'd imagine you could find similar sleeve conversion kits for other models still today.

For what it's worth, however, you'll end up with a crappy rifle if you convert a shotgun. The stock design and especially the trigger are meant for wing shooting, and far sub-par for a rifle. So you'd really be better served to buy a double rifle.

A proper gun builder should be able to build you a double rifle for a lot less than $7k unless you're building one to mimic the old euro versions (elite quality wood and finish, checkering, engraving, etc). I'd be hard pressed to believe it would cost more than about $3000-4000 to have one cut from virgin steel, less if you provided an action to build upon (16ga shotgun action would probably best bet). It's just a matter of mounting barrels at that point.

The .45-70 double I had was a blast. I used it more often as a 12ga x .45-70, with only one sleeve, for coyotes. With 00 buck in one tube and a hard cast bullet in the other, it was a very versatile coyote killer. If only it were faster for follow up shots!
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