308 
FOREST AND STREAM 
July, 1921 
DR. HEATHS CHAMBERLESS GUNS 
KNOWLEDGE OF THE LARGE AMOUNT OF SHOT THAT MUZZLE LOADERS WOULD 
CARRY PROMPTED THE EXPERIMENTS WITH BREECH LOADERS ON SIMILAR LINES 
By W. A. B. 
S EVERAL months ago reference 
was made in these columns to the 
experiments in barrel boring that 
have been made by Dr. Charles Heath, 
the London surgeon, whose long range 
chamberless guns have interested 
sportsmen in every quarter of the globe. 
In a recent letter published in the 
Shooting Times, Dr. Heath refers to 
the call that was made upon him by the 
editor of Forest and Stream last win- 
ter, at which time the Doctor very kind- 
ly placed all of his data at the dis- 
posal of American sportsmen and gun- 
makers and he has further gone on to 
say, “There is nothing to secrete about 
my guns, there is no patent and I have 
repeatedly lent chamberless guns for 
gunsmiths to copy both of the Anson 
and Deely and of the side-lock types, 
in order to save the time and expense 
incidental to the designing of the vari- 
ous products of a new type of gun. It 
was the knowledge of what a large 
amount of shot the old muzzle loader 
would carry that induced me to see 
what a breech loader would do if built 
upon somewhat similar lines, excepting 
as regards the choke, but with better 
ignition, better powder and wadding 
and a smoother barrel. First of all I 
built a single barreled gun, or rather 
fitted a new single barrel to an old ten 
bore stock. This barrel had no chamber 
at all, but as the French thin brass, 
solid drawn cases were slightly tapered, 
the last half inch or so at the breech 
end of the barrel was slightly eased to 
prevent the cartridges from sticking 
fast there while being inserted in the 
barrel. The bore of the barrel had, 
therefore, to be an easy fit for the cart- 
ridge. 
Jack Wheeler, the great barrel filer 
and an artist at his work, bored the 
barrel. He, I am sorry to say, is dead. 
Yet his splendid work survives and 
I am glad to know that the barrels of 
all my guns were filed by him. I often 
looked on at his work. When Baker, 
another celebrated barrel borer, plated 
this single barrel gun I was not pres- 
ent as it was only an experimental one 
and not for my personal use. Next day 
I called and saw Mr. Baker. He was 
serious over the matter and stated that 
it was the best shooting gun for regu- 
larity, closeness and penetration that 
he had ever plated. I replied, ‘Then 
the practical gunner can now and then 
suggest useful innovations to the con- 
servative gunsmith.’ ” 
The first chamberless gun that Dr. 
Heath had built after the experiments 
with the single barrel weighed just over 
eight pounds and was not an ejector, 
as it was not believed that an ejector 
could be satisfactorily adjusted to the 
thin brass cases. The gun, however, 
proved highly satisfactory and the Doc- 
tor shortly after had a similar but 
lighter weapon built, the general di- 
mensions being his own specifications, 
size of the inside being regulated by 
the size of the cartridge case and was 
near .800 inch. This gun also shot a 
close and wonderful pattern, in fact 
very straight shooting is needed with 
these guns. “It almost appears as if I 
had succeeded too well in my endeavors 
to insure the killing of fowl at long 
Typical patterns of a 16 gauge, half 
choke gun, with one oz. of No. 7 shot 
at 20, 25 and 35 yards range. The 20 
gauge, built on the chamberless princi- 
ple, will equal this performance. 
range,” said the Doctor, “for a sport- 
ing friend of mine, after using one of 
these guns wrote to me as follows : ‘The 
chamberless gun is the most effective 
killing weapon. It can’t be disputed. 
The only possible drawback I can see to 
a chamberless gun for my own kind of 
shooting is that it necessarily makes a 
smaller pattern.’ My friend had not 
experimented with various loads else 
he would know that it is far easier to 
make a gun scatter than it is to en- 
sure a close and killing pattern at long 
range. No two of my chamberless guns 
are bored exactly alike. It is probably 
impossible to bore any two guns or even 
the two barrels of any one gun alike. 
I recently saw an old rifle plated. It 
had had its rifleing bored out so that 
it could be used as an experimental 
chamberless gun and its penetration 
and pattern were wonderful. It weighed 
12 pounds, about 4 to 4)4 pounds more 
than any of my guns. This extra 
weight no doubt, increased the penetra- 
tion. Yet the bore of this gun was well 
over .800 and it was shot with the 
cartridge I loaded for testing my own 
guns. The exact size of the bore of 
this gun I was unable to identify and 
the micrometer I used would not meas- 
ure a bore larger than .800 inch and 
it was fairly loose in the barrel of this 
gun. The barrels were only 24)4 inches 
long. A bore of .800 inch or even .805 
inch is not too large for these 12 bore 
brass gun cases as the felt wad used 
is a 9 bore .815 inch in diameter. 
Having had some difficulty in extract- 
ing shells, I decided to ease slightly the 
part of the barrels where the cartridges 
lie. I found that by commencing in the 
bore at three inches from the breech 
and gradually enlarging the bore to the 
breech itself, the latter being 10 to 12 
thousandths larger than the bore, would 
not only make extraction easy without 
lessening the shooting power of the gun, 
but would ensure ejection in case ejec- 
tors were fitted. 
Two of these guns were subsequently 
converted into ejectors. The result of 
the cone at the breech end of the gun 
was that all cartridges after boring 
came out slightly tapered. The taper 
was less than in the barrels because the 
brass of which these cartridges are 
made is somewhat elastic and the case 
contracts slightly after the explosion 
is over. The resizing of these cases is 
easy and after this operation the case 
becomes a cylinder and when fired again 
becomes a cone and so on ad infinitum. 
The ejectors are as effective with these 
cartridges as those of a paper case gun 
are with paper cartridges. The amount 
of taper where the cartridges lie in my 
brass case chamberless guns is less than 
the amount of taper in the chamber of 
a paper case gun for the chamber of the 
latter tapers 12 thousandths of an inch 
in 2)4 inches, the length of the cham- 
ber, whereas the taper in my gun is 
no more in three inches. This refers 
to the chambers only (of a paper case 
gun and to the taper in my chamberless 
gun), and not to the sharp cone at the 
