ALL STANDARD SIZES ARE NOW AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE IN OUR STORE. BUY YOURS TODAY!
We are currently working on creating flaregun adapters for several conversions. Below is a table of prospective sizes which may become available standard or custom. As always, we invite your special requests and appreciate any questions, comments, or concerns.
Flare Adapters
For 12GA flaregun
For 25mm
For 26.5 mm
For 37mm
For 40mm
Custom
410 Bore
410 Bore
22 LR
22 LR
38 Cal
26.5m
Standard
38 Cal
410 Bore
12 GA flare
38 Cal
12 GA flare
22 LR
38 Cal
38 Cal
12 GA (shot)
12 GA flare
26.5 mm
12 GA (shot)
12 GA flare
With conversions that use rimfire casings, we recommend to insert the converter and rotate it so that the inner barrel is at the top or bottom. Take note of this position as it will mean you are always shooting high or low.
Please remember, flare pistols are not mean to be used as a weapon. However, any modification of a flare gun to shoot live rounds, including combining it with a flare gun insert constitutes a title 1 Firearm. This means it must be treated as such in terms of safety, legality, possession and ownership. Regardless of firearm classification, always treat your flare gun insert as a loaded firearm and follow basic safety protocol. Never store your insert loaded; only load when you are ready to fire. Do not dry fire, as it may deform the chamber of the barrel.
GaugeMate advises you to know your local laws and limitations before you plan on purchasing these or any other items.
*Disclaimers: 12 gauge shotshell ammunition is not interchangeable with 12 gauge flares and are not to be used within a flare gun. Flare adapters are not meant to be used for single-use plastic flare guns. Doing so may cause fatal injury.
To read the press release on Flare Inserts by the ATF, click here.
Gold & Silver Design Details
Extractor-Grip (specially for 410 conversions)
The Extractor-Grip is a patent-pending design feature on our Silver adapters that use .410 ammo. A pair of spherical cutouts allows the spent shell to be directly grasped for removal by the thumb and forefinger. This greatly eases the changing of shells. Other adapters on the market require you to have tiny fingers or use a stick to remove the spent shells. With the Extractor-Grip, you simply pull the spent shell out with ease.
The Slot
A patent-pending design feature on our 10-12,10-12XL, and 16-20 adapters. On adapters with a thin wall section, the material is not sufficiently thick to maintain its form. Our solution is simple, yet effective. A lengthwise slot allows the chamber to directly support the adapter during firing.
*Cases fired in split adapters will probably not be reloadable.
The Tapered End
Not all guns are equal. Some European designs have shorter chambers that require you to use hard-to-find2-1/2” Ammo. The taper allows the adapter to reach past the forcing cone in these guns. All Gauge-Mate adapters (except 10-12XL) are designed to fire standard-length ammo from any break-action shotgun with all chamber sizes.
Exclusive Features to the "Stays in the Gun" Gold Series:
The Cutaway Rim
With GaugeMate-Gold, the cutawasy rim allows you to remove the spent shell without touching the adapter at all! The remaining rim portion aligns with the ejector/extractor so the adapter will move as it does. With the rim cut away, the end of the shell is presented for easy removal. Once the adapter is in place, subsequent reloading takes virtually the same time as using the normal ammo for the gun.
Friction Retention
To achieve proper operation in every model, there is a need to provide the necessary friction to retain the adapter in the gun, yet allow the ejector/extractor to present the shell for removal. Stvle A: 10-20.12-20.12-28. and 16-28 Three grooves of different depths may be used with standard or oversized o-rings to provide the correct amount of friction. Style B: 12-410.16-410.20-410, and 28-410 A single standard or oversized o-ring provide the right fit for the gun chamber. Style C: 10-12.10-12XL.12-16.20-28. and 16-20 Slotted feature provides the required friction in the chamber through spring tension.
The Designs
Designed by Henry Fletcher, GaugeMate adapters are an elegant solution for adding utility and value to the gun you already own. Working exclusively with stainless steel, Mr. Fletcher has developed an adapter family that will allow your shotgun to fire virtually any smaller standard shotgun gauge ammunition. The exterior of our adapters mimic the outer dimensions of high-quality ammunition, giving a precise fit with your gun. The interior is dimensioned and toleranced like the chamber of a fine firearm, holding the smaller shell securely in place.
Shotgun ammunition varies greatly in both style of construction and quality. Some "promotional ammunition", while available at very low prices, does not work well in any adapters. We have found that Winchester AA and Remington STS ammunition performs best in Gauge-Mate adapters.
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How Do Sub-Gauge Adapters Work ?
Written by Henry Fletcher, President, GaugeMate
History
Simply put, a sub-gauge adapter (also known as a caliber conversion sleeve, cartridge conversion sleeve, supplemental chamber, chamber insert, subgauge insert, subgauge tube, gauge reducer, etc.) allows a shotgun to shoot a smaller gauge shotshell than its chamber was intended to shoot. Fitting inside the chamber of a shotgun, its external features mimic the shape of the shotshell the gun was designed to fire, while the internal features mimic the chamber of the smaller gauge being adapted to.
While sub-gauge adapters have been around for many decades, the first popular commercial product was the Savage Arms "Four-Tenner" which was an intermediate length (12") adapter for 12,16 or 20 Ga. Shotguns to shoot .410 shells. Since then, Little Skeeters™, GaugeMate™, Briley™, and Seminole™ and have all brought gauge adapters of various sorts to the market. In general, they work and pattern well. However, there is a bewildering array of styles and designs of adapters, some working better than others, which I will attempt to cover here.
Various Designs
There are custom-fitted full length barrel sleeves, mid length tubes and chamber-length tubes. They vary in cost from less than a hundred dollars a pair, to thousands of dollars for a custom fitted set of barrel-length sleeves. There are adapters that have elaborate and balky extractors, and adapters with no extraction system. There are adapters made from carbon steel, aluminum, stainless steel, and even titanium.
Performance
One myth regarding chamber-length tubes is that they don’t pattern well. The truth is quite to the contrary, as can be seen in the patterns generated by chamber length adapters, such as made by GaugeMate. Compare a pattern from a full-length tube to a chamber-length adapter and you will find a remarkable similarity. The truth is, you don’t need expensive, heavy and semi-permanent full-length tubes to get great patterns from sub-gauge adapters!
In terms of performance, we have seen the tight patterns from chamber-length adapters like GaugeMate, and the obvious weight and balance benefits they provide, but there is still more performance reasons to use chamber-length adapters…
Shot Column Shape
Surprisingly, shot column shape is improved with GaugeMate adapters! Think of a conventional shot column from a 12Ga. Shotgun streaking towards a clay target, in the shape of an elongated cylinder. When shooting a 20 gauge shell from the same 12Ga. Gun (outfitted with a 12-20 Ga. Adapter) the shot column is less elongated and larger in diameter, more pancake-shaped! Thus, the pellets are positioned more efficiently to hit your target, there are fewer ”wasted”, redundant pellets covering the same footprint compared to the original 12Ga. Shot!
Shot Velocity
Yet another shocker regarding Sub-Gauge Adapters is shot velocity. GaugeMate clocked speed improvements of more than 100 FPS with its gauge adapters. While some people will go to their grave denying this, some people also believed the earth was flat. The chronograph doesn’t lie. We even had independent labs verify it. The velocity increases come from less friction on the wad as it travels down the barrel. Think of the wad as expanding to the barrel size of the gun after it leaves the adapter. The wad in essence overextends, thought the wad is still stable and still seals with the barrel. The reduction in drag is significant enough to attain speed increases of over 100 FPS in many sizes of GaugeMate adapters tested.
Extraction of shells (pencil not included!)
As mentioned previously, there are vast differences in the way shells are extracted from the various styles of adapters on the market. Some adapters require manually removing the spent shells from the adapter and must be removed from the gun to reload. The aluminum Little-Skeeters™ product, for instance, requires a pencil or other poking device to push the .410 spent shell out of the adapter each time it is fired!
Another “remove for reloading” adapter product is GaugeMate Silver, an all stainless-steel, economical product line. It was our inaugural product in 2002, to rave reviews. GaugeMate Silver adds Patent-Pending finger-tip cutouts on the face of the all the .410 adapters for ease of re-loading. No other competitor has that important feature.
The Savage “Four-Tenner” and other adapters contain a built-in extractor that slides back and forth with the extractor/ejector of the gun. In theory, this is a great idea. Unfortunately, sliding extractors have a serious reliability problem from the clearances of all of the components involved. There is the clearance of the shell, adapter, the adapters’ extractor, the gun’s extractor, and of the chamber! All of those clearances add up to frequent jamming and jumping of the extractor when the gun is closed, making a real mess of things.
Sliding extractors are limited to sizes of adapters that are thick enough to have sufficient strength to function properly. For example, it would be impossible to offer an extractor in a 10-12 adapter, as there is only .018” wall thickness. This drawback limits the variety of adapter sizes that are available with extractors.
GaugeMate offers a unique, patent pending solution to the whole idea of a “Stay in the gun” adapter and is very economical as well. Rather than a moving extractor built into the adapter, GaugeMate designs their all stainless-steel GaugeMate Gold adapters to slide with the extractor. In other words, the whole adapter moves with the gun’s extractor/ejector, so when the gun is opened, the adapter “presents” the spent as an extractor would. Durable O-Rings provide sufficient friction to retain the adapter in the chamber. A portion of the adapter’s rim is cut away to reveal the rim of the shell, for easy and efficient removal. Simplicity and reliability at its finest…
Slotted Adapters
For thin-walled adapter sizes, GaugeMate Gold has another innovation that makes these sizes a reality. A thin-walled adapter, such as the 10-12, must act as its own barrel, as the clearance of the chamber to the adapter means that the chamber does not support the adapter strength-wise. Some competitor’s adapters actually bulge and become un-useable from the pressures of the fired shell. Simply by slotting the adapter along its length, the GaugeMate Gold adapter is allowed to expand to the inner wall of the chamber providing great durability, eliminating bulging that is found in some competitor’s products.
The GaugeMate Gold series uses the unique slotted feature to provide a convenient way to retain the “stay in the gun” thin-walled adapters in the chamber of the gun. We simply spring open the slotted adapter to create a friction fit in the chamber of the gun. The rim is partially cut away to expose the shell for easy removal. It’s such a simple and elegant solution. This is one of the many reasons why GaugeMate is able to offer both the GaugeMate Silver and GaugeMate Gold product lines in 14 different sizes, and why we have the number one selling gauge adapter on the market!
Ammo Versatility and Short Chambers
We have many appreciative customers who can use their old vintage guns again because they can now fit readily available modern 2 ¾” shotshells in them! Old shotguns, often European, commonly have 2 1/2” chambers. GaugeMate adapters have tapered ends to accommodate these shortened chambers, and allow 2 ¾” shell to be used in guns with short chambers!!! My old 16Ga. Parker, for instance has short chambers and I shoot 2 ¾” 20Ga. Shells in it. Not to mention that 20Ga. Is easier to find and a whole lot cheaper! Ammo versatility for your favorite vintage shotgun is a must.
Custom-Sized Gauge Adapters
GaugeMate now offers a unique service to vintage gun owners, by offering made-to-order GaugeMate Custom sizes for obscure and odd adapter sizes. These are sizes that are too rare to inventory, so GaugeMate designs and fabricates them on a made-to-order basis. We can make custom adapters from 8 Ga. To .410 and all sizes in-between!
GaugeMate adapters can save hundreds of dollars, carry in your pocket, installs in moments, all while maintaining the delicate weight and balance of your fine shotgun. (full-length tubes add significant weight!) But most importantly, you can hit your targets better and more reliably than with other products. The added ammo versatility they provide is simply icing on the cake.
