.62 Caliber Nesting Buckshot

Has anyone grouped buckshot in a .62 (20 ga.) of a size to nestle down in layers of three pieces? I'm thinking about trying something in the Green Mountain barrel and wondering who has gotten what kind of results. The calculator says that it should be around .28 caliber if no sleeve is used.

Excuse my being stupid, but what the heck are you talking about? :idunno: I have have no idea what you're asking.

I see it that this gent wants three shot per layer in his barrel. Three .28 balls and then another three and so on and on. A bit like 00 buck is set in a shot shell.

B :hatsoff:

Trust the math.

I've been interested in this too for buck-n-ball loads I became interested in, tested, and wrote about from a certain historical perspective...

Part of interest was based on archeological findings, etc., and also my concern over too-large swanshot pellets wedging each-other an/or too small pellets wedging the ball. My personal opinion is, unless you are using separate wading, you should use just three of the largest pellets possible as indicated by calculation from THE ACTUAL BORE DIAMETER and rounded down to the next available pellet size readily available.

For three pellets...

If you KNOW the true bore diamter is 20 ga./.62 inches, then, .4641 x .62 = .289, so, use three .27 #2 buckshot.

.4641 x .729 (actual bore of a Pedersoli 'bess) = .339, so, use three .33 #00 buckshot.

Thoughts!?

Right, I understand that also.
Such a load would inflict a big hurt, no doubt.
But, I do have to wonder, on whomst he wishes to inflict such a big hurt?
And, why? :shocked2:

Huh? Buck-n-ball was the standard load for us from Oct. 1777 thru the Civil War.

Here's a reference for the multiplier depending on how many pellets one is placing next to the ball...
http://hydra.nat.uni-magdeburg.de/packing/cci/cci.html

Have no idea if a stack of nine or a stack of twelve would work but was wondering if someone might have tried it out.

Thank you. Still learning something everyday. :hatsoff:

Opps, clicked the wrong reply button. :redface:

I've played around with these loads, GoodCheer. Using my 20 ga. cylinder bore I monkeyed with ball-plus-swan shot loads using .295" lead balls I cast for my .30 caliber rifle. I started out using my standard loading, powder, hard card, cushion wad, patched roundball, swan shot and then overshot card. I tried it with 3 swan, and 7 swan, results were poor. I then tried it with the same wadding but with bare ball +3 swan or 7 swan, same poor results. Not much better using just swan shot, either 6 or 12. I then switched wadding, used tow, and loaded roundball +3 swan and +7 swan, got better but still unimpressive results. I tried the same thing using cedar bark wadding, same results.

I was about to give up on it when I decided to try putting the swan shot down first, then the ball. I was pretty surprised. Using either my modern hard card + cushion wad or tow, I got very much better results. I tried cedar bark, same thing. Some of the shots put the ball well into the black with the 3 swan shot almost touching it, pretty impressive. I had my best luck with tow, by far, but the very best I could do was with tow, swan shot, ball, tow, in that order. All the tests were done in the 20-25 yard range, offhand.

This first target shows two shots. Shot #3, ball+6 swan over, the ball is a bullseye on the 1" black, but only 2 swan are on the paper. Shot #2 shows 3 swan loaded first, then ball, all grouped near the 1" black.



Second target again shows two shots, loaded the same except #1 with 3 swan over the ball, #2 with 3 swan under the ball. The two balls are in one hole, but look at the improvement when the swan are loaded under the ball.



And, I found results shooting just swan were inconsistent, but not all shots were unusable. This one with 12 swan, tow wadding, all 12 on the paper and grouped well. 1" bull. I think tow is the secret, but this needs more work.



BTW, I chose to load either 3 or 7 swan shot with the ball because I've found original sources stating that was done in the day.

Spence