Pitiful 20 ga roundball accuracy

[Britsmoothy]

Hope you get this sorted Rich. Eager to hear what worked.

Well boys, I won the smoothbore match today! I upped the charge to 80 grains, used a graded cushion was the 0.018 grease patch with the .600 ball. Balls pretty much went where I aimed.

Thanks for the great help!

:thumbsup:

 

[rich pierce]

Wish I noticed my mis spellings or auto-corrects. I shot with 80 grains of FFG, then a greased cushion wad, then a .600 ball with a heavily greased 0.018 patch. Loaded smoothly.

 

[Maven]

Rich I PM'd you on the ALR site.

 

[Grenadier1758]

I used 75 grains of 2f, an over powder wad and 1/2 of a cushion wad soaked in my water soluble oil and water. I used a 0.600 ball and a pocket drill (0.017") patch. Rich truly out shot me. Yes, I think the problem would be best resolved by tightening the nut behind the butt plate. My performance was truly pitiful.

 

[Artificer]

Congratulations and good for you!!

Wish I had known about using a cushion wad under the PRB when I competed with my old Brown Bess Carbine back in the 70's. However, I'm tickled pink to have learned it more recently.

Gus

 

[smoothshooter]

For some reason, your success with the .45 caliber smoothbore continues to intrigue me.

I am currently on the lookout at gun shows and pawn shops for a relatively inexpensive used percussion Italian import .45 rifle to have bored out just enough to get rid of the rifling,'and conduct extensive experiments with shot, single ball, and multiple ball loads.

Might even try doing my first jug choke later on.

 

[Sasquash]

For musket competitions (Miquelet), wads are not allowed.

 

[Keb]

More powder Mr. Scott......More powder.

What he said. Them short barrels love powder. Start with 80 and you should see improvement. Then go up from there.
edit: I didn't read all the post but your results seem to concur with my thoughts.

 

[rich pierce]

Thanks Keb. Will have to wait till Saturday to try more powder. But I think it’s going to start kicking pretty soon. :grin:

 

[Britsmoothy]

Stuff a newspaper down your jacket for testing.

B.

 

[nkbj]

In a minie rifled .69 with very shallow rifling the lubed cushion wad and lubed patch worked.

:haha: I never saw any indication that the ball was spinning with the rifling twist.

 

[BillinOregon]

Rich, glad you solved the problem.
Sasquash, any time you want to share miquelet photos and stories, please do! These guns saw long and hard use here in New Mexico.

 

[Sasquash]

I´m sorry I don´t anything to share.
Spain is not the best land for guns.

Here, we don´t have the original guns market people have in the US or even the UK, but sometimes you find something special: https://www.todocoleccion.net/mili...ntargis-madrid-libro-coleccionista~x128894079
https://www.todocoleccion.net/mili...1800-excelentes-marcas-arcabuceros~x128869955

Of course, these good conditions guns, although in apparently shootable conditions, must be sent to the proofhouse to be legally shot, so you take the risk to destroy them.

But the average "miquelet" gun you can find is in chewed and **** conditions, like this: https://www.todocoleccion.net/militaria-armas-fuego/antigua-escopeta-avancarga~x129108367

 

[Sparkitoff]

Seems you've solved the problem. I personally found my 20b most accurate with no patch. I use a cushion wad over 80 grains FFg and a .626 bare ball with an over-ball card. It cuts one-hole groups at 25 yards and stays under 3-inches at 50 yards (no back sight). I wanted to use a patch but for some reason the gun liked this combo better.

 

[rich pierce]

I may try that next but will have to enlarge my ball mold to do it. Since it is a double cavity, I can try that at no risk.