More turkey load testing...

Yesterday I went to the range with some different components. Namely the use of Knight shotcups and over the shot wads.

I had some interesting results. The patterning was much better but one situation disappointed me.
I made some photo copies of a turkey head and neck target for patterning purposes. I do believe I will have to get some butchers paper and do a proper pattern test. This gun seems to pattern a bit low on target.

Shot no. 1:
90 grains of H777
2 oz of No. 5 shot
Knight shot cup
RWS musket cap.
Shot off the bench at 25 yards.

41 pellets in the head and neck target. 10 pellets in the brain and spinal cord.

The shot still had a bit of a hollow sound. It may be the result of shooting under a pavillion.

Shot no. 2 :

90 gr. H777
2 1/8 oz no 5 shot
Knight shot cup that has been trimmed to the level of the shot.
RWS musket cap.
Shot off the bench at 25 yards.

Total of 7 pellets in the brain and spine area. 30 pellets in the whole head/neck target.

I noticed that the there was a cluster of shot in the lower left quadrant of the target. 36 pellets in a three inch circle .

Shot No. 4 :

90 gr H777
2 1/8 oz of no 5 shot
Knight shot cup, untrimmed
RWS musket cap
Shot off the bench at 25 yards.
Aimed a tad high. The front bead was placed on the head of the turkey target.

A total of 46 pellets were in the head and neck target with 17 in the brain/spine area. .

I noticed that as the gun got a tad dirtier, the hollow sound diminished and it seemed there was a bit more recoil. Maybe the gun needs a fouling shot for it to perform.

Shot no4. Same as above but at 30 yards. There was a slight delay in ignition and I moved.Sooooo...only three pellets in the bottom of the target.

Shot no 5, same load except trimmed shot cup and off hand at thirty yards. I suspect that thirty yards is more realistic as to what I would expect to see a bird at .

A total of five pellets in the head and neck target with three in the brain/spine. The pattern seemed to be a tad low.

When it comes to hunting turkey you tend to be sitting and shoot off your knees, so the pattern may be better.

I am not 100% sure what the next step is? Should I be satisfied with what I see?

I would venture to say if you dropped the powder to 70 gr. you would improve the pattern and still have enough energy to kill a turkey at 30 yards. Leon

That hollow sound has me most concerned. It sounds like the load is loose, of course not actually hearing the sound only reading the report of it does not make this a decisive conclusion.

I think until you solve the hollow sound trying to improve the pattern seems futile to me. I 'd use an oversized cork over shot disc and apply solid pressure with your ram rod to seat it firmly as "a test".

Reduce the powder charge.

Then, use a good OP wad to seal the gases. That hollow sound is because all that powder is producing pressure that is escaping around the shotcup. That may be the reason your pattern is going low.

Stop using that substitute powder. Use real Black Powder. Using a sub only ADDS factors that will create inconsistencies. You also have to now use a different solvent to clean out that powder, and another to clean out the plastic that is left from the shotcup in your bore.

If you don't use a BORE BRUSH to clean the plastic out between shots, the testing becomes meaningless, as you are not replicating the same bore conditions for each shot.

Run a Greased cleaning patch down the barrel when you seat the cup and shot, and OS card in the barrel. This will allow the shotcup and wads to SLIDE down the bore, leaving much less, if any plastic in the bore, and giving you more consistent velocity, shot to shot.

Do use a good OS card to hold the shot in place. Use two if the gun is going to handled roughly while walking to your stand. The last thing you want is the shot cup and shot to shift forward in the barrel, before you fire.

Cut down the amount of shot you are using.

What you are doing now is using way too much powder, which creates high chamber pressures, even in a 12 gauge gun, and then reducing the velocity of the charge by using about double the weight of shot that should be used. The added mass of the heavy shot charge also contributes to high chamber pressures. STOP IT!

You will never get consistent patterns until you reduce those loads of both powder, and shot, and work up.

Ideally, for patterns from a cylinder bore shotgun( NO CHOKE) you want the shot to leave the muzzle at a velocity UNDER THE SPEED OF SOUND-1135 FPS, NOMINALLY.) Those heavy shot loads you are showing surely insure that your MV is under 1135 fps. But you are wasting both powder and shot. My God, to shoot more than 2 oz of shot, and only get 5 hits on the neck at 30 yards should tell you that something is wrong if anything does! :hmm: :surrender: :hatsoff:

Good recommendations. I guess I thought 2 and 1/8 oz of shot was a typo. I thought you meant 1 oz.

The OverShot card or two is vital to keep the load compressed. I still think that is a major issue, although the points about too much (way too much) shot and powder are very sage observations.

I often shoot with 70 grains and it does the job so why waste powder?

BigBore,
I read in the American Rifleman about the Remington electra inline Muzzleloader. One of the touted benefits is that there is no pressure generated in the bore before the powder lights. This leaves the whole load resting in the breech until the powder lights. The 209 primer is reputed to blow the whole load forward off the breech before the powder lights. Now I know you are using musket caps. But I have had number 11 caps push a twelve gauge load forward as much as a half inch. I know this because I had oil in the breech and the load did not light. When I turn out the nipple the load was forward. Since I had pulled each trigger in succession, both loads were forward, so I know it wasn't a fluke. So I am sure your musket caps are pushing your load forward before the powder lights. This will give you the hollow sound, as it lowers the chamber pressure. When the bore gets dirty enough the load no longer slides forward before the powder lights.
As to powder and shot. If you need a good stiff charge, one and a half ounces of shot is plenty. Tripple Seven is pretty potent stuff, so you might get better results with a little less.
volatpluvia

I use a powder to shot ratio of 1:1.5

80grns Goex 3F
Single 1/8" Oxyoke prelubed wool wad
120grns #6s
Circle Fly OS card

That load in my full choke .62cal/.20ga consistently gives multiple hits in skull & neck vertebrae at 40 yards.

When I was patterning my 16 gauge trade gun I first use 75 grs 3FFF,3 overshot cards, felt wad, overshot card, 1 3/8 ozs copper plated #5,over shot card. My test target was at 20 yds. The image below was the results.



I then added Jiffy corn-meal muffin mix as a buffer for the second target. Since I didn't have any other turkey targets I use an 8" splatter target at 20 yds. Picture two shows the results.

Granted 20 yds is close but, I needed to start somewhere. What I need to do is continue to increase my range until the pattern is no longer acceptable. Unfortunitly work and family has taken a major amount of my time. I will post my newest results as time permits.



The gun shots a little left but that is easily fixed. I was just concerned with pattern density.

May I suggest changing to FFg powder,and reducing the shot charge to 1 1/4" oz.? You might also try running a greased cleaning patch down the barrel after seating the OS cards on top the shot, to allow the shot to slide down the barrel, rather than rub against it. This should also improve the pattern. Remember, as fluffy as that Jiffy Corn Bread mix is, it still adds weight to the charge.

With the slightly slower velocity, you should get that kind of pattern out to 30 yards, and be able to kill turkeys out at 35 yards.

Thanks for showing us the effect of using the corn mix as a buffer for the shot. :thumbsup: :hatsoff:

Thank you all for the advice. I would like to ask as to who do you believe makes the best over the powder wad and over the shot wad?

Ox Yoke?

CS?

Any other?

bigbore442001 said:

Thank you all for the advice. I would like to ask as to who do you believe makes the best over the powder wad and over the shot wad?

Ox Yoke?

CS?

Any other?

Click to expand...

Circle Fly is a premiere wad / card manufacturer for muzzleloading...I use their over shot cards (a bag of 1000 only costs a few bucks).

I also use their 1/2" prelubed cushion wads...however, depending on certain powder / shot configurations I may slice the 1/2" wads in half with a razor blade to make a supply of 1/4" thick wads which are lighter to avoid any interference with the shot column.

The nice thing about Oxyoke prelubed wads is that they are a perfect 1/8" size for most of my loads, but are easily reconfigured by adding a 2nd, 3rd, 4th wad, etc, to build up to whatever size wad column you might need for a given reason...the down side to Oxyoke wads is that they're a little pricey if you shoot high volumes of shots like for trap & skeet...but they're excellent.

Circle Fly makes the best wads, these days. Both OP Wads, and the OS cards. You can buy vegetable Fiber wads from Walters, and from many suppliers who carry them, and they make excellent OP wads, too. If someone else makes the OS cards, I don't know who it is.

Some shooters prefer to you the Ox Yoke- T/C wool felt wads that T/C impregnates with lube( wonderlube) for the OP Wad. In a shotgun, I think the lube is too far back to do all the good it can, and that is why I lube the barrel when seating the OS cards on top of the shot load. In rifles, wool felt is too soft, to my way of thinking, and does not provide a good enough gas seal for the rifles. You can compare these wool wads to the fiber wads, and the hard OP wads made by Circle Fly, shooting over a chronograph to see which seals the best. Otherwise, (ie. without at chronograph) you have to do some careful reading of the spent patches to see the difference. Its there.

Do you put a wad between the corn meal and the powder? How much corn meal do you use?

Thanks for your help, Ken.

The corn meal is trickled down on the shot until you can't get any more inbetween the shot. It helps if you push the OP wad down just an inch or so below the muzzle- leaving enough space for your shot charge-- and then trickle the meal into the shot. That way, you can tap the muzzle on the side to help the meal get down in between pellets uniformly. When it tops off, you put your OS card in the barrel, and run it down on the powder as a single unit, using a hand over hand stroke on the ramrod. Remember to put an off-center hole with an awl in the OS cards, and set them in the barrel so the holes DON'T line up with each other. This lets air out as the charge goes down on the powder, and lets air separate the cards once the load leaves the muzzle, so that the cards quickly fall away from the shot charge.
This loading business takes just a bit of getting used to doing, but once you have it down, it goes pretty fast. The only bad thing is that in heavy winds, or gusty winds, the very light meal will be blown all over the place, including right out the mouth of the barrel. In those conditions, it would be better to push the load down the barrel a bit further from the muzzle, and you might want to use a funnel to get the corn meal ( muffin mix) into the barrel. :thumbsup:

I used muffin mix not just straight corn meal; it has added fats that is not in plain corn meal. It has a stickier consistency. Not knowing how much to use I took clear plastic tube punched a hole in the bottom. I placed an overshot card in the bottom, added the shot, then started with the corn meal muffin mix. I added a little at a time and tap the sides of the container to get the mix to filter down. I used a LEE dipper don't remember the amount I'll check when I get home. I continued this until the mix surrounded the shot. It takes quite a while to get the muffin mix to filter down around the shot. I then placed another overshot card in the tube, placed it on top of the barrel and used a small dowel rod to get everthing in the barrel. With a range rod I seated the whole thing. I plan to use this same concept for loading in the field, it may not be PC but......

boy seeing that pattern with the corn mean mix added really makes me wonder why I hadnt tried it yet shew. Would take my mod barrel to a 30 yard gun and the cyl barrel maybe to 25.

Ended up with 3 longbeards with the black powder this year helped out with a ton more and one longbow shot longbeard....just got home yesterday will try and get some pics up. Have one in particular I think you'll like.