Buckshot??

Supercracker said:

The light I was using you couldn't leave on like that. I never tried another one. I just got adjusted to no light.

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If you think you might want to investigate the red-light thing again, LED lights get lots of time out of a set of batteries (rechargeable or disposable). A fair number of the head-band, clip-on, and smaller hand-held LED lights give you the choice of red or white LEDs, although the red ones are often lower in power than the white.

Regards,
Joel

I am not a fan of using conicals in SMOOTHBORE shotguns when you cannot get the velocity up into super sonic ranges. Broad "meplats" tend to make a less accurate projectile out of a smoothbore, simply because there is NO rifling to spin the bullet, or "slug". Spin that slug, with rifling, and kick up the speed, as occurs with Smokeless powder loads, and the Wide Meplat bullets hit accurately, and hard, even at hundreds of yards( with handgun bullets).

Its next to impossible to use a flat nosed "conical" with any kind of a patch, and that adds other problems, not present when you use a PRB of appropriate diameter. For short range hunting of boars, the RB will do as well as any conical. Remember how WIDE the diameter of the ball is, and how much it weighs.

The problem with Pointed conicals in some MLers is that they are notorious for turning from the line of fire once they enter flesh. Conversely, RBs are famous for staying on the same Line of fire in flesh, and penetrating much further than most conicals.

There is no doubt that using a large meplat conical in a Rifled barrel puts a big " hurt" on the game, whatever you hunt. Its a huge, flat-nosed "drill bit", going through the flesh, while displacing huge amounts of internal organs. It simply does NOT make a good " Knuckle Ball".

I saw a wild boar taken with a T/C .54 Renegade RIFLE, using a conical with a flat nose, and it performed as advertised: ONE SHOT STOP, DRT. The bullet entered the chest, and traveled the length of the hog, ending up in the "Ham" of its right leg. :hmm: The entire body cavity was full of blood, when the boar was field dressed.

A flat nosed conical hitting a target inside 50 feet is probably not going to be so inaccurate, shot from a smoothbore, to miss the hog, but stranger things have happened. Then you have leading in the bore that has to be cleaned out, as it only adds to making the next conical more inaccurate.

Its SIMPLER( as is KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID= KISS principle)to just used a good PRB in that shotgun for those close night time shots. An Op wad to seal the gases well behind the PRB will help improve the accuracy, and provide a more complete burning of the powder, so that less residue is left in the bore. :hmm: :thumbsup:

Yes I should note Ross Sigfried was shooting his bullets from rifled barrels not smoothbores.

But that does not change the fact a wide Meplat bullet hits like a sledgehammer.

I'll give you that point, Swampy. :thumbsup: You just have to limit the range of your shooting to a shorter distance than you might use a RB to kill deer-sized game.

I have not seen the actual performance of a wide meplat conical( slug) fired from a MLer at boar.

The Shotgun slugs used to kill wild boar that I have seen had very wide meplats , and put the boars down right there, with chest shots. But these are 1 oz, to 1 1/4 oz. foster style slugs, traveling at 1500-1600 fps out of the muzzle. They are supersonic( above 1135 fps) and remain so within the first 20 yds. I have no doubt the added velocity, as well as the added weight of the slugs contribute to the slug's effectiveness, including the presence of that wide meplat. If a Rifled Slug Barrel is used, instead of a smoothbore, you then add the spin to help stabilize these heavy slugs, and that also improves the performance on heavy game like boars. :thumbsup:

Might as well jump in with a few idle thoughts about buckshot here. This is one of those "good news-bad news" subjects that can make you barking nuts. The "good news" is that it's very effective due to a phenomenon called "foot printing", which simply is spreading the effect of the hydrostatic shock over a large area due to multiple hits. The "bad news" is that it's virtually impossible to get this effect with muzzleloaders due to shot spread. Many attempts were made to overcome this problem with some going so far as to construct bore-sized wire baskets to hold the shot and prevent it from spreading so rapidly, which is the crux of the whole problem itself.

I messed around for some years with this ulcer maker and finally gave up. To be blunt, it can be done with modern shotshell ingredients or even using the plastic hulls for modern shotshells but I refuse to put plastic in my guns...just on principle. Got mixed results with paper & cardboard wrapped shot for all sorts of reasons, some of which I never figured out. When you boil it down, seems like if you can't bring yourself to go modern plastic technowhiz, stick to punkin' balls!! :thumbsup:

I shot a wounded buck several years ago with #4 buckshot out of a 12 gauge (3 shots within 20 yards) and found the load less than ideal. The deer did drop, but any good single roundball would have done the job much cleaner and with considerably less damage to the deer. I wouldn't consider trying it again unless it were an emergency.

:shocked2: We ain't even allowed to use #4 buckshot up here, it's to small.

Alexander L. Johnson said:

I shot a wounded buck several years ago with #4 buckshot out of a 12 gauge (3 shots within 20 yards) and found the load less than ideal. The deer did drop, but any good single roundball would have done the job much cleaner and with considerably less damage to the deer. I wouldn't consider trying it again unless it were an emergency.

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#4 is not for deer. I would limit myself to 00 Buck. 00 Buck out of a 12 ga. is pretty deadly - at reasonable ranges.

#4 makes a good defense load at 10-20 yards but is way too small for use on anything larger than a coyote or a burglar. Here in the south the choice has always been nothing smaller than #1 buck for deer with 0 and 00 being preferred.

I've shot a lot of coyotes with #4 buck, and it's dandy for that. But I gotta say a high portion of the shot never penetrate the coyote completely past 35 yards or so. It's got it all over the larger shot for pattern density in my guns, a plus for small targets like yodel pups. But I sure wouldn't rely on it for deer, even with several hits.