can I shoot round ball out of a 20ga pedersoli double shotgun

[murph]

Thinking of buying a cabelas pedersoli 20ga double black powder shotgun.Can I shoot round ball out of it.it has a fixed improved cylinder and a fixed modified choke barrel.I would shoot 62.cal round ball the eqivelent to 20ga.As you can tell i'm new to the BP shotgun game.
Thanks,murf :bow:

 

[ohio ramrod]

You can but I doubt that you will like the results. The side by side barrels taper in to the center, ok for shot but leave round balls shooting to the side.You will be accurate at one range only.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

I've never owned a 20 ga. double but I have fired balls out of several 12 ga. side by sides, in fact the very best accuracy I've ever gotten from ML smoothbores has been from doubles. Perhaps the doubles are stiffer and don't vibrate so much as a single barrel or perhaps I was just lucky but I've always gotten useful accuracy from at least one barrel. You will have trouble loading a patched ball past the chokes but with a ball starter you can probably do OK, maybe a bit tough to start but once down the first inch it should go easily. You might try wads atop the powder to seal the bore and an undersize ball with a thick fluffy patch just to hold the ball and keep it centered. I have used .570" balls in a patch of old sweatshirt material which seemed to work well in 20 ga. bores when loaded atop a fiber wad. Good Luck!

 

[hotsparks]

Don't have any thoughts about the accuracy, but be careful about hunting with any "two-shotter" during muzzleloader season. In most states a "muzzleloader" must be a single shot only, swivel-barrels, doubles, over and unders are a no-no...of course, during regular season they are OK.
John

 

[DanChamberlain]

I haven't shot ball out of my choked shotgun, but my experience with modern shotguns suggests that one bore of the two will normally shoot pretty close to point of aim.

A very savvy flinter suggested to me that from an unchoked barrel, hard lead works as well and maybe better than soft pure lead in a smoothie. However, if I were to shoot a ball through a choked barrel, I'd be inclined to make it a ball on the soft side (and I'm probably way off.)

SXS shotguns are built so that the barrels point of aim converge at an unspecified distance from the muzzles. But, shotguns aren't fired from a solid rest. They are fired from moveable platform and this platform responds to the recoil of the projectile as the projectile begins moving forward.

The "convergence" of the barrels is somewhat negated by this movement. Every set of barrels will be different. That's why it takes $9000 for an entry level double rifle that relies on one set of sights.

Luck to you.

Dan

 

I have shot round balls in side by side shotguns with so, so success. On the other side of the coin I have an original side by side percussion that's a 16 ga and a .40 cal double. The rear site has two notches one for each side and the coolest part is it works pretty good at 25 and 50 yards. Haven't had time to really sit down and workup a load it likes and see how it handles 100 yard targets. Just like the double notched rear sight idea. :thumbsup:

 

[Lorne Johnson]

Actually, the current Pedersoli Kodiak rifles are regulated at the factory. The two rear sights are for different ranges. They are probably not perfectly regulated, and they aren't regulated the same way my old gunsmith did it.

Significantly, you need to duplicate the factory load (probably Swiss FFg) used to regulate the gun (or find something similar that works). So it means working up a load that works in each barrel separately and then both barrels connected, and over a useful range.

I am guessing that there will be some posts saying, "That ain't what happened with mine!" That would be real field experience, which is what counts.

With a twenty gauge shotgun, it would be a perfectly reasonable project to work up a load that shoots to point of aim in one barrel (the cylinder) and use bird or buckshot in the other barrel (modified).

 

Since the first of the year we have sold a dozen of these and haven't had any complaints. Don't know if they are "gun safe queens" or are being shot?

 

[Lorne Johnson]

Sounds like a pretty good rec. to me. I have 3 Pedersoli guns, and they have all been good, reliable, guns.

I especially like the 20 gauge Doppietta.
I got a Mortimer Whitworth instead of the Kodiak after handling them both. The Kodiak felt like a 470 Nitro Express--or more than I wanted to carry.

 

[DanChamberlain]

grnmt

The "current" Pedersoli double rifles are "regulated" at the factory with lasers...so you are correct, they don't do it the old fashioned way. Nor, have they been able to consistently produce a double rifle that shoots to the "same" point of aim with each barrel, given the same load/projectile.

One can tweak the loads in one barrel to come close, but will often mean a different powder charge in one over the other. The current centerfire double rifle made by Pedersoli does a pretty good job of putting rounds from each barrel into a 4" circle at 50 yards using individual sights. However, when the gun originally came out and could be purchased for a measily $1600, the two sets of sights were mounted one for each barrel. The one not being used could be flipped down.

I haven't heard of any muzzle-loaders, who could get both barrels to shoot to point of aim with one sight, using the same bullet/powder combo in each barrel. Perhaps there have been a few, but I've not spoken to any, or read an account of one. Every account I've read indicated that one barrel had to have a different powder charge than the other and in some cases a different bullet weight, to bring the impact points into usable approximation with the same set of sight.

Regards

Dan

 

[Lorne Johnson]

They bore sight them with lasers at the factory, and then to a test fire and use a file technique to get them close. I'm not saying how well it actually works, cause I don't know.

My old gunsmith did a lot of regulating of cartridge double rifles, and it's certainly an art. He had decades of experience, and a much wider range of powders and projectiles to work with.

Going to different charges or possibly projectiles in each barrel is probably what most of us muzzle loaders would have to do, unless we got very lucky. Of course, for hunting big game one usually loads up on the way out, so separate loads is less often a big issue.

 

[DanChamberlain]

For a gun like that, I'm thinking one barrel for archery distance, and one for accuracy. Either way, it's a cool looking gun and I'd love to play with one.

Dan

 

[Lorne Johnson]

I agree!
After all, the second barrel is for the charging boar, and it's going to be, right there.

Or, go with the combi, right barrel rifled for accuracy, left barrel for in close.

 

[BobKrohn]

John Baird's book "Fifteen Years in the Hawken Lode" Ch 4 "Double Guns of the Mountain Frontier" mentions that he thinks they regulated point of impact by filing the muzzles to something other than perpendicular to bore axis.
Possible?

 

[DanChamberlain]

Certainly possible. I don't know the exact science involved, but bullet strike can be somewhat regulated by removing metal at certain points of the muzzle/bore. Maybe someone has the formula here?

Dan

 

[paulvallandigham]

There is NO FORMULA. Its done at the range by Trial and Error.

Basically, the process of moving either a pattern, or the POI of a ball or bullet involves filing the barrel to let the load "RELEASE" from the muzzle sooner at one side or another, to move the load in the OPPOSITE direction. The more metal you remove from one side of the circumference, the further the POI is moved in the opposite direction.

 

[Lorne Johnson]

That's the theory of the process, and I would think several times before trying it at home.

 

[DanChamberlain]

Well, that sounds like a "formula" to me.

Dan

 

[paulvallandigham]

I would not use the language to mean that concept as a formula, but whatever- I am not Daniel Webster!

The real hard part of all this is making sure that you have fired the gun often enough with your best load, that you know that the reason the ball is striking someplace other than your POA is due solely to your barrel, and not human error. Then you move the ball's POI to the POA by filing the muzzle, or bending the barrel.

BTW: I have measure more than one MLer barrel, both rifles, and smoothbores, to find that the muzzle is not square to the bore. So, before I would think of filing metal off one side or another, the first thing I would do is determine how square the the muzzle is to the bore.