Heavy .62 cal loads???

[Strawstalker/NM]

I answered a question about .62 cal loads on another site. The question was - Are we overloading our smoothbores? :grin: Well it just so happens that I took my smoothbore to the range last Saturday. I shot modern trap for several years (avg 97 out of 100 at 16 yds) shooter - but when shooting at clays at the local rendezvous - I normally hit only one out of every ten shots :redface: . I thought that the loads that I have tried might have some bad holes in them and I was correct! At the range I shot 10 rounds of six different combinations and used a templete with a 20" center ring and a 30" outer ring. The load (70gr Goex 3F, over powder card, moose snot lubed full cushion wad, 1 1/4 oz hard shot, over shot card)that I have shot for the last two years was the very worst - @ 25yds, 31 hits in the 20" & 42 hits in the outer ring, with many large holes. The best pattern that I shot and duplicated three times in order to see if it was a fluke was (@ 25 yds, 60 gr 3F Goex, 1/2 of a fiber wad lubed with moose snot, 1 oz (245 pellets)of #6 hard shot and a overshot card. This load shoots 159 (64.90%)hits inside the 20" ring and another 40 hits(199 total for a 81.22% hit percentage)within the 30" ring :thumbsup: . The gun is a Jack Garner, .62 cal, cylinder bore, full stock,42" flinter. I was shocked to find that LESS (powder, thinner wads and less but larger shot)resulted in MANY MORE HITS WITH A GREAT PATTERN. A side benifit is almost no recoil! Success is finding the perfect load you gun likes. For grins try this one - It really shoots well in my gun. Your milage may vary.

Daniel R. Bromley

 

[Rebel]

When you say 60 grs of 3f and half a lubed fiber wad were you also using an overpowder wad under the fiber wad. I will have to give that load a try in my Jackie Brown .20 ga with a 42" barrel. Thanks
Just out of curiosity, why post this in Percussion and not smoothbores?

 

[Strawstalker/NM]

Rebel - No hard over powder wad just 1/2 lubed fiber wad directly over the powder and then the shot.
Why did I post it here and not in smoothbores - DUH! :redface: :redface: :redface: and I do not know how to move it - HELP.

 

[Rebel]

Well, if you still have time to edit it you could copy and paste it in a new topic in smoothbores and then delete this post maybe. I will have to ry out that load.

 

[paulvallandigham]

To answer your question, we probably are shooting too much powder in our shot loads. If you read Bob Spenser's website.[url] http://members.aye.net/~bspen/index.html,[/url] and particularly the article from the late V.M. Starr, you will find loads similar to what you are shooting that produce very good groups. If you were shooting 1 1/8 oz of shot with that original 70 grain powder charge, or even 1 1/4 oz. of shot with that powder charge, you might get as good a pattern on paper at the same range. Most modern shooters seem to want to shoot as much powder as they see in modern 12 ga. hunting loads, even when they are shooting a 20 gauge. V.M.Starr is recommending 2, 2 1/4, and 2/1/2 dram loads for the 20 gauge, not 3 drams and above, as is so often used. ( 2 drams = 55 grains; 3 drams= 82.5 grains.) How many shooters here write about loads with powder charges weighting 110 grains or more in their smootbores?

Thank you for sharing your loading data, and patterns, and asking the question. None of us like to admit that any black powder gun has any recoil, but if you shoot in a match or two in a day, you will begin to feel even a light recoiling gun after the first 150 shots. Its the repetitive trauma that finally talks to you, and not the recoil of a single shot. Many shooters will never shoot along 100 target match, so they won't have the chance to learn these truths. I shot modern trap for several years, and learned that lesson before I got my shotgun, and smootbore.

 

[faw3]

Hey it's ok my smooth 20 is a underhammer perc, thanks for the info, I came to the same spot you did with # 4 buck too. But it was used on something else. Fred :hatsoff:

 

[wjschieber]

It is just like the old saying:
"Less powder, more lead, shoots far, kills dead.
More powder, and lead, kicks hard, wide spread."
But try telling that to young shooters and they look at you like some kind of a freak. It seems to me that now days everyone wants bigger, faster and harder hitting loads. They try to turn every gun they have into a magnum not taking the time to see what less will do and definitely not finding the best load for each gun.
Bill

 

[CoyoteJoe]

The real lesson in this is that shooting patterns on paper is the ONLY way to know what your gun is doing! Not only pattern density but pattern location may be way off. The loads recommended by others may be a good place to start but only actual shooting in one's own gun will tell.
No one would consider hunting with a rifle that hasn't first been sighted in on paper but I'd bet that fewer than one percent of hunters have ever patterned their shotguns on paper. In my experience shotguns are even more touchy than rifles as to the load they like and are even more likely to shoot well off the point of aim but I've tried to tell this to otherwise discerning shooters and it went over like a soft breeze from under a horse's tail. :grin:

 

[Plains99]

Carefully examine your paper. Too much powder usually results in a blown center (a largely blank space in the center with a concentrated ring around the outside). This is very common with turkey hunters who try to overpower their loads. As was said before... lighten the powder charge and increase the shot charge until you get to a reasonable balance. Most of the time that will cure the problem.

 

[Black Hand]

HMMMMMMMM, this may explain some of my difficulty in getting a good pattern. That tradegun is still trying to teach me a thing or two......

 

[BillinOregon]

Great thread guys. I'm learning ...

 

[paulvallandigham]

Joe: There is also science to all this. The light loads described here all begin below the sound barrier, that is, the muzzle velocity is less than 1100 fps. If you look at modern shotgun shells, and their velocities, you are likely to see ammo loaded to 1400-1600 fps. W-o-o-o-E-E-E E ! If you look at the down range ballistics tables in the Lyman Shotshell Relading Manual, you find that all that extra velocity is lost in the first 20 yds. What that velocity does do is open the patterns faster! And you will also find holes in the middle of the pattern with these modern shells, too.

The " SECRET " to killing with birdshot is not to shoot it out the gun faster, but to use a larger pellet size to retain down range energy per pellet. Again, look at the tables in the Lyman book. What paper will tell you is what I agree with Joe about here: slower means tighter, denser patterns, which puts more shot on a bird, which puts more shock to the bird and knocks it out of the sky. Its the weigh of the pellet that allows it to penetrate feathers, and enter the chest to impart a killing wound. At 30 yds. and 40 yds, both velocity and energy is retained much better with the loads that start out under the speed of sound, than the high speed loads.

For what it is worth, the old time commercial Duck Hunters on the Illinois River, shooting black powder shotguns favored a 2 3/4 dram load of black powder and 1 1/4 oz. of #5 shot for killing ducks out to 50 yds! They used long barreled ( 36 inch) doubled barrel shotguns for this work, so I don't believe there was enough metal in them to allow any jug choking. That means they were shooting open cylinder bore guns. Nothing in the history I read about them using paper shot cups to keep the shot together longer, but I suppose it might have been possible. I am studying that aspect myself.

 

as to paper shotcups in MLers...I'll relate a humerous episode with my neighbor. We were trying to get a tighter turkey load for his (too small) .50 smoothie--he just insisted he wanted to use shot instead of a ball. I suggested he put togther some paper shot cups along the lines of penny wrappers, but he misunderstood me and enclosed both ends! Furthermore, he sealed them real good with glue. The paper covered shot charge held together like a solid cylinder and pinwheeled into the target, hitting sideways and leaving a long rectangular hole! I believe he was using 60 or 70 gr fffg.

 

[paulvallandigham]

had something similar happen to me when we made a cylinder up out of 3M post-it note paper, and wrapped it around 3 times. I didn't seal the front end, but it went down range as a slug, keyholed the target at 25 yds, and broke the leg on the target stand behind it at 50 yds. One layer of wrap produced confetti, but 2 wraps seems to do okay, if I slit the front of the tube like the petals on a plastic shotcup. I am working on trying different length slits to see if I can reliably tighten the patterns. I seal the back end with hot wax with the paper folded over a dry 20 ga. cushion wad.

 

[Wes/Tex]

The real secret to using the crimped over paper shot cups is the way it's folded. The trick is to roll one time around and around the second time stopping about 1/16th inch short of touching the original edge. This allows the tube to split along the side and will fly away after the shot exits the bore. Folding the ends like penny tubes will work if folded this way but should never be glued, as you related for just that will happen.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Paul, it would require an exceptionally tight pattern to "dependably" kill ducks at 50 yards with an ounce and a quarter load but I suspect they were flock shooting and if they got a bird or two they didn't worry much about the half- dozen they may have wounded. Not much different from today's hunters actually, some are conscientious, some are not and if no one is looking--. Any shot that is long enough to brag about making is too long to brag about having tried.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Joe. I was thinking the same thing. But then, after looking at the tables in the Lyman Shotshell Reloading Manual, and seeing how much energy each pellet retains at even 60 yds, I understand their choice. Those market hunters had no qualms about going after wounded ducks, with dogs, and on occasion with a paddle or oak over the head. They were being paid as little as $.05 per duck in those days, so maximizing the number of ducks killed per shot made the difference between the family eating or not. These were not wealthy men. I am sure they shot sitting flocks of ducks and maneuvered their skiffs and johnboats so that their shot would hit as many ducks as possible, when they fired. Remember, this was back when $1.00 would still buy a week's worth of groceries for a family, fine homes cost maybe $250.00 new, and ammunition or powder was less than a dollar. Primers were sold for aobut $.15 a tin.

 

[Rebel]

Just got back from shooting. Tried your 60 gr 3f and 1 oz of shot load, worked ok in mine but i found mine does better with 70s of 3f and
80gr/1 1/8 oz of shot over an over powder wad, and half a lubed cushion wad. I am also up to 132 shots on this Tom Fuller Black English flint and it is still in pretty good shape. Pretty sure i can get at least 150 shots if not more out of it. Love this Large Siler lock.

 

[Strawstalker/NM]

Rebel - What size shot were you shooting - #6, #7 or #7 1/2 ?

 

[Rebel]

#5 lead