TC New Englander shotgun

[barnabus]

Just bought a TC New Englander 12 gauge cylinder choke smoothie.I want to hunt squirrels with it and maybe dove.What kind of yardage can i get out of this choke and whats a good place to start with loads.thanks

 

[steinauge32]

IME #6 shot works well in most ML shotguns .In my 12 ga I use 75 gr 2f,A felt overshot wad cut out of old hats from the goodwill store and lubed with bore butter,1 1\2 oz of whatever size shot you are using and a thin( 1\8" or so) cardboard overshot wad smeared with a little bore butter. That load works for me out to about 30 yards on clay birds,real birds etc.There are as many ways to load a ML shotgun as there are shotguns but that one will work for you as a starter.

 

[BrownBear]

...about 30 yards....

Same here with CYL bore 12 gauges and 1 1/8 oz loads and wingshooting ptarmigan. I tried heavier loads, but patterns were actually worse and range lessened for some reason.

I probably shoot more 7/8 oz or 1 oz loads than the 1 1/8 at snowshoe hare, where ranges are generally limited to less than 25 yards due to brush. On longer shots those loads sure seem to perform as well as the heavier, but I never patterned the light ones.

 

[bubba.50]

if you use one of those adjustable powder/shot measures, use the same settin' for shot as ya used for powder.

 

[Stumpkiller]

I had a cylinder bore New Englander. 25 yards certainly. I had mine jug choked to a near modified (Skeet #2) choke and it was good on rabbits and grouse to 30 yards.

Great little hunting cap gun.

 

[The Baron]

When I patterned my cylinder bore New Englander for turkey hunting, I kinda cheated and used a plastic shot cup. I was good to about 25 yards for a turkey, probably a bit more on wing shooting smaller birds. Mine patterned best with 80gr. 2F (I never tried 3F) and about 1 1/4oz (measured by volume with a shot measure) of #4 shot, which is just very lightly more shot than powder according to my volume measures. It actually shot the #4 lead into a denser pattern than #6's, despite there being a lot less shot in the load. That surprised me.

 

[Bosteldr]

I also have a New Englander. I have found 6 works for birds, like dove and chucker. 5 or 4 for squirrel and pheasant. 30 to 35 yds max no matter what choke you select. This is using the square load. 40 yds and beyond you are just making smoke, lucky to even bring down a dove.

 

[Old Sarge]

I also have a 12 ga New Englander cylinder bore. My load is 80 gr FF OP wad, 1/2 of a fiber cushion wad, equal volume of # 5 shot, and OS card. OP and OS cards are made from Beer Coasters. Everybody laughs at me but it works quite well and cheap too. :grin:

 

[jon math]

I have one in cylinder, and decided I just had to have one with screw in chokes. I found the barrel and paid a small fortune for it. I ended up liking the cylinder bore better.

For turkey I took apart a Hevi-shot Triple Beard shell (the shot is a mix of 4-5-6 size shot) and loaded the wad/shot cup and shot load over 90 FFG powder with a circle fly felt wad as an over shot card. I took a bird with it, but I called it in so close I could have thrown a rock and killed it. Hard to know what the max. range would have been, but on paper it looked good at 30 yards.