No cans on our range. We just spent a lot of money to clean up and enhance the rifle range. Brand new target holders. Paper targets only. We do have a target holder specifically for targeting shotguns.

 

Some guys do the "Tuna can" test.They are made of steel and if your shot penetrates at a given range it has enough energy. Soup can would probably work.

 

Because I had several sxs muzzy shotguns I used coper pipe smashed on one end with hole drilled and charge stamped on both sides of the hole.

 

Ok BP, what is the secret with plastic wads? Went to patterning paper after the rain stopped this afternoon. Was getting nice patterns with 55 grains of 3F, 7/8 ounces of 8 shot. Effective killing area was about an 18 inch circle. Then tried a load with a 7/8 oz plastic wad. I was expecting a tighter pattern, but instead had a pattern with very few pellets in the center. You had to get 18+ inches away from center to find any pellets hitting the paper. Nothing that I could ever use hunting.

 

Really no secret, they worked in mine but may not in yours. JMO, I don't think 7/8 oz of shot is going to get you where you want to be for hunting small game, especially Grouse and Squirrels. Remember, you aren't working with a modern choked barrel, and modern load amounts probably won't cut it with your open choked barrel. I was using 1 1/2 45-70 cases of shot. I believe that works out to almost twice what your load is but would have to measure it out to be sure. These guns all have their own preference. Your "nice pattern", I would try more shot and double up on the overshot card and see what that does. That load sounds like you are close to where you want to be, just work on fine tuning it.
UPDATE: I dug out my shot bag and the measure on it was replaced and I had forgotten. It holds approximately 1 1/2 oz of 6 shot.

 

No criticism from me on using wads, who knows, I might end up there.

Now, if anyone needs 20 gauge wads, I have lots for 1 oz loads that were given to me I'll never use, and quite a few 7/8 oz wads as I only shoot 3/4 oz at clay birds. Since I started hunting with the BP SxS, I only go thru a box of reloads a year. So if you need wads, just give me a shout

 

I want to see these "newbies" be successful and anything us experienced folks can do to help with that, so they are as excited about the sport as we are, is a win win. Everyone needs to find THEIR "magic concoction" and I hope they do, so we can all see and hear their great success stories.

 

Wasp nest or moss.

 

I had my Thompson Center New Englander 12 gauge jug choked full by Danny Caywood. I use a 75 grain measure of 2F, then 3 Ballistic Products .070 nitro cards, then a 90 grain measure of shot, then one .070 nitro card (basically a V. M. Starr load). I pre-punch holes in the nitro cards. It shoots a good tight pattern for squirrel or turkey out to 30 yards. It hits hard enough to go through both sides of a baked bean can at 30 yards. I tried over powder wads or just 2 over shot cards but it patterned the best with the load mentioned above. I have 2 more New Englander barrels I plan on sending to Caywood, hopefully, I get close to the same results.

 

A few years ago, this same discussion/subject came up, of powder, shot wadding ect. At that time, I went into detail of my experience and solution to patterns that I believed were ethical to me for hunting and killing consistently. I spent countless hours at the bench and shot hundreds of times looking for that perfect load combo. As much as I like and believe in staying traditional, I finally tried AA 20-gauge plastics wads. Powder, 1/8" card, wad, shot, overshot card. I never looked back. Staying traditional, although very important to me, I just could not justify the "ifs" with traditional loading. My 20 gauge trade gun served my very well for over 30 years of shooting small game, turkey and waterfowl. Clean humane kills took a priority for me, as much as I hated to make that compromise.

 

Did you find that you were wounding less game after you made the switch?

I suppose if ethics is defined as using the best means possible, then we should save the blackpowder stuff for paper targets and stick with modern ammo for hunting. But even the best modern ammo doesn't guarantee success, and fortunately it is possible to work up a traditional load that can be relied on for ethical kills. I think the biggest problem most of us have is expecting to hunt the same way with blackpoweder as we do modern stuff. Need to know the limits of our equipment and abilities, discipline to pass on longer range stuff, etc.

 

Havent tried the skychief load, not practical for hunting birds and rabbits. I like to go simple; powder - card/felt wad - shot - card - felt wad. My 12 gauge I was given a bunch of felt wads I cut in half, had to soak them. Once used up, it will be back to over shot cards over powder and shot.

Might play with the skychief for turkey season

 

Why isn't it practical for hunting?

 

I have 2 Irish chargers and really like them over English,

Shot flask, adjustable brass Irish charger head, molded oak tan leather body - Track of the Wolf

 

"Less powder, more lead -- shoots far, kills dead.

More powder, less lead -- kicks hard, wide spread."

 

Not yet.

 

Have you tried the "Skychief" load?

(2) Skychief Smoothbore Load Recipe........ | The Muzzleloading Forum

 

Just soaked a bunch of wads in different lubes last night to experiment with this weekend. Have you tried it?

 

Interesting charts on both the pdf and video. What is the approximate weight of a .610 round ball to make a comparison.

Good explanation where 2F is better for heavier loads, but looking at light loads which I'll use except for turkey, 3F seems to be the better choice.

 

One other point to expand on that the aforementioned doesn't really address is retention of energy. The charts above show what I assume is muzzle velocity from the initial charge, but size of the ball or shot will affect how much energy is retained through flight. The same point Bellevue made about the greater surface area-to-mass ratio of smaller grains also applies to the air resistance or drag on round balls. With smaller shot there is more air resistance per unit of weight, so this is why smaller shot loses energy faster.

I don't recall what magic number of energy the experts say is considered to be enough to be lethal on small game. For big game I have always seen 1,000 ft-lbs to be the recommended minimum energy. But again, in sticking to my commitment not to make the blackpowder hobby too technical, my basic mindset is more energy and shot on target = better chance of a clean kill.

 

My "go to" load for small game for years, was a 45-70 case full of 2F and a case and half of 7 1/2 and 6 shot mixed. That worked well for rabbits, squirrels, pheasant, dove grouse and anything else I encountered. Turkey and waterfowl obviously were much different.

 

Was shooting paper with some interesting results; shooting 7 shot, 60 grains of powder.

Shooting 1 oz of shot, 3F gave me better patterns, but when shooting 1.5 oz of shot, 2F was far better than 3F. Now this was just a couple sample shots and could be different shooting a lot more paper. Depending on the weather, I might try the same tomorrow with 8 shot.

Back to the video, I wouldnt want to take many shots with 2 oz of shot with 100 grains of powder. 1.5 oz was giving a good thump.

Wondering how low I can go with powder and still have effective killing power. Less power will give me better patterns

 

Was shooting paper with some interesting results; shooting 7 shot, 60 grains of powder.

Shooting 1 oz of shot, 3F gave me better patterns, but when shooting 1.5 oz of shot, 2F was far better than 3F. Now this was just a couple sample shots and could be different shooting a lot more paper. Depending on the weather, I might try the same tomorrow with 8 shot.

Back to the video, I wouldnt want to take many shots with 2 oz of shot with 100 grains of powder. 1.5 oz was giving a good thump.

Wondering how low I can go with powder and still have effective killing power. Less power will give me better patterns

I crunch numbers for a living and make it a point not to get too hung up on stats and data with blackpowder because as a hobby this is one of my escapes from all that and a foray into primitive tradition, not modern science. And if I want to get wrapped around the axle over ballistic coefficients and trajectories, I have modern firearms for that. All that said, there is some basic physics to keep in mind and that is that hunting loads need to maintain enough speed in order to be lethal, because speed = energy. This is of greatest concern with smaller shot since they tend to lose energy faster.

I would be a little concerned with light powder charges not producing enough velocity to put lethal energy on the target especially getting to #7 size. I plan to work up a load using the most powder and shot that I and the gun can tolerate, because I want as much energy as possible, and with a cylinder bore (no choke) I want as much shot down range as possible. As the saying goes, "too much is always enough."

Here is a chart from Goex to help get an idea of how powder charge correlates to energy:

https://goexpowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/mlss.pdf

And here's another video from Mike Bellevue (duelist1954). It's a long one but packed full of good information. The first 15-20 minutes he covers the difference between FF and FFF powder and postulates that FF is more efficient especially with higher charges.

 

No, still have not gotten to it. Too darn busy. I am planning to spend some time with it this weekend if the weather cooperates. I agree the duelist1954 load seems a bit excessive, and probably has a lot of recoil. All things considered, I might rather pick shot out of a dead bird than miss one altogether, or worse cripple it.

Another load I am anxious to try in this gun is the infamous "Skychief Load"....

Fingers crossed for this weekend. 🤞