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With respect, it's a bit more complicated than that. "Steel" bird shot is fairly pure iron and annealed after final grinding to make it as soft as possible, something like 128BHN if I recall correctly. Air rifle shot is common/inexpensive mild (low carbon) steel and unannealed, with a...

Also not tapered octagonal, or octagon-to-round (usually tapered or swamped in the round section, and preferably tapered in the octagon as well). Regards, Joel

Just to be formal, 12ga is nominally .729"; 14ga is .693" and 15ga .677". See this table up in the reference section. Regards, Joel

You can make your own bags inexpensively enough out of the lower legs of some worn out pants, filled with rice or dried beans. Make a few or several and stack them to get the height you need at the time. FWIW, I don't normally support the barrel of my firearm, but rather hold it normally and...

There is no volumetric unit of grains avoirdupois - it is a unit of weight. We most often measure smokeless powder by volume, but we have to calibrate the measures for each powder because they differ significantly in density and drastically in burn rate and sensitivity to differences in charge...

produce product.

Without meaning to sound snarky, if you have a powder (or jewelry) scale, just weigh it. It's the same grains avoirdupois as any other powder is measured in, we just take advantage of an approximately-consistent density for the various makes and granulations of black powder, which very close to...

It's apparently true but not universal. I recall some of a discussion by the Mad Monk about this. It concerns the different classes of hydrocarbon molecules - only one major class reacts, but I cannot remember what kind (never studied organic chem - lousy at memorization). Whichever one it is...

Dried yucca leaves? I vaguely recall yucca fiber being used to make cordage. Regards, Joel

Actually, I've seen both "SYW" and occasionally "7YW" used in reenactor/historian discussions with a broader-than-just-North-America perspective. Regards, Joel

Are you talking about head/neck shots or body shots? Most folks hunting turkeys are shooting for the head and neck, and many state/provincial game regulations explicitly limit hunters to shot too small for body hits - usually #4 and smaller. My understanding is that this is from a history of...

There have been multiple discussions of double balls, and this information has been posted more than once: When done correctly/safely, you do actually gain more energy out of given powder charge with two balls. In the four single- vs. double-ball loads that Herb presented data for in this...

A fowler or a double in the wonderful one-ounce bore, 16ga. With shot, it's a little easier to load down than a 10 or 12ga and easier to load up than a 28, 24, or 20ga, and that ball doesn't have to be moving fast to flatten any mammal I'd hunt at moderate range. Too much of my hunting is...

Well, you could man-up and buy your own dress pattern :blah: and avoid the flying frying pan. For a cheap source, look in thrift stores. There are usually assorted clothing patterns and you can often find ones that have not been cut out yet, so they're still in full rectangular sheets of...

As far as I know, Eley in the U.K. is the only `licensed producer of bismuth shot at the present - they make everyone's shot. The properties should be the same for all commercial Bi/Sn shot: nominally 3% Sn alloy, 9.69g/cc, 18 BHN. Regards, Joel

Patrol Boat, Riverine? :rotf: Regards from the Mekong Delta (long ago), Joel

25yds is a fairly standard range for comparison-patterning of closer-range loads, guns, and/or chokes. My muzzleloading smoothbores are unchoked, so what I'm looking for is consistent even patterns, and the desired pattern density depends on the intended targets. If I can benefit from longer...

Bismuth-tin alloy shot and NiceShot are available from Precision Reloading in the U.S. and Wil Bilozir in Canada. Both types have round pellets, and list hardnesses in the range of wheel-weight to Linotype lead alloys. NiceShot is also available from the manufacturer (EcoTungsten). ITX...

When that research was first published, there was much discussion on various boards, and someone posted a portion of a translated 15th or early 16th century Spanish text that described the routine production of wrought-iron musket balls (heat the end of the bar, bump up, reheat as needed...

I tried ~3/4oz of shot in a paper shot cartridge out of my .50 1:48" shallow-groove Pedersoli flinter, over a somewhat smaller volume of powder (can't remember exactly). The rifling sliced the paper longitudinally when it fired, so the cartridges opened reliably, and I got even patterns, not...