10 ga cyl bore patterns

[AkDan]

Hey Gang,

I have the dixie 10 ga pedersoli. The mod barrel is patterning really nicely.

The cyl barrel is not only not patterning but what I'm getting is to the right quite a bit.

I'm shooting at 25 yards which maybe to far with the cyl?

So far all loads are 1 1/2oz of copper plated shot.

started with 8 110 grain loads.
2 with 1/8 nitro, full lubed cushion regular os card
2 overshot, then 1/8 nitro lubed, shot then overshot
2 1/8 nitro, half lubed cushion and os
1 shot cup out of cyl bore, acted like a slug
1 think thick thin out of mod barrel again

same thing with 105 grains. With 105 grains the thin thick and thin cards worked great out of the mod barrel. The shotcups slugged again out of the cyl barrel and things are consistantly low and right. Patterns without the cups are right.

SO I'm needing some help getting the cyl bore patterend and back shooting straight not right or right and low with the shot cups. Going to try some paper shotcups and see how that works out, dunno if I'll get time before I leave to give them a whirl or not though.

The shotcups I'm using are the the ones cabelas sells in the wad kit, or the heavy multi metals, thick white ones, heres a link to them at BP. It's the very first shotcups. Plan is to run over ther ewhen I get to Mn and get some different ones and givem a run before I head out. Have a lil over a week once I arrive in MN.
[url] http://shop2.mailordercentral.com/bpicart/products.asp?dept=84[/url]

Thanks for any and all help!!!!

Dan
Alaska

 

[Mike Brooks]

Sounds like the barrels aren't regulated properly. You may be able to adjust point of impact by filing the muzzle.

 

[jdixon]

I have the same shotgun but with the screw in choke tubes. Mike's suggestion about the filing is a good suggestion. My experience is that this gun does better with a reduced load. You are pushing the max recommended load and a little beyond with the loads you listed. Try dropping down to 90 gr. loads with the same volume of shot and do a pattern or two, see if that doesn't help. Something else I started using last year that helps dramatically is putting a styrofoam wad under the shot, atop the overpowder card. I cut these with a hunk of 3/4" copper pipe that has a sharpened bevel around one end. Twist it threw a block of styrofoam up to an 1" thick, you get a nice plug that works great as a cushion in a 10 or 12 ga. As for those shot cups, I never have been happy with the performance I got with those. Word of caution - there is nothing more frustrating than trying to figure out the best load on a MZ shotgun. That being said, everything I just told you may not work at all in your gun - just some things to try.

 

[paulvallandigham]

The only problem I have seen using the styrofoam cushion wads is that they do melt and leave residue in the barrel, which can be removed with a good scrubbing with a bore brush. And, unless you use an overshot card on top of the styrofoam cushion wad, pellets will sometimes imbed themselves in the face of the plug, giving it weight and helping it trail the pattern for some yards. However, if the styrofoam is sandwiched between cards, it remains light weight, and will drop to the ground within 10 yards, and that is not bad at all as wads go. Only the OS cards fall faster.

The other problem I see using the Styrofoam cushion wads is getting them past any kind of choke. They will shave down at the muzzle as you push them through, but unlike damp cushion wads made of paper or celotex, which will expand during the firing, the styrofoam is not going to expand much or provide much if any kind of seal against gases. So, if you use a styrofoam cushion wad, use an OS card, or Over powder card to seal the gases, then push the foam wad down on top of that card or wad.

 

[jdixon]

I had not noticed any melting of the styrofoam. I usually lube them a bit with Bore Butter but, that wouldn't help much if the heat was really getting to them. I recovered all of the wads that I fired and never have I found pellets imbedded in them. The type of styrofoam could make a difference here. Those less dense could have this happen I just have not seen it. The only thing I have noticed on the wads is that they compress in length by about 1/3 which is to be expected. During this compression the width of the wad increases slightly so any loss that may have occured when pushing them through a choke is more than compensated. Yes, getting these wads through say an X-full choke is a problem but, not as much as a problem as the traditional hard over powder card usually is. When shooting X-Full I usually have to pull the choke to load anyway. The face of the wad that was against the pellets will have some deep impressions of the shot on it, but no shot has been stuck in them. The wads do not fly very far at all and are usually found a few feet away from the muzzle unless the winds carries them farther. The recovered wads are in such a condition that I could use them again if I choose. To clarify I am only using these wads when hunting and patterning hunting loads. I have not put them to the test during a trap match for instance, once the barrel really heated up these things could be a problem I suspect.

What has been your experience with the shot cups?

 

[paulvallandigham]

I fired some of my early prototype paper shot cups in my 12 ga. shotgun and got modified choke patterns with some. That was better than I expected, and I want to try some different things to see if that can be improved upon. This out of open cylinder bores. One of the things that was recommended to me was to use a 16 gauge wad cutter to cut out styrofoam rod inserts to use in the bottom of my paper shot cups.

 

[paulvallandigham]

I fired some of my early prototype paper shot cups in my 12 ga. shotgun and got modified choke patterns with some. That was better than I expected, and I want to try some different things to see if that can be improved upon. This out of open cylinder bores. One of the things that was recommended to me was to use a 16 gauge wad cutter to cut out styrofoam rod inserts to use in the bottom of my paper shot cups.

 

[Britsmoothy]

In my Pedersoli 10ga double with fixed chokes with right barrel being the tightest as in a fowling flighting gun I shot walked up woodcock, partridge, pheasant and duck, even a fox. All I used was 1 1/4 oz of no7 shot as follows; Equiv volume of powder as shot, two thick cards softened with olive oil and bees wax mix, shot and a thin card + rem cap. I open the nipples a fraction and I mean a fraction :nono: I have to admit I have never patterned it, It,s killed stuff from day one and going by the hits on stuff I would say it,s tight enough. The thick cards curl up past the chokes and then the rod flattens them out on the way down.
Good luck and well- you may just be over egging it a touch- only my opinion :winking:

 

[Bob J]

My Pedersoli 10 ga. with fixed chokes (imp cyl and mod) actually patterned slightly better with the right barrel- the imp cyl barrel.

110 grains 2f goex
overpowder (thick) card
pre-lubed cushion wad
1 1/2 oz. #5 shot
overshot (thin) card

--- OR ---

110 grains 2f Goex
TWO overpowder (thick)cards
1 1/2 oz. #5 shot
overshot card (thick card over-shot in left barrel
to keep recoil from first shot from loosening it).

Killed a big gobbler with the second load.

 

[AkDan]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I stopped by a place and shot more rounds this evening after work. Alaska is almost spring...ok the snow's not melting yet but boy it sure feels nice .


I'm not sure I have the same gun some of yall have.

Mine is the dixe 10 ga pedersoli. My right barrel is cyl, not improved, and my left barrel is modified. My max load as printed on the barrel is 110 grains of powder to 1 1/2oz of shot, so I havent gone over intentionally if I did, I may have wrote it wrong by accident .

The left barrel is by far patterning nicely, very nicely actually. The load I'm using in it is as follows

105gr pyrodex
thin over shot card
1/8 nitro lubed
1 1/2 oz number 5 copper plated
thin over shot card.

This patterns very very nicely and spot on with a consistent 20 to 30 pellets in the head and heck region and the bulk of the pattern dead on.

The cyl barrel (my right barrel) on the other hand is shooting right. Dunno if I'm overthinking this.

So far I've tried a ton of things out of this barrel short of reducing shot loads. This is my next step here, to jump down to 1 3/8 or 1 1/4 out of the cyl barrel. The mod barrel is to good to change.

With the cyl barrel there are two patterns that are close but not quite on yet. One is the a thin over shot, full cushion, shot then thin overshot again. The other is powder 2 1/8 (thick) hard nitro cards, shot then thin over shot card.

Othe rthen those two, EVERYTHING is going right. Right to the point I am not seeing the bulk of the pattern from this barrel. Even the better patterning loads are putting around half on the paper at 25 yards (paper is large sketch paper, 24x32" appx). Going to try a few more idears. Reducing shot, then starting with 110 and work down and see what happens there. Also a few different shot configs.

As for fowling no I havent noticed to much on the shot cups.

I'd like to hear more about these paper shot cups. How to make them, etc. Right now my current shot cups are not opening up at all. I did recover one. Something mentioned to me is to put the shotcup directly over the powder. I found this odd, is there truth to this?

 

[Joel/Calgary]

Everything I've read indicated things are fundamentally different for a shot charge in a choked barrel versus an unchoked one. Going through a choke, a shot charge behaves like a fluid with complex dynamics, whereas a charge exiting a cylinder bore is just a compact static mass. The 19th & 20th century references I've read suggest that chokes can perform better with more powder than the "equal volume" loads, where cylinder-bore/unchoked guns generally pattern better with less.

As is often mentioned, traditionlly, the starting point for load work is equal volumes of shot and powder, and this often gives adequate results regardless of choke. From there, in a cylinder bore, more powder tends to open the pattern and less powder tends to tighten it, thus there is a trade off between pattern and penetration. The classic recommendation for the optimum of a dense pattern while still giving adequate velocity (supported by the reported experience of various members of this forum) is to use 1/3 more shot than powder (approximately, depending on the burn rate of the powder), or a ratio of 4:3. For a 1.1/2oz shot charge, the equal-volume load is 3.1/2dr(96gr) of powder. The 1/3-more-shot load would be approximately 2.3/4dr(75gr) of powder. Changing the load will change the recoil dynamics, but I don't know how much this would affect the POI.

For paper shot protectors, are you looking at ones loaded separately, as a component, or the ones that hold the shot and load as a unit? Both have been discussed on the forum, and a search should for "paper" or "shot cup" or "shot protector" ought to turn up most of it. I have to get back to work now, but maybe I can add more later.

Hope this is of assistance,
Joel

p.s. - If you wind up having to use two different powder charges, you might consider carrying them premeasured, in either 2 different types of containers or in 2 different colors of paper.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Joel: WADR, I changed my powder charge in my modern, full choked trap gun from a heavy 3 dram load of 1 1/8 oz in a 12 ga. to a very light 2 3/4 dram eq. load with the same amount of shot. I get much better patterns, particularly at the longer ranges.

Second, if you read the V.M. Starr article on loads for M.L. Shotguns, with and without a jug choke( he was the master of doing jug chokes in the last half of the 20th century),
[url] http://members.aye.net/~bspen/starr.html[/url]

you will find that he also suggests reduced loads for better patterns in choked barrels, too.

I think the main difference between the two kinds of guns is the use of thick plastic shot cups that protect the shot from rubbing against the sides of the barrel as the load exits the barrel. That plastic wad cup has increased the pattern density even when using higher velocity shells. When you consider that 40 yds, a " Long range " for taking birds with any shotgun, is only 120 feet, just a little bit improvement in the condition of the shot when it leaves the barrel can make a big difference at ranges from 120 feet to 160 feet. However, a round ball or pellet cannot change it stripes. No matter how round it is, it is still a ballistically inferior projectile, and loses velocity very quickly in the first 60 feet of flight.

What goes out fast, slows fast. What goes out faster slows faster. You can't change that basic law of physics. And that applies without any consideration to the sound barrier, the transonic zone, and what they do to round pellets when the pellets slow down and enter that transonic zone.

 

[AkDan]

good stuff guys. I've read that star article backwards forwards and inside out.

By far so far out of the mod barrel that load is really pretty dog gone good out to 25 yards, which is as far as I care to shoot at turkeys really.

I did a lil trigger work on the cyl bores trigger. She's a lil better now, still not where it needs to be but better. Adjusted the spring just a tad (took more then a few attempts) and tried buffing the dho hicky point, seems to help quite a bit but needs a tad more....) So we'll see if it's not just me flinching.

The best cyl barrel pattern I have definatly looks like it's over powdered and I built some loads last nite for 1 3/8 oz of shot and went down to 95 grains of powder (still have a bunch of 1 1/2 oz pre loads built up). Been preloading at nite and shooting after work. Got windy and cold again today, call me a wuss, worked whipped me.

I'll let ya know tomorrow.


As for paper shot cups. I dont know, havent tried anything yet. Basically just learning about them, how people are building them etc. I'm to short on time to work on shotcups for this spring other then plastic and the plastic I've used so far is too stiff by quite a bit!

Anyways, just wanted to say thanks I greatly appreciate all this info. There are ZERO bp shotgunners up here that I've found so far. Well there is one, however he's using chokes etc, no smoothbore guys.

Has anyone tried the corn muffin mix deal? Figured what the heck it cant hurt, and it might even smell nice If ya cant tell I'm tired, zzzzzzzz

Thanks again!

 

[Joel/Calgary]

Hi, Paul. I don't think we disagree as much as it sounds. Your 2.3/4dr-equivalent load is still equivalent to an equal-volume load, and we both acknowledge how ideosyncratic individual combinations of barrels, chokes and powders can be.

Reread Starr with a reference table at hand. Yes, he talks about not needing huge shot charges for many applications, but some _are_ quite stout, and the proportions of powder to shot are never less than equal-volume. Some of the heavy duck and crow loads go up to 1/3 MORE powder than shot. He does not specify which guns were jug choked and which were conventional constriction choked in the article, but any factory-choked gun would have been constriction, not jug.

These loads are typical of what I've read in various authors from the mid 19th through the mid 20th centuries discussing both muzzle- and breech-loaders, as conventional constriction chokes became reasonably well developed, but before modern shot protectors came along. It is also typical of what I more vaguely recall in specifications for fixed ammunition generally - even the lightest loads were rarely less than equal-volume powder charges, regardless of how heavy or light the shot charge may be for the bore. None of this changed in the transition from drams of real gunpowder to "drams equivalent" of the various new-fangled nitrated smokeless powders.

Unfortunately, I can't cite references as I don't possess most of what I've read over the years.

Respectfully,
Joel

 

[paulvallandigham]

JOel: The point I was trying to make is that shotgunners have to be very careful about loading above the speed of sound. That transonic zone does terrible things to patterns. The 2 3/4 dram, 1 1/4 oz. of #5 shot was listed as a " 50 yard Duck Load " in an article about the Market Hunters on the Illinois river back in the 1870s. Very few guns were choked, and those that weree used jug chokes of unknown dimensions. Shot cups were not in use, and the quality of shot was much poorer than what we have today. My velocity is well under 100 fps, closer to 1000 fps in my trap loads. I use the same powder charge with 1 1/4 oz. of copper Plated #5 shot for long range work with my Remington, but use the same load in my 12 ga. double ML shotgun, too. My gun is open cylinder for both barrels, but I have brought down pheasants at 35 yards and beyond with that load. 2 3/4 drams of 2Fg powder is 75 grains, and a 1 1/4 oz. load of shot is the volume equivalent of 90 grains of powder. I suspect that my heavy load is right at 1000 fps coming out of the barrel, well under the speed of sound, so that the pellets are not being disturbed by sonic vacuums, and air slamming those vacuums behind the pellet shut. With much less air turbulance, and the pellets being more round because of the lighter push, the pellets tend to stay together longer, and give me killing patterns at 35 yards and beyond, even out of a cylinder bore gun.

Someone asked about using meal with a shotgun. I am assuming he is talking about using a buffer with the shot, to help keep pellet distortion to a minimum. I have not done so, but would recommend using Puf-Lon, a synthetic powder of fine granules, that you can buy from Ballistic's Products for this purpose. It will fill in the gaps between the pellets well, and it does seem to help stop deformation on firing. However, unless some kind of protection is used in the way of a shotcup, so that flats are not rubbed on the outside edges of the pellets, all the buffers in the world are not going to contribute much to your pattern. The advantage of using a synthetic material over corn meal or some other kind of natural product is that the synthetic products will not absorb moisture at any time, where the natural product do and will. The Puf Lon is extremely small diameter pellets, that weigh next to nothing, and blow away from the shot within inches of the load leaving the muzzle. Its not uncommon to have the stuff blow back in the shooter's face if he's shooting into the wind. ( If you are turkey hunting, I hope you will be shooting into the wind, or across it. If you are shooting with the wind behind you the turkey is likely to smell you, and leave long before it is in range. )

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

Paul, have you ever heard of using thin leather as a shot cup? Many years ago, I knew an older gentleman who made up shot loads using chamois. He cut a disc of chamois and made a little pouch by stretching it, then filling it with shot. He loaded the powder normally and put an overshot wad down on it. Then came the shot. He pushed it into the barrel and cut the loose leather off and seated the pouch full of shot. Then came an over shot card to hold it in place. When the fowler was fired, the chamois opened up as soon as it left the barrel and fell away. He got really good patterns and lots of game this way.
I think I've listed all the steps but I may have forgotten something. He was using an original flintlock fowler with a long barrel and always loaded a lesser volume of powder than shot. I think I may try this technique when my ten bore fowler arrives next fall. Have you ever run across a technique such as this?

 

[paulvallandigham]

No, I haven't. I would want to lube that chamois with something like tallow, or wonderlube to protect it from friction burns.

I see where It could work, but I would wonder what kind of patterns you might get. Chamois is very thin stuff, so I wonder how it would protect larger shot sizes. With small shot, like #7 1/2 or #8, I think the pellets would be protected from rubbing flats. However, Unless the leather was made into a tube, and folds to the bottom to close it( How would you hold that?) You would have folds in the sides of the " pouch " next to the barrel which would change the shape of the shot column from one shot to the next. Assuming that the leather was trimmed at the top of the shot, it should open immediately on leaving the barrel. But what would those folds do to your patterns?

I was thinking someone might use heavier leather to form a tube, plug one end of it, but recover the leather cup after each shot so it could be used again. I just don't know how to close that one end easily.

I suppose if the leather was formed Wet over a mandrill, and the ends folded shut on the end of the mandrill and held together some how, when the leather dried the ends would dry in the folded state. Then if you simply put a OS card down the barrel an inch or so, then inserted the leather tube on top of the card, then the shot, then another OS card, the entire package would stay together as you seated it on the OP wad. Then the shot was fired, the leather would open up and fall to the ground for recovery, and reuse.

They would take time to make up, and would be slow to load, but after all, we are talking about shooting flintlock smoothbores, and not some modern Semi-auto suppository gun, no?

I am thinking that one way to form that folded end and hold it in place until it dries would be to insert the leather cup into a 12 ga. brass hull, and leave it in there to dry. Or use a 3/4" pipe with end caps.
I suppose even empty plastic hulls could be put into service for this work. Chamois can be bought fairly cheaply if you buy it at the auto parts department of the discount houses, compared to buying it at a leather shop.

Interesting idea.

Anybody else have any ideas to add? Has anyone tried this?

 

[paulvallandigham]

oops.

 

[ssettle]

I have the same shotgun and have been working on it also. I seem to get better patterns with the cylinder bore over the improved. What I found was the cushion wads would blow the pattern. You could try shooting without cushion wads, I did and the pattern got much better. Also use an equal amount of powder and shot per volume measure. I found I also get better patterns if I don't use shot cups (plastic)... paper seemed to work better. I need to to more work on my patterning but things are getting to the point I believe I could take a Gobbler at 25 yards without to much worry.Good Luck .Ssettle

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Dan, you may want to keep in mind that recoil begins to move the gun before the shot leaves the barrel. The right barrel swings out to the right and the left barrel to the left. If you're right handed your hands and face resist the movement to the left so that it is not so pronounced as the swing to the right. Heavier recoiling loads will cause more left-right dispersion of the two barrels simply because there is more recoil. Lower velocity loads also cause more dispersion because of longer barrel time. I'd try a lighter load from that right barrel, say 80 grains 1 1/4 ounce and see if it doesn't shoot center. Another "fix" I have used is to lightly peen the muzzle on the right side to bend it in very slightly. Check your progress with a good caliper, .005" will make a noticeable difference in point of impact. If it's also shooting low, you can work on the lower right third of the barrel to bring it up and left.