Excellent. I shoot some heavy centerfires but I was just curious to see if anyone would say it is "vicious" or wholly unenjoyable. It won't be a primary roundball shooter but it is nice to know I would be able to sling some solids from it when I wanna play militia man. Something about having a 12 gauge in an appropriately styled gun seems really attractive. Is 12 gauge something that would have been common enough from Long Island to Boston? I live in this corridor and want to keep it historically accurate. I know we can find a caliber that is the outlier for all of these styles, but I would like to keep it similar to what would have been sort of run of the mill in that area, leading up to the Revolution. Thanks!
Sure. I'd say 14 gauge, 11, 12, and possibly 10 Ga, are all pretty common sizes for bigger bores during colonial times along the corridor you want to represent. Actually there was not any particular civilian standard, but perhaps the militia tended to influence bore choices. Later the 16 grew in popularity after we had a standing army and the civilian guns were more dedicated to hunting and possibly home defense.
You can also load the 12 gauge gun with a charge similar to the 16 gauge. Also, the 16 gauge can be loaded up to about a 12 gauge load. There is so much flexibility in the loads we can use in any specific smooth bored gun that we don't automatically have to tolerate more recoil or use extra shot and powder when there is no need to use extra shot or powder.
The general rule going back for decades that you would read in magazines and manuals was 3F for smaller calibers up to .50 and 2F for .50 and above, excluding really large bore guns. So with a .50 it was then preached that you can go either way. Now we know that there are no hard and fast rules on this.
