.608 bore smooth rifle.

[brazosland]

I am pretty green on smooth bores. I have read that velocity is the key to keeping the ball flying true. Any input on that would be appreciated.

I recently came into possession of a contemporary full stock, percussion, fur-trade era smooth rifle. The bore mics out at .608”.

A .610 ball will not load. I have some .60 handcast balls that nominally run about .602 and they fit.

Based on the .608 bore dimensions I tested a .570 ball (which I have a ton of) with .018 patch and it thumb loads snuggly.

I’m thinking the patched ball over a card or lubed wad might be my best bet for 75-100 yard hunting accuracy. Thoughts on that?

Really don’t have an idea on where to start powder wise. 36” barrel. My other .58’s all seem to perform better with 3F than 2F...any reason the smooth bore would be different?

Thoughts on powder charges would be appreciated.

Haven’t shot it yet. But that’s next. If the patch load works best, it’s kinda cool to have option of a very fast reload with the .60 bare ball if needed. Less accurate perhaps, but quicker depending on distance to target.

And, yes...I know the lock is on the wrong side of the gun. It’s a gift for my soon to be 12 year old son and he is cross dominant.

 

[Treestalker]

Beautiful! The patched .570 in the .608 sounds promising. A lot of the old timers used a slightly smaller ball with a thicker patch, but that was in rifles. I'm betting it will work great in a smoothbore, as there is of course less room for fouling, and therefore lube, etc. I would start with about 70 gr 3f, and see how it goes. I have a Springfield 1863 musket barrel that has been bored out to .60 caliber, 40 inches long, and a supply of .570 balls that I want to use when I get it built. Your gun having a bit more windage may use a thicker patch than mine, but I bet your experience will be useful to my own project. I too, have a buffalo powder horn, but no strap as yet. Where did you get that lovely strap on yours? Thank you for your thread. George.

 

[brazosland]

Treestalker, I will update this thread as I get into shooting it. Plan to start off the bench at 50 and see what happens.

The gun had a few issues I needed to correct like a new front sight, building a new ramrod and giving it a good cleaning inside and out.

I have had that strap for near 25 years. No idea where it came from. That horn is from Jed Star Trading Co and it is an outstanding value.

 

[Britsmoothy]

I sincerely hope it shoots to 100 yds but doubt it....I hope I am wrong though.
Forget wads and patches.
Just cut some thin cards or leather or felt. Lube with bees wax and olive oil. Put a few on the powder. Drop a bare ball down and put one card on top.
Forget 2f and stick to 3f or finer.
Report back please.

 

[brazosland]

Will do. Gonna try everything.

Hopefully it shoots, I like the versatility the smoothbore brings. But if it doesn’t, there is plenty of meat to have it rifled up to .62 cal.

 

[RAEDWALD]

People imagine that the size of a smooth bore's grouping is a function of range but it actually is a function of time. The shorter the time between muzzle and target the less the opportunity for the ball to wander about for whatever cause. Hence, within safe reason, the faster you can launch the thing before it realises what has happened then the smaller will be the dispersion. Myself felt wads ball and preferred lubricant with a thin felt top disk does it for me with as much powder as is safe to use. A 'stout' charge it has been elsewhere described. 50 metres is still as far as might do the job every time. The simple paper cartridge with a large ball (no need for military windages that will let you fire your 60 rounds allocation without cleaning) does remarkably well with soft rag paper which forms a sabot/wad behind the ball with two sharp raps of the rod on the rammed ball to form the paper into the sabot/wad. My standard smooth bore choice. Good but not the absolute choice for accuracy.

 

[brazosland]

That’s roughly what I have read regarding velocity...the harder you launch it the further it gets before aerodynamic forces take over.

I think I will start at 90 grains and work my way up.

 

[Rudyard]

If you soley seek accuracy at say the MLAIC 55 yards competitions then the smaller ball driven by the stoutest charge ( I prefer 40 cal but smaller has merit ) being small & light the recoiling & stress factor is hardly a consideration ..However the larger ball such as your gun cant expect the same results in proportion since to equal the velocity the charge will cause very adverse recoiling & stress gun & shooter .A stout and weighty gun might reduce this factor but you soon reach a limit. 90 grains of fine powder Ide say was pushing your luck. But its your choice .
Rudyard

 

[brazosland]

Pushing my luck? I have a pair of .62 rifled Hawkins that eat 90 grain loads for snacks and can put your eye out at 75 yards...just tell me which eye you want the ball in.

A smooth bore makes much less pressure. As far as accuracy and recoil goes, of course a .40 has less of each.

 

[Rudyard]

Well its your gun & your choice & yes the rifled guns add more stress proportionally but to get the desired comparable accuracy from a smooth bore you will need more than the 90 grains .What relavance this has to do with Hawken rifles abilitys ?. Your avatar suggests your into the J D Bairds Hawken Lode stuff perhaps you drive bulldozers as well .Have fun .
Rudyards

 

[Eterry]

That's a good looking lefty smoothie. I built a L/H Early Lancaster, now wanna build a L/H Fowler. Regardless of caliber, most smooth rifles can make "Minute of whitetail" groups at 50 yards. After that it becomes a more trying task.
The good news is, if your close to the Brazos River, 50 yards is a very do-able shot.
Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[David Coulter]

I use 2f in my 54. I see some using 3f in their smoothbores. What’s the most accepted powder for a .62 smoothie? Thanks, dc

 

[Rich]

Pushing my luck? I have a pair of .62 rifled Hawkins that eat 90 grain loads for snacks and can put your eye out at 75 yards...just tell me which eye you want the ball in.

A smooth bore makes much less pressure. As far as accuracy and recoil goes, of course a .40 has less of each.

If you need 90 grs in your Hawken, you need to redevelop a load. Unless your shooting buffalo or something. Both Hawkens I have (.50 and .54) shoot 1.5 inch groups at 50 yards and 2 inches at 75. The .50 loads up with 63 grains of 2f and the 54 with. My .62 fowler mikes at .613 and shoots 68grns 2f with PRB and will group 2 inches at 25 and 2.7 to 3 inches at 50. Why the heavy charge? My smooth bore kills Mule Deer just fine.

 

[brazosland]

I don’t need 90. I LIKE 90!

The accuracy load for both of my .62s (one flint, one percussion) is 60 grains of 3F. Although the flint gun likes 2F better, sometimes.

A .610 ball get a lot of work done without much effort. No doubt. I load 60grns for most of my deer hunting (found out the hard way that I can fill multiple tags with one shot on our small Texas white tails) but for hogs, and especially stretching shots to 125 the additional velocity helps a lot. .62’s do a lot of stuff really, really well...flying flat ain’t one of them.

I found 90 grns holds the same group size as 60. Every couple of years I go antelope hunting. This fall I am taking one of these two rifles and I want every edge I can get.

As far as smoothbores go, I bought a used rifle that was bored out from .54 to .608 smooth. It took 95grns to get a ball to fly strait after a lot of experimentation.

Posted about it in another thread...that gun is for my 12 year old son. He wouldn’t find that load fun or entertaining. So it has a .58 Rice barrel in it now. Gonna Zero the sights at 60 grns.

My Wilson’s Chiefs canoe gun (26”) barrel likes 75grns of 3f with a bare ball. Good enough to 50 yards. I bet more would be better, but that’s a lively load in that light gun.

Speed is the name of the game throwing a ball with a smooth barrel. In my experience anyway.

 

[Britsmoothy]

You are correct. Velocity certainly helps with a smooth bore. That don't mean they won't shoot worth a hoot loaded low but yes, as a general rule they need winding up.

 

[user 43911]

Velocity is your friend with smoothbore because of the absence of spin (gyroscopic force) that is, to a degree countering drift, a round ball of the same size and weight drops at the same rate from a rifled barrel as it does from a smooth barrel, the ball has the same resistance, drag and CG, because a smoothbore does not have rifling higher velocities are easier to obtain cleanly (pressure,fouling from lead, striping of patch/lead etc) and by doing so spend less time in the air before target contact, less time for wind out of balance ball etc to effect the shot.
This is the short answer without me getting into rifled barrel/ball spin drift, bla, bla, bla.

 

[Rich]

Accuracy is not an effect of how fast the projectile is traveling. Accuracy is gained by having the gun and round do the exact same thing every single time its fired. Wind drift will happen with a 1200fps round ball or a 3000fps boat tail etc. You can load up a bunch of rounds and if they are not exact, the fps will vary and so will point of impact. Its up to the shooter to adjust for any windage, and at 50 yards, it aint much to worry about. At 100 its not going to matter unless your shooting at squirrels.

This is why hand loaders of unmentionable rounds can sometimes be seen using tweezers to drop 1 speck of powder onto a scale to get it exactly the same as the others he just loaded up.

 

[brazosland]

But with a round sphere that is not spin stabilized velocity is the only friend you have on the way to the target.

As velocity drops aerodynamic forces begin to take control of the balls trajectory. Just like a sinking fast ball, a well thrown curve or a slider. The difference is a good pitcher can put the same spin on the ball every pitch...which results in predictability and “control.”

With a smoothbore you are throwing a pitch, you just don’t know which one. As the ball slows the randomness of it’s flight is unpredictable when aerodynamic forces start to act on its random, shape, mass and surface contours.

 

[user 43911]

RICH,
Was replying to why smoothbore shooters tend to load fast, we are talking 50 to 100 yards.
Accuracy was not the question, that's up to the shooter, wind drift WILL happen, yes indeed but the shorter the time it has to make an effect the less the drift, as I post before.
Smoothbore and rifled round ball shooting is not the same as modern ballistics at all, the BC is horrible, we are talking black powder muzzle loaders and the thread is about smoothbore no less.

P.S. My unmentionable ammo has an average standard deviation of 5 fps. I would be happy if my black powder loads are within 50 fps.