62 round ball loads

[Bushfire]

Curious what others have done and have found to work.

In my pedersoli trade gun, I was getting slightly tighter groups with .600 balls and .018 patches than I was with bare .600 balls. Both with 90 grains 2F.

With my new fusil which I should have by next weekend I'm think of trying a Mike Bellevue type load going north of 100gr 2F for bare ball. I'm not too phased by recoil so that part doesn't bother me.

I'll do anything that gets me minute of deer out to 75 yards.

What are others doing?

 

[appalichian hunter]

80grn. 3-f, .610 ball and 15 thousands pure cotton patch, using my home brew patch lube of bees wax,olive oil and crisco, my 62 has round bottom rifling, gun shoots minute of deer out to 100 yards on paper, but I try to limit my hunting shots to no further than 75 yards and then most shots are under that. Same load in the smooth bore only a fiber wad ( same lube as mentioned) over powder charge and patching is 10 thousands, with it the shots are kept at 50 yds or less. Both weapons are easy to load with those loads.

 

[Historian]

Plus one for bees wax and olive oil lube patches and 3Fg at about 80 to 90 grains. I use a .60 cal RB in my Pedersoli 20 SXS Flinter.

 

[Brokennock]

2 different 20 gauge smoothies, two totally different preferences.
One will shoot well with two totally different procedures even.

TVM Early Virginia Smoothrifle.
Load 1 = 85 grains 3f, 2 thin overshot card, lubed felt wad, .610 ball, two thin overshot cards.
Load 2 and variations of it = 65 grains 3f, .010 patched .595 ball (note this patch/ball combo shoots okay at 80 to 85 grains 3f but not as well as the load with wads and that powder charge). At 65 grains 3f, a .595 ball also shoots well in a paper cartridge, and shoots pretty good with wads.
This gun does not like tight loads, at all. The sags on how this was determined is posted elsewhere.

Centermark Fusil des Chase.
I don't have as much time spent in Load development with this gun, even though I've had it longer. It was/is my 1st flintlock and 1st smoothbore. When I got it I just shot with the load data the previous owner gave me and it shot well.

80 grains 3f under a .010 patched .600 round ball.

The gun was put aside for several years for a variety of reasons when I got the above smoothrifle. Early last year I decided to so some work on it and get it shooting again, adding a rear sight and correcting some issues. It is lighter and just handles so much better than the smoothrifle.

After some personal issues and loss of muscle mass since I last shot it, 80 grains with patched ball or wads was just more recoil than I wanted to shoot a lot off the bench. I also wanted a more historical load using wads.

So far, best load has been, 75 grains 3f, dry felt wad, lubed tow wad, .610 ball, thin overshot cards.
This gun (referred to earlier in another topic about loading smoothbores) does not like any type of stiff card/s between powder and ball.

Smoothbores are frustrating for load development,,,, many, many, combinations must be tried, and, many of these combinations defy logic and so called "conventional wisdom." Smoothbores break "the rules."

 

[Rifleman1776]

I am a proponent of more moderate loads. Except for use on griz and buff, a 90 gr. charge doesn't put a hole in paper any more than a 50 gr. charge. For Bambi, they won't know the difference when you shoot them. Do yer experimenting with charges in the 50-65 gr. range.

 

[Cruzatte]

Wilson Chief's Grade Trade Gun by Caywood, 20 ga.:

• 2¼ drams (61.5 gr.) 2fg,
• .010" linen patch
• .600" ball

Track of the Wolf Fusil de Chasse, 20 ga.

• 3 dr. 2fg (82 gr)
• 5/8" dia. leather wad
• .600" ball
• paper wad moistened with Stumpkiller's Moose Milk. The paper wads are actually torn up pieces of brown paper napkins I scam from a local bakery/coffee joint. Works pretty well.

 

[hanshi]

With a somewhat tight bore my smoothbore shoots best by loading a .600" ball and .010" to .012" lubed patch over anything between 60 grains of 3F and 75 grains of 3F. The last deer I shot was dropped using this load and 70 grns of 3F. A "bare ball" load with the ball sitting on top of a fiber wad groups (three shots) under 3" at 50 yards while the prb load can often tuck it's group under 2"; and about always under 3".

 

[nessmuk]

TVM smoothie with a 36" barrel. My load is 60 gr. of Goex 3F with a .600 round ball with a .015 patch.

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

I’d advise you do dedicated load development, like shown on my target below of loads from 50 to 75-grains. I also took it up to 110-grains.

For the powdah range tested on this target, you can see that 55 and 75 tested best or produced the best results is maybe a better way to say it.

As the target clearly shows … due to the barrel ‘whipping’ like a tuning fork in a sine wave fashion at each shot, there will be ‘nodes’ where the shots will group the tightest together.

By the way, a load development target is shot ‘round robin’, meaning one shot of each powder charge is shot, not all 3 at once, then increment the charge by 5-grains and shoot one, increment and shoot at the next higher charge aiming point, etc.

Yes, it takes a little dedication and a lot of care and attention … but statistical theory has proven this is a way to eliminate the ‘human factor’ and spread out any inherent variation amongst all the loads, i.e., it eliminates bias.

FWIW I do this with any of my muzzleloaders in which I pursue the utmost accurate load.