double barrel 12

[Rifleman1776]

Smooth is smooth. Yer fine here.
Go easy with the hacksaw. Try cutting to 26" first. You might be surprised how much that will change the balance for you.

 

[bigted]

nope not gonna do any cutting till I get it to shoot fairly well and group well.

I also would not elk hunt with it till I am confident of shot placement. I will insist on a 3 inch group and otherwise I would not do the majestic elk the dis-service of taking a chance on a wounded animal suffering till I could track it down and relieve the suffering. I have a 54 rifle that will suffice till I get this in better shooting shape ... er train me into being better with it in the accuracy dept.

I have shot 70 grains up to 90 grains thru her and they did no good work on paper ... that said .... I gotta confess that my powder is old as well as being my last bit of the GOEX cartridge powder I have left which is 2Fg I believe ... at least the kernel size compares well with the 2Fg GOEX that I usually shoot thru all my BP guns. this powder has had just a very small bit of moisture in the metal cans ... just enough that there is just a ball or two in every can that has clumped together in a "shooter" size marble diameter ... also when I shake the can it crumbles back into the kernel and looks and works as the rest of the powder. im on the last can and waiting for my shipment from "powder inc". I like 2Fg very much and have not tried the 1Fg as of yet in the huge .72 cal smoothie. my shipment I am waiting on consists of 2 pounds 2Fg GOEX, 2pounds KIK 2Fg and 1 pound of the GOEX Ol E powder. I am going to do some comparisons and see if the other kinds work better then the old standby 2Fg GOEX.

anyhew thankyou all so much for your handy suggestions and id like to continue to read them as you can think of more to say in the helpful way that has been done here.

 

[Britsmoothy]

All my guns work best with 3f! Every time I use courser powder I struggle! Used a can last year, no good, bought another this summer, struggling. Never again and can't wait to return to 3f. My little 45 gets 4f!
So much hype about powder but no evidence!

Maybe its our third world powder hey Alden?

B :haha:

 

[bigted]

well I got to dink in my shop today and seen the double setting there so I pulled out my snap gauges and set about finding the bore requirements for the shotgun.

found the why of how come I am getting such erratic groups. [shoulda done this a couple years back when it first came to live with me] ... so I came up with .7355 for the bore size with no choke in either side.

now I been shooting .686 inch balls in her. so with the .022 patch's she had just the slightest windage on the ball setup.

I found a .715 inch mold that should get me a bit closer to the needs of this shotgun.

what say ye?

 

[Britsmoothy]

Or double patch :hatsoff:

 

[bigted]

well back to the range today for an experiment with the double patch's ... the right barrel prints into a 2 inch group at 25 yds but the left does horrible and printed to the left by 3 inch's to boot.

shot until I only had a few balls left and when I went to push the patched balls down I didn't remember to put the over powder wad in so I just shot it and it did as well or better then with the wads sooo ... no mo wads tween powder n patched ball.

got to 4 balls left and fumbled round and let a ball go down the bore without a patch on it ... now thinkin back I recall reading about patch less balls shooting in a smooth bore and with just an over ball wad to hold it in place ... so I shot both barrels and as I gazed dumfounded at the target ... I see that both barrels printed rite on point of aim and grouped to touch each other.

now I have only the two balls left [these are the .686 inch balls now] so thinking it musta been a fluke ... I loaded em up over the 60 grain charge of the new "Old E" 2Fg I was trying as well {this 2Fg "Old E" powder is more lively then the straight GOEX 2Fg powder I have played with in the past ... it shoots as hard as the 85 or 90 grain charges with the same ball setup}.

now thinkin ... in fer a penny ... in fer a pound ... I stuffed the remaining two balls into the barrel over the 60 grain charge and over ball wad ... guess what ... they both printed within 1.5 inch of each other and due to my befuddlement they were under and to the left just slightly of the first two bare balls I just had shot.

sooo now I wonder if it were a fluke or whether I should just yank the trigger on the Lyman mold for the .715 ball mold. I would think that the .715 should do as well or even better then my way undersize mold I currently cast with.

guess before I order it I should melt some more pure lead and cast some more of these .686 inch balls and take em out n try em again just to see if what happened today is repeatable.

so there is my excitement for today ... been a wonderful Saturday. ... oh and I really like the "Ol E" powder. I even got some in 3Fg to try but im not too sure now that I have shot the 2Fg ... it is just that much hotter then standard 2Fg powder from GOEX. maybe somebody else cam comment on these two powders in the big bore smoothie ... as well as the current cool turnout with the bare ball shooting.

 

[Britsmoothy]

That is very interesting in deed! Well done :hatsoff:
Seems a wad on top of a ball and shot works well then.

 

[Darkgael]

just checking a detail here...the unpatched ball atop the powder......was there a wad of some sort between the powder and the ball or did the ball end up directly against the powder charge?
Pete

 

[Darkgael]

no mo wads tween powder n patched ball.

And that was the case when you dropped the unpatched ball down the barrel??
The ball right against the powder charge.
I apologize for what may seem to be questions already answered in your post but the idea is so simple and neat that i wanted to be sure that I was not misunderstanding/missing something.
Gotta try this out for my self.
Pete

 

[ZUG]

I would not cut those barrels :shake: . I would either sell it of just use it as is with shot :hmm: . I would make or buy a single barrel smoothbore for round ball then you don't have to worry about where two barrels are printing -- you only will have to deal with one barrel :thumbsup: .

 

[Eterry]

Sounds like you're onto something w the bare ball.
Before you pull the trigger on a new mold here's a tip I used...not just read about, not heard someone talk about , but actually have a few years experience with.

I bought a .575 minie mold that was too small, it patterned more than grouped.
Being too cheap (and broke) to buy a new mold I read on Lee Precision's site about shimming a mold. I used some plain old receipt paper, greased it real good, and in about 10 minutes of tinkering had a mold throwing a .580 minie.
Lee says you can shim up to .010 and still be accurate. You can remove the paper shim in seconds and no harm to
mold.
This turned my musket from shooting a 7 moa group to 3
moa with those lousy mil/spec sights.
Something to consider.......

 

[bigted]

nope ... only the powder followed directly with the bare ball rite on the powder. not sure this is kosher but so far it seemed to work ... well almost ... I finally got the lead cleaned outta the bore ... don't know if it were in there before but I had a dickens of a time getting it clean this time. finally got out the turpentine and gave it the works and this released the lead from the walls down at the breech end.

I only surmise that the lead came off the balls as the explosion hit around the windage of the ball till the ball flattened [obturated] enough to seal the bore.

more direction and others experience with this would be appreciated. may need some kinda wadding between the ball n powder for sealing till the ball obturates to seal the bore off [if indeed they do].

I am selling off a couple guns now to finance my purchase of a 20 gauge fowler from either TOW or TVM. I wanna build the kit so I am familiar with every dust particle and nick as well as the nuts n bolts of my fowler.

however this is in my craw for now and id like to get this itch scratched before moving on to the next bucket of worms.

thanks again for all the reply's. you folks are the best.

 

[bigted]

I would do the mold Beageling [I think is the term for the paper trick] however I need to go some .030 inch to get the ball large enough to come as close as I can to the bore and be able to drop the bare ball into the yawning gap of my .735 inch bores. also I would be able to patch em at the .715 inch and still be able to load fairly easy.

 

[Eterry]

I think Duelist posted using a bare ball with wadding on youtube, you might check his post out.

 

[Britsmoothy]

Boiling water loosens lead!

I tried it today in my 45. A .440" on the powder and then an oiled leather wad.
It did not seem to good just shooting at rabbits but did a lot better with an oiled leather both sides of the bare ball! I will try this again :thumbsup:

 

[bigted]

ahhh that is interesting ... is your 45 a rifled barrel? if so how was the leading in it?

 

[Britsmoothy]

Smoothrifle, I could see some grey when I started cleaning but never gave it a thought as I use boiled water. Ten minutes later cleaning finished.

B.