I was very impressed.
I gathered a whole plastic grocery bag of dead Spanish Moss. I looked for the dead stuff close to the ground and on the ground. If it's a Olive gray, it's still living. Dead Spanish Moss looks like brown hair.
It's really strange stuff. It's not really a parasite as it only uses the host tree, usually an oak; as simply a place to grow. It steals no nutrients from the tree.
I pull off a little of the moss, pick out all the big leaves and sticks; and roll it into little balls between both palms. While rolling the balls up dirt and contaminates fall away leaving a tight and stringy ball. I'm shooting a 28 so I made most of my wads about 12 bore size.
I had a tin with a olive oil and beeswax mixture, mixed to the hard side. I rubbed the moss balls in his mixture and found they take and hold the wax lube easily.
I loaded powder, wad, ball and wad on top. I upped my charge from 80 to 90 grains. I have found this load to be at least equal to a PRB.
I shot a few PRBs until they took a little effort to load. I switched back to the wads without swabbing the bore and the first shot in the fouled bore took nearly the same effort as the PRB. The second was easier the third was was like loading a clean gun. So it seems these wads lube and clean the bore to a point.
I'm going to check my bore and if it's a true 28 I'm going to try some .55s with these wads instead of the .530 I'm using now. Hopefully that will be even more accurate.
Another thing I noticed,shooting 90grains with the wads the gun makes a noticeable Crack along with the boom that echoes off the hills and hollers.
Another thing, waxed and oiled, the wads seem to be fire resistant as I found a spent wad powder blackened but not smoldering. I could have rolled it up and used it again.
This load does well with shot too. Local lore says the Creek Indians used this load in their trade guns................
I'm proud of my 13 year old son in so many ways but last week he made a heck of a shot with his Carolina Gun.
A couple of weeks ago he finally got to shoot his Clay Smith type G Carolina for the first time. On it's very first shot he knocked the X out of the ten ring at about 30 yards. I almost put it back in the case;you know the whole confidence thing, but we shot it some more to make sure that first shot was not a flier.
His next four shots, two holes nearly touching about 3 inches above the X; two holes touching a couple of inches below the X, and his last shots were just to the right of the X. I shot it once to get a feel of it and hit right at the X.
I was very impressed with his shooting and that Clay Smith Carolina. I did not have to touch the sight adjustment. Pretty Impressive for a brand new gun.
The next weekend we hunted a pretty hot field from a shooting house, hoping he would take his first deer. We had a deer on the patch, a resident doe and he missed an opportunity as a nice spike walked right by the house. We had trouble getting that long gun out the window. I left it up to him but advised him along the way.
Quote:
Alright he is in range now.
Ok son where he is at right now your pushing it on range.
It was still pretty early so he decided to watch the deer and see if anything else showed. We heard an oink and the deer left in a hurry. The woods behind the field were flooded and we could hear a large group of hogs crossing through that water. Quickly the field filled up with with about thirty hogs. Most the size of a regulation football.
He picked out a big red adult bore. The range was pushing it so I was on it too with my scoped centerfire rifle. He shot his gun vented into my field of view. The instance he shot I shot as my view from the scope turned white. It was pretty much a ragged volley. As the smoke cleared he could see the hog down and he let out a big Yes! This was his first big game harvest.
As we were coming out of the house I let him know I had fired also. I need not to have shot.
We got to the hog and there was a small hole with a trickle of blood from his neck. But in the center of his shoulder was a .20 bore sized dent.
Quote:
Dang son, did it bounce off.
We rolled him over, that .61 ball went through him like a freight train and exited through the ribs just be hind the opposite shoulder. The 30/06 exited the front of the opposite shoulder. I need not to have shot at all.
I stepped it off, 72 strides, very close if not right at 72 yards. That has to be one of the best smoothbore shots I have seen and the best smoothbore shot I've seen on live game.
20 bore Clay Carolina Type G
.61 ball too tight for the thinnest patch
Over powder wad of Lubed Spanish Moss ball
Over ball wad of lubed Spanish Moss ball
On top of 80 grains of Goex 2ffg
primed with Goex 2ffg
