hitting target

[fishindoc]

I am new to muzzleloading and have a Jackie Brown 20gauge smoothbore. I'm having trouble hitting the target. I'm shooting 90gr 3f with powder and cusion wads followed with 62cal greased patched ball. it's like throwing baseballs at 75 feet. what is proper sight alignment with front post sight only and barrel. With bird shot the gun shoots great.I shot at three dear over the fall and missed all three. 50-75 feet
thanks joe

 

[Mike Brooks]

Too much powder. Get rid of the cards and cushion too. Start at about 60gr and a patched round ball, and go from there.
What barrel does it have?

 

[fishindoc]

short barrel gun is 58 inches overall

 

[Mike Brooks]

so the barrel is 42"? Who made the barrel?

 

[fishindoc]

I'm not sure

 

[Mike Brooks]

Is the bore nice and smooth and shiney? The reason I ask is I know he uses seamless tubing for some of his barrels. I've seen quality on this stuff range from very nice to not so good bore wise, I've used some of it myself for exceptionally long big bores and consider it good for shot but not so great for PRB. On the other hand many people report excellent accuraccy with seamless tubing barrels.
So, check bore condition. Then check how well your barrel is bedded at the breech....any gaps? Check your barrel pin lugs, are they slotted? Check the crown on your muzzle, any nicks or wear visible? Lots of things could be throwing you off here.

 

[rice1817]

Not to be smart alec or anything, but in fairness to the game one should know the weapon well enough to be able to put all of his shots into the kill zone and the maximum range that you can do that becomes your maximum hunting range. If you were having problems getting the smoothbore to group in a deer-sized kill zone at 25 yards at the range, then more practice and/or load development was in order before taking the gun afield. On the other hand, if the gun grouped OK at the range, and you ended up missing deer at close range, then welcome to the ranks of hundreds of other fellow muzzleloaders who have done the same thing!:redface:

 

[fishindoc]

barrel is shiny and flawless- barrel is bedded and firmly secured. I'll try downgrading charge and eliminating cards. thanks for your help
joe

 

[No Deer]

I agree with Mike, too much powder, my 20 gage likes 65 grains of 3f with a spit patched ball.

Start with about 60 grains and shoot 3 shot groups. Change by 5 grains and shoot 3 shots again. Is the pattern tighter? Raise it by 5 grains again and shoot 3 shots. Keep doing this until your group starts to open up again. When you have your tightest group, that is the load you want to use. In my opinion the wads are not needed, but your gun will tell you that. Experiment using wads or not the same way, shoot 3 shot group and look at the pattern. Make one change at a time and check your pattern, don't change powder load and wads at the same time.

Once you have your best load then you need to practice on your sight picture. Pick an anchor point on your cheek and be consistant. If you are too high or low, you need to adjust your anchor point up or down to correspond. The real key is consistancy once you find what works.

Shooting a smoothbore is not a science, there is no magic formula, it more art, you have to find what works with each gun. Good luck, keep practising, and have fun. Once you get it right you will love the smoothie and wonder why anyone would ever want to shoot one of those guns with those danged deep gouges ruining the inside of a perfectly good barrel. :rotf:

 

I shot at three dear over the fall and missed all three. 50-75 feet

Don't experiment on live animals!

If you can't hit a kill-zone sized target at 25 yards, you have no business hunting. Please stop hunting until you figure this out! :shake:

 

[fishindoc]

Mike and No Deer thanks for your help- As for the other posts they weren't much help but I hope you feel better after your rants
fishindoc

 

[Many Klatch]

I bought a new to me .60 smoothbore last week. Took it to the range yesterday. I shot it with my standard 20 ga load to start with to see how it would do. 75 grains of 3f behind a .60 ball and .010 spit patching. By the end of the shoot, I was keeping all the balls in the scoring rings on a 6 bull at 25 yards. Most of them were in the black, not bad for a smoothbore. I had to file down the front sight some and crank the barrel between two trees a couple of times to raise the point of impact but it shoots pretty good now.

I recommend that you back your powder charge back to 65 or 70 grains for a starter. A lot of people will tell you that you need over powder wads and all kinds of chemical mixtures to shoot a smoothbore well. Well that is all :bull: . All of my smoothbores shoot well with .010 patching and spit. The nice thing is that the spit is almost always handy and it is real cheap.

Many Klatch

 

[bouncer]

Been shooting a 24 ga. Curly Gostomski trade gun for years and a spit wet patch is all I ever used. Sight alignment is different on all guns, depending on your eyes..mine being old I have to pretty close bury the front blade under the tang. Also being an old timer, I grew up being taught that 3F powder should not be used in anything above a .45 cal rifle or .410 ga. so have used nothing but 2F in all of my larger calibers/smoothbores. But there are a lot of folks that would disagree with me on that, everyone has their own opinion of this, I do it for safety reasons.

bouncer

 

[fishindoc]

thanks Many-very helpful. glad to hear I'm not the only one with this problem

 

[tg]

I think a smoothbore with no rear sight is a very good gun to use a life sized deer cutout to practice on, my JB came up very well to a consistant point but I did have a rear sight, but the same thing can be achieved without the rear sight with practice, and I would also drop the charge to 65gr3f and work from there, once you get onto them if you have no defects in the gun smoothies will do very well.

 

[fishindoc]

thanks tg

 

[fishindoc]

so you guys are saying that in the 60 to 65 gr range is where I should be? I'll give is a try and let you know how it turns out

 

[Mike Brooks]

Depends on the gun, they're all a little different, but that is going to be a good place to start. I like a pretty tight patch/ball comb too. Others may disagree, but it has always worked for me.

 

[fishindoc]

I just finished up trying the 60 and 65 gr fff load with patched ball only. got a group of nine shots within a foot of center at 75 feet -had three other shots stray outside of the kill zone.
overall much inproved-thanks for all your help

 

[Mike Brooks]

That's still pretty bad. More work to be done. I'd work it untill you can get atleast a 4" group @ 25 yards.
I've got a friend who's 20ga likes 45gr 3fff.