Holes in pattern

[Snowshoe]

I have an english fowler,20 GA, made out of parts from Tack of the Wolf. Some time ago I missed a couple of grouse on the ground (I'm after the meat). When i checked my pattern i had a grouse sized hole in the middle of my pattern. I was shooting 70 gr. 2F powder and equal shot. .125 over powder wad and a half inch cushion and an over shot card. I increased the shot volume to about 90 gr. with some success but still not the best. Anyone have better Ideas.
Shoe :huh:

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

I have essentially the same gun and I load a three dram powder charge and one and a quarter ounces of shot and I get good patterns out to thirty yards. I use the same wads that you are using, but lube the buffer wad with a mix of tallow and beeswax. In cold weather, I add a dollop of olive oil to the lube. I use this load for pretty much everything, just varying the shot weight depending on the game.

 

[Dave K]

Cut your cushion is 1/2. Instead of 1/2" thick cushions I cut mine to 1/4" thick. I feel that the extra weight of the thicker cushion is going through the shot stream and creating that hole in the pattern. At any rate it works.Mine are lubed now with olive oil. Used to use veg. oil which works good also, but turns ucky in time.I place the cushions in a zip lock baggy, pour olive oil over them and remove those that have stopped draining excess oil out and place those in a baggy for shooting. You are also on the right trail as far as powder and shot. Either increase your shot of decrease your powder. My 20ga. load is 7/8 oz. shot and 2 1/4 dram of 2F. Doves drop dead out to 30yds., never shot any further than that.

 

[TANSTAAFL]

Old English motto, "little powder, much shot, shoot far."

For best pattern in my .62 fusil it is, 60 grains of ff and 1 & 3/8 oz of #6. Slow, you bet, arrives in one damn good pattern, you bet, kills out to 40 yards, you bet. I have a friend in Wyoming who can take the gun (not me, I can't do it) with that load and bust clays out past fifty very long paces with it.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

The late V.M.Starr probably shot more patterns from muzzleloaders than anyone alive today. He insisted that so-called "cushion" wads do nothing to help the pattern. It was his opinion that you cannot get a better pattern than two .125" overpowder wads and a split overpowder used as an overshot wad. This means you only need buy and carry one type of wad, the .125" overpowder.
Mr. Starr was also an advocate of equal volume loads, using the same measure for powder and shot. Some folks today advocate loading more shot than powder. Of course that will thicken up the pattern on paper but such low velocity loads will have reduced impact and penetration on game. Their answer to that is to load one size larger shot to regain penetration but since there are fewer pellets of the larger shot that reduces pattern density and brings you back to where you started. Well, not quite where you started, you still have a low velocity load which makes moving targets more difficult and the heavy shot load kicks more and costs more.
I haven't patterned so many barrels as V.M.Starr, maybe 15 or 20, and those were mostly 12ga. but so far I have not seen a single exception to Mr. Starr's rule. I'd advise you to avoid the low velocity stuff and stick with standard loads such as 3 1/4 drams, 1 1/4 ounces. Those loads became standard over the past two hundred years because they work.
Oh, BTW, the equal volume concept is based on 2fg. If you run 3fg that is the one time I'd advise a lesser volume of powder, say 60gr 3f in liew of 75gr 2f. A switch to 3f and droppin the cushion wad may solve your problem. :imo:

 

[robinghewitt]

I patterned a long barrelled 20 gauge flint , an old gun so I started low and worked up. The pattern had clay sized holes in it when I passed 40 grains :shocking:

Common breech, ounce and a quarter of #8 over a large lubed felt wad, 25 yards.

The problem, as I see it, is that I can't roll the end of the cartridge to get the initial pressure up because there is no cartridge. To tighten the group I'd need less powder, more shot, larger shot, some kind of choke or Nock's patent breech.

I switched to 16 gauge, bought an old copper flask that throws 74 grains on the top setting and never looked back.

I've read Starr and agree that the only use for a lubed wad in a shotgun is to keep the fouling under control. BP ML shotguns shoot fine with just a thin card between powder and shot but they get progressively harder to load ::

best regards

Squire Robin

 

[Boonetract]

Oh, BTW, the equal volume concept is based on 2fg. If you run 3fg that is the one time I'd advise a lesser volume of powder, say 60gr 3f in liew of 75gr 2f. A switch to 3f and droppin the cushion wad may solve your problem. :imo:

Yes! What he said! Make the switch to fffg. It has made a big difference in my patterns (and simplified priming). 15 years ago I couldn't get my old 36" trade gun to pattern until I dropped the cushion wads and doubled the overpowder wads. I used a standard overshot card though. I might need to give the powder wad a try. When my new smoothie arrived, I just kept doing what I had been doing and met with good results.

 

[AJFedak]

I've been shooting skeet and trap with my BP guns twice a week for about 5 yrs. I spent lots of time looking at patterns. Them little buggers can find holes just about anywhere.

I found that using "3" thin over-shot cards on top of the powder and one over the shot on the right barrel and 2 over-shot on the left provided the best pattern results.

As for powder and shot, 3 drams 3f and 1 1/8 ozs of #9's for skeet, 1 1/8 ozs of #8's for 16 yard trap 3

 

[GobblerKnob]

Dave ~ What I am about to ask, is not meant to cause any ill will or insult your intelligence, but your statement about the wad blowing a hole through the pattern is one I've heard often and it baffels me.
The shot charge (wads and shot) leaves the barrel going at the same speed. How can something made of cardboard or fiber (depending on the wad) that is traveling the same speed as the shot column, which is made of lead, accelerate past the heavier shot column to blow a hole through the pattern before it reaches the intended target? If anything, the wads would lose velocity as soon as they left the barrel.
While I am admittedly about as sharp as the edge of town and my understanding of physics is elementary, I don't see how this is physically possible.

Rick

 

[Dave K]

Rick, no offense taken. Actually those were the words I was always told and I did find out that by making the cushion lighter, I also lost the holes in the pattern. If it was caused by the heavier cushion, I guess I can't say for sure. But, this I do know, a thinner cushion gives me all the surface area I need to hold lube, to keep the fouling down and patterns inproved. I do not use any cushion for a one shot hunt like turkey hunting. The patterns are good and tight without any cushion. But for a day of trap or dove hunting I use a cushion that is 1/4" thick and lubed to keep fouling down. For me, it works. I tried the paper wads that some have had excellent luck with, and for me it just became a "slug" of shot. It never would open or again if it did throw some of the shot there would be this huge hole in the pattern where the outside of the pattern of course and shot and the center was nothing but a slug of shot that held together. JMHO If it works, do it.

 

[Joel/Calgary]

Rick, I found the same thing with "substantial" wads blowing patterns.

When I first got my 16ga, I used the conventional 1/8" hard o/p card and 1/2" fiber cushion and had fairly frequent blown patterns. When I started splitting the fiber wads in half, my patterns improved markedly. Since lubing wads at the muzzle was inconvenient, I tried Crisco-soaked 1/4" fiber cushion wads and got similar results to the hand-lubed ones.

After reading discussions about the 1/8" hard-card possibly affecting patterns, I tried using multiple overshot cards instead. It APPEARS to have improved the consistency of the patterns, but I have not shot and counted enough patterns to prove it rigorously.

I was out patterning recently, trying to test powder-to-shot ratios, home-made shot protectors and such, but all I really managed to prove was that a Crisco-soaked 1/4" cushion wad becomes a pattern disrupter when it's below freezing. Plain o/s cards without the lubed cushion worked, but loading got difficult quickly in my rough bores without some sort of lubrication and one cant do a V.M.Starr and lube the shot directly when you're using a shot protector. BUT oiled ~1/4" cushions cut from boot-liner felt turned out to work fine, even when somewhat uneven (I'd repunched them from 12ga, and they hadn't always been straight and centred when cut).

I had been soaking the fibre wads in melted Crisco and squeezing the excess out, and they work fine down at least into positive-single-digit temperatures (high 30s F, for those south of the border), but they are apparently too hard and dense at ~-5C (mid-20s F). I hadn't realized for a while that they might be the problem with the consistently blown patterns because I could see a nice 10-15yd trail of fiber-wad shreds in the snow. I guess it should have been more like 5yds. Then again, I found one of the oiled-felt wads sandwiched between a card and the shredded remains of a paper shot-protector right in front of the 25yd target and the pattern looked OK at first glance. I would guess the difference is in the lower density and/or stiffness of the much-more-compressible and much-less-saturated oiled (with excess squeezed out) felt wads. I'll have to try oiling and greasing the edges of the regular 1/4" fibre wads and see if either (or both) work.

I've gotta get out and experiment some more, but I always seem to be short on time and ambition to mark and count patterns afterward.

Time to go make supper - hope this helps.

Joel

 

[Hoyt]

I use a thin overshot card and ox yoke felt wonder wads between the pwdr. and shot. I don't think either is heavy or aerodynamic enough to catch up and blow through the shot.
The fiber wad I can see doing it.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

:agree: I'm glad to hear from someone who actually tests their ideas. I get a bit impatient with folks who just repeat what they've read or heard from some "good-ol-boy" who never actually shot a pattern on paper but thinks his pet load is just the greatest because he once made a long shot on a sitting duck.
Keep on testing and reporting your results. :thumbsup:

 

[Bearbait2]

"... made a long shot on a sitting duck."[/quote]

Make that a short shot on a sitting Grouse and you pretty much have my modis operandi> :crackup:
Best Wishes