Hunting with Smoothbore

[Hatman/2nd line]

I squirrel hunt with a .62 caliber Fusil de Chasse from Loyalist Arms. Took a bunch of squirrels with it. It ain’t failed me yet.

Hi Banjoman, I've been looking at your gun on the website, are you pleased with it? I mean is the lock giving you a good spark, wood to metal fit good, etc? Thanks for any info you can give me. Rich

 

[Britsmoothy]

View attachment 93419View attachment 93420Another advantage to the versatile smooth bore.

17 shots.
You not stopping out long then?









Very neat

 

[user 49399]

Hi Banjoman, I've been looking at your gun on the website, are you pleased with it? I mean is the lock giving you a good spark, wood to metal fit good, etc? Thanks for any info you can give me. Rich

The gun is a good shooter and the lock works very well even with my less than perfect homemade flints. I use only 2f Goex or Sheutzen powder. For squirrel hunting I load 70 gr of 2f, wasp nest or brown paper wad, 70 gr of #6 shot and another wad on top. Works good for me.

My paper cartridges are made with 70gr of 2f and a .495 round ball. This is for plinking milk jugs out to about 30 yards. It doesn’t work good farther than that. If a person wanted better accuracy or wanted to deer hunt, then a bigger ball would be needed.

Fit and finish is not top notch. However, I don’t have to worry about scratching it. Bottom line, I really like the gun. Would I sell it? Yes, for $5000.

 

[user 49399]

Is that a homemade cartridge box ? It looks pretty good if it is, I made one for my bess and it definitely isn't anything to brag about in the good looking department.

Made by Fort Vause Outfitters

 

[user 49399]

17 shots.
You not stopping out long then?









Very neat

Yeah, I know, it was one of those “just because “ purchases.

 

[user 49399]

Hi Banjoman, I've been looking at your gun on the website, are you pleased with it? I mean is the lock giving you a good spark, wood to metal fit good, etc? Thanks for any info you can give me. Rich

I sent you a PM

 

[Nuthatch]

AH Fear Not!

There is a fellow that a lot of the folks here on the forum have sent barrels with damaged bores to and had them bored out to fresh, clean metal. Doing the same thing as suggested, they wanted a smoothbore and found a used rifle with a bad bore at low cost. SOME did it on their second gun, and SOME did it since they came to a point in life where they didn't have the eyesight to reach out 100 yards, and they wanted a gun for 50 yards for deer and up close shots on small game.

One of our members in a chap in England, and quite the avid hunter, and the laws there make it oh so much easier to use a smoothbore, black powder gun, than anything modern. He recently posted about using a bored out .45 rifle to take some birds.

And yes, the rifled portion is drilled out. For some folks with a rifle and a damaged bore they sometimes pay extra and have the barrel re-rifled. The fellow that does this knows how far he can take the barrel before it becomes unsafe.

LD

That has the potential to open up a few ideas, depending on how much boring the barrel out costs. How could I find such a fellow?

 

[Woody Morgan]

Look up Bobby Hoyt.

wm

 

[Historian]

Historian - is steel still not a viable option when going up to larger shot? And wouldn't some kind of wad help protect the bore -- plastic or even just a large patch to encase the shot?

Not out of muzzleloaders. I do not care what anyone tells you, unless you can get Steel up to 1300 FPS or better it is a crippler. Plastic wads and black powder do not go together. Will it work out to about 25 to 30 yards if you are lucky, yes. Will the plastic cause build up in the bore Yes, and is it a pain in the *** to get it cleaned out, Yes. I know first hand. I have hand loaded about every type of nontoxic shot there is. From steel to TSS. I make my own bismuth shot now and have been doing it for 10 years. Steel needs velocity to penetrate and kill. I am not trying to rain on your parade but I have already been down that road. Yes you would have to increase pellet size but with a muzzleloader it would be a minimum of 3 sizes. I shot 1 1/4oz to 1 3/8oz steel #1 's out of my Pedersoli 10 ga with 120 grains of 2Fg, leather OP wad, lubed 1/2" felt wad, BP10 Driver shot cup, and 2 over shot cards to hold it all together. It patterned beautifully but anything past 30 yards it crippled and the recoil was not fun. Spend a little extra and buy you some bismuth. Be selective in your shots. Above all pattern your smooth bore. Again if you need some help PM me and I will be glad to help.
Rob

 

[Musketeer]

Look at it this way, using BB size shot as an example, a steel pellet weighs about 5.1 or 5.2 grains, while a lead pellet weighs about 8.75 grains, making the lead ~42% heavier than the steel. Obviously the steel will have to have a good bit more velocity to get sufficient penetration at a given range.

 

[TheBoat]

Cant soot lead out of a Muzzloader in Kalifornia, what are they all ********? Wrap a frigging Rock in a rag and shoot that. If your using it for self defense and your concerned about giving BLAMTIFA Lead Posioning use Glass Marbles. They will work just fine.of course you could just wrap a bunch of used hypodermic needles together if your in Downtown Seattle or San Fran or LA and they would work at close range. The old Brown Bess Used Rocks, Nails, Glass whatever they could pick up when they ran out of lead.

 

[Elkhorse]

Interesting idea. Showing my ignorance here -- by "boring out," you mean the rifled bore is drilled & made smooth? Seems like that could weaken the bore but maybe it's not removing enough metal to do that? Might be tough to find a gunsmith around here that does that kind of work. Last I checked, there was only one person in town who could just install a front sight on a rifle and he was retiring. The rest just replace modular parts on ARs & other such modern weapons.

If you search on MLF you will find the info you seek and guys that bore out rifle barrels.

 

[SmoothboreMurph]

What is the name of that Traditions Rifle, I have never seen one like it before.

 

[Nuthatch]

Not out of muzzleloaders. I do not care what anyone tells you, unless you can get Steel up to 1300 FPS or better it is a crippler. Plastic wads and black powder do not go together. Will it work out to about 25 to 30 yards if you are lucky, yes. Will the plastic cause build up in the bore Yes, and is it a pain in the *** to get it cleaned out, Yes. I know first hand. I have hand loaded about every type of nontoxic shot there is. From steel to TSS. I make my own bismuth shot now and have been doing it for 10 years. Steel needs velocity to penetrate and kill. I am not trying to rain on your parade but I have already been down that road. Yes you would have to increase pellet size but with a muzzleloader it would be a minimum of 3 sizes. I shot 1 1/4oz to 1 3/8oz steel #1 's out of my Pedersoli 10 ga with 120 grains of 2Fg, leather OP wad, lubed 1/2" felt wad, BP10 Driver shot cup, and 2 over shot cards to hold it all together. It patterned beautifully but anything past 30 yards it crippled and the recoil was not fun. Spend a little extra and buy you some bismuth. Be selective in your shots. Above all pattern your smooth bore. Again if you need some help PM me and I will be glad to help.
Rob

Appreciate you sharing your experiences. All rain is appreciated during a drought and I have a drought of information on this topic. I'll reach out once I get a smoothie to start working with.

 

[Nuthatch]

Cant soot lead out of a Muzzloader in Kalifornia, what are they all ********? Wrap a frigging Rock in a rag and shoot that. If your using it for self defense and your concerned about giving BLAMTIFA Lead Posioning use Glass Marbles. They will work just fine.of course you could just wrap a bunch of used hypodermic needles together if your in Downtown Seattle or San Fran or LA and they would work at close range. The old Brown Bess Used Rocks, Nails, Glass whatever they could pick up when they ran out of lead.

You can shoot lead here 'till your heart's content. You just can't hunt with it. It's annoying but still workable. It's a far greater challenge finding legal bucks on public land during our early hunting seasons (season ends a month before the rut). But that's another topic entirely.

 

[hanshi]

Mine is plain, it's not svelte at all, it's heavier than some and it has a rear sight and it's not pretty. BUT, it's super reliable (thanks to the Chambers Colonial Virginia flint lock), it's astonishingly accurate with ball, it's a 20 ga cylinder bore, it patterns well up to 25 yards, it's kills deer DRT; but best of all it's mine! built at TVM.

 

[Jay Templin]

Cant soot lead out of a Muzzloader in Kalifornia, what are they all ********? Wrap a frigging Rock in a rag and shoot that. If your using it for self defense and your concerned about giving BLAMTIFA Lead Posioning use Glass Marbles. They will work just fine.of course you could just wrap a bunch of used hypodermic needles together if your in Downtown Seattle or San Fran or LA and they would work at close range. The old Brown Bess Used Rocks, Nails, Glass whatever they could pick up when they ran out of lead.

Simmer down, son- you’re gonna give yourself or an admin an aneurism with this mess.
And no, the King’s Arm certainly did not use “Rocks, Nails, Glass whatever... when they ran out of lead.” Splendid way to destroy your gun, your face, your off hand. That’s what bayonets are for, and why every “old Brown Bess” was issued with one. The NRA did a series of tests with the Austrians in the 70s debunking among other myths the hoary old chestnut about blowing crockery out of a frontstuffer.
Jay

 

[tenngun]

I don’t like to photograph dead animals, or take trophies.
It’s not for me and I’m not criticizing anyone who does.
Last fall for me, deer in the woods a few minutes before I shot and the gun that put her in the pot , a 28 bore smooth rifle.

 

[TheBoat]

an old Navy Buddy bought a TC WHite Mountain in 54 cal all fininished when I bought a TC Hawkins 50 cal kit at the NAVY BX. Spent a lot of tme building it and it still shoots great. have only put about 10,000 rounds thru it. It really likes fff Swiss the best. He started loading his with arrows and using 777 synthetic so he could hunt in NH Archery season. I sugested to him that 777 may not be a good idea. Turns out you can fire an arrow with broadhead out of it and hit the target. Just dont expect to ever finds anything left of the arrow. I would think that heavy pieces of rebar ( Its steel) wrapped in paper soaked with Lard, Beeswax and Dawn might make better Darts. put on some tips like this and you can reel them in! Maybe that would work in Kalifornia. anthother guy took a TC Omega that I had in trade. it shot perfect using 80-90 grains of ff and conicals. he desided to load it wit 3 50 grain pelletts of 777 and blew the scope off it, he then thells me thats the 5th inline rifle that he has blown up. Suggested to him that he may be doing something wrong?

 

[Brokennock]

They tell me it takes all kinds,,,, I respectfully disagree....