Loose shot

[Woods wanderer]

Good day all

I have searched through the forum to find anything on the subject.

Iv been playing with loose shot in my Kentucky rifle with it's 1in 63-66 twist.
Iv been using 50gr powder and equal part shot. Iv used cardboard, felt, patch material, for over powder and over shot. I have made pre packed paper capsules full of shot.
At 30m I can reliably get 15 or more pellets on an 8.5x11 paper. Iv hit things I should have missed and missed things I should have hit.
Does anybody have good practical advice or experience in this field they are willing to share

 

[Brokennock]

The rifling is going to spin the shot regardless of what you do, this is going to spread the shot away from the center of rotation. Most likely if you shot at a huge sheet of paper at varying distances you will see the center of the "patter" have less and less shot in it as you get further away. And even that ring that has shot will be thin and irregular.
Shot from a rifled barrel would be a very close range thing, very close.

 

[R Ellis]

The rifling is going to spin the shot regardless of what you do, this is going to spread the shot away from the center of rotation. Most likely if you shot at a huge sheet of paper at varying distances you will see the center of the "patter" have less and less shot in it as you get further away. And even that ring that has shot will be thin and irregular.
Shot from a rifled barrel would be a very close range thing, very close.

Exactly well said

 

[Woods wanderer]

Sorry iv taken so long to get back, work stuff.
I do understand the "doughnut" shot pattern. I was just hoping somebody had fought the fight and had found a solution, or just make less of a doughnut

 

[ADK Bigfoot]

It's physics. You can't fight physics. Physics is a law. As a law abiding citizen, you are supposed to follow the law.

ADK Bigfoot

 

[Pete G]

Sorry iv taken so long to get back, work stuff.
I do understand the "doughnut" shot pattern. I was just hoping somebody had fought the fight and had found a solution, or just make less of a doughnut

The solution is a smooth bore!

 

[PathfinderNC]

It's physics. You can't fight physics. Physics is a law. As a law abiding citizen, you are supposed to follow the law.

ADK Bigfoot

What if his rifle identifies itself as a Smoothbore? Science be damned

 

[Grenadier1758]

That would be a smooth rifle. Looks just like a rifle, just has a smooth bored barrel. It's not a rifle since it has a smooth bored barrel. It's not a fowling gun since it has the architecture and the triggers and sigts of a rifle. It identifies as what it is shooting.

 

[Woods wanderer]

Never was a big fan of physics, always holding me back. I don't need rifling for what I use the gun for, shots just aren't long enough. Iv been looking for a 20-28 ga Fowler for a while. I just don't understand why they are so expensive and can't justify buying one.

 

[Brokennock]

can't justify buying one.

I don't need rifling for what I use the gun for

Sounds like you just justified it. Especially if you need to shoot shot as well.

If you don't need something period correct, look for a TC New Englander, or consider an India made gun, but that will probably need the lock worked on, at least tuned.
Not sure what the cost is of having Bobby Hoyt bore your rifle smooth, might be cheaper than a used smoothbore gun.

 

[Woods wanderer]

By those quotes you are correct.
I didn't buy this particular gun, I caught a canoe with my anchor while fishing then traded the vessel for the gun. It doesn't do anything my other guns can't do.
The flintlock was a miserable thing to make work in the beginning (see the smashing flints thread) but since then iv grown to enjoy it. The only reason I decided to try loose shot was because of the distance I had to shoot. The bush where I live is tight birds are typically shot inside 20m.
I do enjoy taking the flintlock for long walks on fall days, I enjoy it's quirks and the small explosion right infront of my face. At the end of the day it is just a fun to use mass accelerator. I guess what my ramblings are getting to is I was just hoping somebody out there had the same curiosity paired with some practicable experience. I appreciate all of the feed back.

 

[Brokennock]

I was just hoping somebody out there had the same curiosity paired with some practicable experience.

Yup, several somebodys.
This topic does come up on occasion, trying to make loose shot work in a rifled barrel.
Roundball from a smoothbore works better than shot from a rifled bore. Just how it is.

I notice you used meters for your distance, where are you located?

Enjoy the free gun for what it is.

 

[Woods wanderer]

I'm located near Pembroke Ontario.
I did know that the rifling though slow would affect pattern to some degree. The gun is fun to shoot, maybe eventually I will do something to smooth the bore or replace it with a smooth bore.

 

[Brokennock]

I didn't buy this particular gun, I caught a canoe with my anchor while fishing then....

Man, I thought that was about to become a way cooler story, lol.

Hooked a canoe and it was loaded with muzzleoaders and ammo..... lol

 

[Woods wanderer]

It very well could have been a cool story. At the time the story was unfolding it wasn't cool. The canoe had been on bottom a while. It was near a creek mouth and a third full if silt in 10-15m of water. It was a struggle to get to the surface. The previous owner of the boat had screwed a cleet to the nose. I didn't notice the string tied to it, the canoe was anchored. More specifically the anchor was stuck in rocks. I got everything free only took a bit more than a fortnight.

 

[oldwood]

I'm old , and from the era of Numeric button rifled m/l barrels , 1970. Usta git them from Dixie Gun Works for some cheap price I could afford.. They had .008 depth button rifling done on a modern single pass modern rifling machine. Any way , had one barrel that I thought I could make into a smooth rifle barrel.. Took a 40 inch 1/2 " diam. piece of rod stock, cut a slit in one end , and got the ugliest # 40 grit emory cloth I could find. Tore the emory cloth in strips to load into the slit in the steel rod to fill up the gun barrel bore until it could just be turned with an electric drill motor.. It cut the rifling in that barrel slowly into a smooth rifle . It took many emory cloth changes , and about a week of evenings, but was successful.
Back then , there were still a few Civil war muskets around to buy. Found a Potzdam Belgian musket somewhere , and did the same with it. Before I started on the Potzdam , the bore was in very poor condition , and when done , I was able to shoot it with round balls , about 70 cal. size. ............Just a thought........oldwood

 

[Woods wanderer]

The only reservation I have about doing that is somehow ending up with some weird 52 cal I can't buy stuff for.

 

[ord sgt]

In a smoothbore, I wrapped #7 shot in nitrated paper and aimed at a paper target, 15 yards out. Over powder wad and a cushion wad under the shot and a thin overshot card on top. Instead of spreading out like shot usually does, it acted like a slug. One big hole in the paper target, not a spread of tiny holes, the wrapped shot acted the same way several times.

 

[Woods wanderer]

That has also been my best performing set up as well. With the rifling in my gun the paper gets cut and sometimes looks like spaghetti. I'm just guessing that the paper gets cut when the shot column obturate's under the force of acceleration.

 

[hanshi]

I'm a rifleman but do enjoy my 20 ga smoothbore musket/fowler/shotgun/whatever. A rifle simply can't do the job a smoothbore can. But the reverse in NOT true and a smoothbore can do what a rifle can do and do it pretty well.