my first ml shotgun

[ian45662]

Found a sxs 12 guage made by pedersoli at the gun shop today. The paper work had stuff about cabelas in it but the gun does not have the screw in chokes. The box looks older but the gun itself looks unused. This is my first ml shotgun and I am excited to try it out, thought I would ask you guys what would be the max powder charge and shot weight, and what would be good loads to start out on.

 

[Rebel]

Max would be around 100 gr 2f and 1 1/2 oz of shot, but you don't need max loads to kill stuff. All you get is more recoil and gun wear. Start out with about 70 grs 2f and 1 oz of shot. Put in the powder then 4 thin overshot card wads, the shot, and another wad. Then do the other barrel. Now cap and you are ready to go. BE SURE to UNCAP the other barrel before reloading if you only fire one shot.

 

[Dave Rosenthal]

Hello and glad for you. Others more experienced than I will surely comment, but I feel that I can get you started in the right direction.

Newly manufactured shotgun ammo with smokeless powders still comes labeled with BP equivilents in DRAMS. By looking up how much a dram is and doing the math, you can pretty much figure it out.

Some common starting points would be for instance: 2 3/4 drams for a 12 ga. light target load with 1 ounce of shot. You could do clays with this load and it would be comfortable on the shoulder. You could also do a 3 dram target load with an ounce or an ounce and 1/8. For a hunting load you could go to 3 1/4 drams. If your trying to shoot a deer with buckshot or 00 or 000 buck, you could go to 3 1/4 to 3 1/2 drams, but check with the manufacturer FIRST. These loads I mentioned aren't anywhere near "proof" loads, so you should be O-K.

By going onto Cabella's or some other web site to locate shotgun ammo, you can look-up all of the various loadings in all of the different shot sizes to get the full picture. Everyone of them has the BP dram equivilent .

7000 grains to the pound, 437.5 grains to the ounce. A table for this can be obtained from others on this forum .

Hope this helps and all the best,

Dave

 

[jdixon]

If you have not found them already, there are several recent posts about this very gun, look those up and read them, it will put you a long way down the path of understanding what it can do and how to make it do it.

 

[Slamfire]

There is a chart of dram equivalents in the resource forum. :v
Aw shucks they've removed it, sorry.

 

[hbarrett]

I use 80 grains 2F and same of shot for most game.

 

[Runner]

Try a 3-4 ratio load of powder to shot. That should give you good velocity and a good pattern too. For squirrels and such, I use 60-80 for my loads. For turkey, I use 90-120. Good luck!

 

[paulvallandigham]

A Dram is 27.5 Approx. grains. As for using a powder setting to throw shot, it will vary with the size of shot thrown and the diameter of the powder measure, but for the standard adjustable ,Tube-type powder measure this is approx. what shot will be thrown at these settings:

50 Grains 3/4 oz.
60 Grains 7/8 oz.
70 Grain 1 oz.
80 Grains 1 1/8 oz.
90 Grains 1 1/4 oz.
100 grains 1 3/8 oz.
110 Grains 1 1/2 oz.
120 Grains 1 5/8 oz.

Since most adjustable powder measures do not exceed 120 grains, the chart ends there. If you have a smaller gauge shotgun, and contemplate using less than 50 grains You can weigh the shot thrown to get the most accurate idea of how much shot is being throw, or just subtract 1/8 oz of shot for every 10 grains below 50 that you are throwing.

Again this works for most adjustable powder measures- the brass ones( have inch diameter) made with either a funnel attached on a pivot pin, or a tapered nose that is swung over the top of the measure to guide the powder into your barrel. There are also adjustable brass measures that come with neither of these features and they also come in different diameters, which will throw off this chart some. Why? Well, pellets are round, and therefore do not pack together in a round space without leaving gaps between them. The smaller the round tube you pack them in the fewer pellets can fit in the same space, depending on the size of shot you choose. I found that loading #8 shot, which is fairly small in diameter( .009" ) does fairly well when using this chart to find out how much a shot charge will weigh using a given powder setting. I found, however, when throwing #5 shot( .012" ) the weight shown in the chart is " light ", and the same holds true with larger shot( #4 through BB). If I used my powder dip measure with its 3/4 inch tube, the amount of shot stays consistent with this scale much closer, through using the larger shot. Only when I got up to #1 and BB did it seem to be " light ".

I hope this helps. No one likes to drag a lot of extra gear around in the field. :thumbsup:

 

[flintlockmdj]

A pin hole through your overshot wads will help with loading as this lets the compressed air escape when you ram the overshot card down the bore. A small shallow knife nick in the edge will do the same thing, remember you don't need it to be big enough for shot to escape just air.

 

[Dave Rosenthal]

Thanks Paul, I knew you'd come through with the proper chart! Also, good idea on limiting the amount of stuff you have to bring, especially on a windy day. Those little red tubes with the orange caps that I get from Dixon's Muzzleloading Shop in PA would do just fine to hold pre-measured quantities of various sizes of pre-weighed shot (from a scale). Then all he'd have to do is measure & pour the BP from a horn to a measure, for instance.

A woman I know just bought one of these 12 ga. doubles and man is she having a BLAST with it! It patterned quite nicely at 25 yards with #8's. Some of us wanted to try and double-tap the thing to really make SMOKE :shocked2: , but a rain cloud and the clock was against us . We will prevail and she wants to take a photo of one of us "He-men" doing the BIG BOOOOM!

All the best, Dave

 

[paulvallandigham]

I have an old double hammer breech loading 12 gauge that has double triggers. The first time I tried to use this on Skeet, where after shooting single targets you are then asked to shoot two targets, I made the mistake of putting two fingers on the two triggers at once. You got it. I fired both barrels at the first target, breaking it, but lost the second target because my gun was now empty. One of the men in my foursome did not even realize that I had fired both barrels, because he was wearing both ear plugs and muffs! I knew it, of course. I was shooting light trap loads, so the recoil didn't damage me or the gun, but I knew it!

I don't think I have fired both barrels of my 12 ga. ML shotgun at once. After learning how to shoot double triggers, I have not had that problem with my ML shotgun.

Note to Ian: If you have an awl, you can poke a reasonably sized hole in those OS cards to let out the air. You can spend an evening at the Tv doing this, with a bowl on a coffee table in front of you, while you poke holes back from the edge, but on the outside of each card. Just one whole per card. Do this one card at a time. Otherwise you risk sticking yourself.

If you don't have an awl, look around for a nail you can file to a tapered point,( better than what it comes with) to use. If you have a piece of wood that will make a handle for it, hammer the nail into the wood, first!, and then cut off the head, and file the taper and point. Now you have an awl! I won mine in a shooting match, made of good stainless steel and mounted in an antler tip, using epoxy glue. Very sharp, and very useful. I have used it to scratch reference lines in metal, and even in horns for working them into powder horns. Sometimes called a " scratch awl ", an awl can be used in lots of ways.

 

[clayman49]

Hi there Ian, lots of good people on this site with plenty of ideas. Have been shooting shotgun for many years, spending considrable time on the patern board, it will take time to find what works for you and your shotgun. I'm not a fan of putting a nick in the side of my thick cards (or thin for that matter) as this CAN promote blow by. All my cards are a light fit as I use them only to protect and stableize the main waxed felt (or fibre) cush wad. I have used the equal volume powder/shot for a long time; I use 3F in my repro's and 2F in my originals. My load goes like this:- powder (thick card, waxed felt, thick card) all pushed down in one go, note there is little resistance. Then followed by the shot and finally covered by a very thin over card (any thing too heavy can spoil your patern. But what ever combination you choose to use, happy shooting .

 

[Britsmoothy]

Ishoot one of these and have alot of fun with it however- check the locks as Peder are known for not so great locks. Mine were on the light side and I had to stiffen them up some. Next up is the weight of the barrels-they are quite heavy and what should be a copy of a British sporting gun in reallity is worlds apart. Mine also had not got enough cast off stock wise and hence did not fit so check that when you throw the gun up your eye lines up down the center of the tubes. Apart from how that sounds I have a blast with mine :grin: I use olive oil to clean mine and an old bed sheet to make many many patches with- miles better than boiling water.
Good luck, I,ll listen out for your boom :hatsoff:

 

[ian45662]

shot my new shotgun today and it was alot of fun. I am hooked now, I didnt try and pattering I just went out and shot it close to 20 times or so. Next time I will do some work to see where it hits and what load it likes. I only wish I would have started shooting these guns sooner than today!!

 

[Runner]

We agree on a couple of things, but are completely opposite on others. I don't nick my cards or poke holes in them. I use a card over the lubed cushion wad if I use a cushion wad.

We disagree on the 1 to 1 loading. A 3-4 load keeps 95 percent of the velocity and almost doubles the hits inside a 15 inch circle at 30 yards over the 1-1 loadings in every muzzleloading smoothbore I have ever tried. Unless you are shooting very small shot in a gun that likes the 1-1 load, you are shooting half the pattern you could be. For the record, everyone I know that has tried to live with the 1-1 load advice has either sold their gun or it is collecting dust in the back of the closet. Everyone that has tried the 3-4 load is now shooting such a load tailored to fit their gun. I rolled my last turkey at a touch over 40 yards. I hunt, not target shoot. I need those tight patterns at range myself.

 

[clayman49]

Hi there RUNNER,

Thanks for the reply and your not wrong either. Most of my 1 to 1 loads are for trap. As I said before all guns will shoot differently as will the person behind the trigger so the shotgun needs to be loaded to suit. As a fast trap shooter I use No9 shot in my perc, but No 7 1/2 in flinters, but same powder and I have done well with them too. Re hunting, my loads go up as does the shot weight. No 4 for duck and BB for geese & black swan, turkeys are not that common in NZ. Good news is our season starts 1st Saturday in May

 

[Runner]

Nice to meet ya!

I don't shoot any of the moving target shotgun games, or I haven't up to now. All of my loads are geared towards hunting, and I don't often use shot under size 6 or so. We have to use "non-toxic" shot for waterfowl and some migrating birds here. I still have never found a good steel load for ducks and geese. What works with number 9 shot is way outside my usage!

 

[paulvallandigham]

Number 9 shot is only .008" in diameter, getting down close to dust. It does not carry well, and is used mostly in skeet shooting, and occasionally by dove hunters if the birds are flying in close. Its primary merit it that it provides a dense cloud of pellets. Because the pellets weigh so little, they do not travel very far, and they don't carry much energy. Its fine for breaking clay targets at a skeet range, where the furthest target is only 22 yards away. However, for trap shooting, where the targets can get out to 40 yards and beyond, and are usually at least 27 yards from the muzzle when struck, it is of marginal use. On a windy day, its almost worthless for shooting trap.

Now, because cylinder bore BP shotguns are assumed to need to be used within 25 yards, using #9 shot on small game is often used. I don't see the shot penetrating the feathers of a mature pheasant, and while you might knock them out of the air, its unlikely that you are going to kill a pheasant outright at 25 yards using that shot size. I have used 7 1/2, 6, 5, and #4 shot to shoot pheasant, and the first seems still too light, #6 is adequate for shooting pheasants over dogs, on the flush, #5 seems to knock them down, and kill them better than #6 shot will, and do it at least 5 yards further than #6, while #4 tears up the birds a lot, limiting how you can prepare pheasant to eat. Pheasant stir fry is often the only way left to serve a bird shot with #4. Patterns are also thin at 40 yards, but #4 shot will kill a pheasant, if hit, well past 50 yards. Since 50 yards is a long way to shoot with any shotgun, choked or not, I recommend using #5 shot for upland game, because I know it will take a bird out of the air, or roll a rabbit so you are likely to recover the game, and not lose it to die later. Here in the midwest, where the winds can change and pick up speed in minutes, we often have high winds in the autumn and early winter during Upland game season. I have seen some marginal hits with #6 shot under those conditions, where another hunter standing right next to that shooter, but shooting #5 shot brings the birds down hard.

I do use #8 shot for hunting dove, either in my suppository shotguns, or in my black powder guns. I also use it for skeet, trap, and sporting clays shooting. On really windy days, I will switch to #7 1/2 shot, as it bucks the wind better than #8. If I were an avid Skeet shooter, I would use a lot of #9 shot. Particularly in the smaller gauges. ( .410, and 28 Gauge.)

 

[hornetk4]

I aquired my pedersoli the same way , used but in new condition . The first thing I did was E mail pedersoli , just give them the serial number and they will tell you the date it was made and it"s intended use as far as the barrels being choked or not then they give you recomendations as to types of loads , but then again you can get that here also but it"s nice to know when it was made .By the way how much did you have to pay for it , I paid 250 for mine the best 250 I ever spent . As far as recomended loads each gun of this type tends to be different I do most of my shooting in my own back yard you'd be suprised what 50 grains of fff will do as oposed to 70 or more in these little shotguns for things such as squirrels and pests . Quail and rabbits tend to need a heavyer load , it
's all trial and error be carefull and have fun with yours .

 

[ian45662]

i paied 400 for mine but I am the first person to have shot it