Needing a Dove Load for a .62

[Birdwatcher]

.62 ca. TVM fowler.

Hookay, 80 grains of FFg with 1 1/4 ounce of 7 1/2.

I've tried one cushion wad over the powder and one card over the shot. I'm needing to tighten up the pattern some.

things to try from reading this board....

2 cushion wads over powder, one cushion wad over shot, said wads lubed with olive oil.

Oiled patch to lube barrel after loading main charge.

I do have 20 gage plastic shot cups, but am reluctant to use them on account of plastic fouling could be a problem in the field.

All suggestions appreciated.

Birdwatcher

 

[Joe Sullivan]

Link
What I did was- bought a system. Look at the 16 gauge wads here and buy them all. I started this way and I'm having good results. The 1/2 wad goes on top of everything. I roll them in melted bees wax/ olive oil. The lubricated wads were not in stock for my cal. so I'm just doing it my self. I'm using 70 gr. of ff.

 

[Joe Sullivan]

I made a mistake.... go to page 3, 19 ga.

 

[roundball]

.62 ca. TVM fowler.
Hookay, 80 grains of FFg with 1 1/4 ounce of 7 1/2.

If it was me, I'd bump up to 1+3/8 with the 80grn charge.....or drop back to 70grns if you're going to stay with the 1+1/4.

Personal opinion only:
You have a nice traditionally oriented .62cal...consider trying to work it out without resorting to modern plastic wads
:wink:

 

[No Deer]

My trap load using 7 1/2 shot, is 75g 3f, overpowder card, 1/2 prelubed wad, 7/8 ounce of 7 1/2 shot, thin over shot card. Works good on clays should be good enough for doves I would think. We don't have a dove season here in Michigan, so I can't give a field roport for this load.

 

[Dave K]

My load is 7/8 oz. of 7 1/2's and about 60gr. of 2F. One over powder card, one fiber cushion about 1/4" thick lubed with olive oil, then the shot and an over shot card over it all. Been using this load in the 20 for quite awhile. This is in both an old SXS flinter and my newer Colerain barreled fowler. No chokes in any of them. BUT, you really should pattern your gun to see what loads work in your gun.

 

[Ft. Jefferson]

Try taking closer shots, it's a cyl bore for heavens sake.

 

[Birdwatcher]

Just a follow up.

Ended up using 1 1/2oz of 7 1/2 over 80 grains of ffg. Dry wad over powder, card over shot.

Here's a pattern at 30 yards (you might have to go to 200% to see it).

Took it out this past weekend. Just to preview here I am NOT an accomplished wing shot, this essentially being almost my first time.

With a regular shotgun this past weekend I was hitting about one in ten. I'm happy to report that I turned out to be just as good with a flinter as I am with a modern cartridge arm :grin:

Some problems encountered getting ignition. I was along a treeline bordering the San Antonio River, the doves were moving along the treeline and presenting many passing overhead shots.

Under those circumstances the priming powder piles up against the back of the pan near the hammer. The other thing was a strongly gusting breeze; the priming powder would ignite as it was blowing away. Tripling the priming charge from 4 to 12 grains FFG seemed to help here.

Maybe ten swings-and-misses and then finally I hit one; a white-winged dove, knocked down clean on a going-away shot....

Just one, but good fer bragging rights. The other members of the party, none of whom had ever fired a flinter, were amazed :grin:

Birdwatcher

 

[roundball]

Good deal...you're closin' in on it!

Have you had a chance to experiment using faster priming powder...ie: 4F...or even 3F?
No question the smaller granulations ignite faster which can only help with wingshooting...

 

[paulvallandigham]

Congratulations. You can rifle shoot those going away targets, but until you learn how to LEAD your targets, so that your shot arrives where the bird IS GOING TO BE, and not where it is when you pull the trigger, you will continue to miss lots of targets. Shooting any shotgun is a lot different than shooting rifles off-hand. BTDT. It took me years to learn to be a good wing-shooter, after all the years I shot rifles and handguns.

The good news is that most of the skills can be learned using modern shotguns at Skeet, Trap, and sporting Clays ranges. If you reload your shells, the cost drops significantly and you can afford to shoot more. AND, the best part is that all those skills transfer nicely to shooting BP shotguns, and fowling pieces. :hatsoff: :v

 

[Jaymo]

I read once that the average dove hunter fires 7 shots per dove hit, and that the really good skeet shooters fire 4 shots per dove hit.
I'd say you did fine. Doves aren't as easy to hit as they look. They look slow, fat, and clumsy.
They sure don't fly like it.

 

[paulvallandigham]

The best practice for shooting dove is Sporting Clays, IMHO. Skeet is next, but only because you learn to NOT take shots much past 22 yards- the furthest a clay target is from a skeet position.

The key difference between rifle shooting and shotgun shooting is how you position your feet, and distribute your weight on your feet.

With rifle shooting, you stand with your feet spread beyond the end of your shoulders, so that you lock up your body from the waist, down. That gives you a stable platform to balance your weight, and the weight of the rifle equally between both feet, and have all movement of the gun occur from the waist UP.

With shotgun shooting, your feet are Under your shoulders, like a boxer, karate fighter, or basketball player with the ball. You weight is shifted to your forward hip, so that you can use your back leg to turn your body on your ankles, knees, and hips to go after passing targets while remaining balanced upright.

After you learn this difference- any many shotgun shooters never do---- you then have to learn how to lead targets. That just takes lots of practice. You also learn to relax and let your brain do all the calculations automatically, so that you are pointing the target, NOT aiming that front sight. The sight(s) on a shotgun are only a general reference to guide you in mounting the gun consistently to the same place on your face, and shoulder. Once that is accomplished,your focus switches to the target, and your body moves the gun to and past the target to "lead" it enough that the shot hits the bird.

You are correct about dove. They can stop on a dime and give you back 9 Cents in change. :shocked2: :blah: :idunno: :surrender:

I once was killing doves out at about 30 yards with a cylinder bore shotgun, and my lead was at least 10 feet in front of the birds. The man I was with that day, an experienced hunter, was trying to hit them with a .410, but he missed everything he shot at. I really don't thing he had spent any time at a patterning board, to learn where the pattern was actually hitting compared to where he thought he was pointing that gun. He apparently used a 20 gauge gun when hunting, and just pulled this gun out to use that particular day with me. :nono:

He could not believe I was able to hit the birds so far out from my gun, nor how much my lead was when I fired my gun. He too thought they were "slow" flyers, when they are anything but slow. I told him that I would miss well behind the birds if I didn't lead them that much when I fired at those distances. As it was, I missed some of the birds, who did a dip sometime between the moment I calculated their flight path, and when the shot got to where they should have been :shocked2: :blah: :haha: :rotf: :grin: My friend missed one that literally turned a 180 degree turn and flew back where it came from just as he fired. Those are the kinds of things that happen where dove hunters just have to laugh. I have seen some pretty long strings of birds taken with consecutive shots by dove hunters, but NO ONE who hunts dove will ever claim they never missed a bird. On my good days, I am shooting between 2 and 3 rounds per bird taken. I try to keep it near as possible to 2, and sometime under that amount when I am HOT. :v

It makes up for those days when I am wondering if I even put ANY shot in those shells? :rotf: :haha: :blah: :shocked2: :surrender: :thumbsup:

 

[Birdwatcher]

Yep, the next day I was loaned a new Beretta 20 ga autoloader.

I was busting caps all over the sky for the first few go-rounds until I learned to treat it as if it were a double: One or two shots at a time, saving the third round for possible cripples.

Prob'ly I wasn't leadng enough in most cases. I will say there was a strong wind that day complicating things. Downwind those little suckers were really hauling a.. , and from every onther angle the wind just complicated things.

(said wind and the blowing-away pan priming experiences of the first day being one reason why I left the fowler at home that day)

Had some experts in the party though that limited-out (15 doves) both days. Including a guy who scored a triple; three doves from the same flock, one with each shot.

Anyhow, those doves what got whacked were put to good use....

Birdwatcher

Birdwatcher

 

[rustylaidlaw]

Oh yeah, Birdwatcher. Those look like some tasty bacon-wrapped doves

 

[tg]

If I recall I used 1 1/4 oz #7 with 70 gr 3f two op cards no cushion wad and one os card, I use 1 1/4oz #7 60 gr 3f same cards in my .58 French fusil as shown below but never saw a bird that season??

 

[paulvallandigham]

MY recipe for dove breasts wrapped in bacon strips calls for sweating the bacon lightly in oil, in a frying pan, then covering the entire breast and bacon in milk, and seasonings( the bacon usually supplies enough salt, but a little pepper, and some lemon or lime zest go a long way to brightening up the flavors), and slowly cooking them in a covered pan for about an hour.

I split the breast in half, removing it from the bone, so you are only cooking meat, not bones. Bacon overwhelms any flavors you may get from the bones. They can be served as horsd'oeuvres, or as an Entre over pasta, or rice.

You can reduce the milk, oil, and drippings to make a gravy that goes nicely with the pasta or rice. Simply add butter for flavor, and thicken. I like to draw off some of the milk in the pan and let it cool over ice, then add flour and stir in well, before adding it back to the pan.

Some people add mushrooms to the gravy, but that tends to make everything taste like mushrooms, and you don't get the flavor of the dove.

I prefer to add some red wine, and often put some in the milk when I begin cooking the breasts slowly. The alcohol steams off, but it helps to tenderize the breasts, as well as flavor the gravy. I have added green stemmed onions, chopped, and/or diced bell pepper, and/or
diced onions instead of green stemmed onions chopped, along with cut green beans to the gravy to add some vegetables to the mix, and add some needed color to the meal.

For horsd'oeuvres, you can Think more in terms of a Shishkabob, and add water chestnuts, and or some grilled fruit, like pineapple chunks or slices of mango, to the combination. Grilling tends to intensify the flavors of these mild fruits.

I leave the skewers in when serving dove breasts as hors d'oeuvres, to give people something to handle the two-bite size breasts. I remove the skewers if serving these over pasta and sauce, but leave them in if serving over rice and sauce.

 

[Rifleman1776]

.62 ca. TVM fowler.

Hookay, 80 grains of FFg with 1 1/4 ounce of 7 1/2.

I've tried one cushion wad over the powder and one card over the shot. I'm needing to tighten up the pattern some.

things to try from reading this board....

2 cushion wads over powder, one cushion wad over shot, said wads lubed with olive oil.

Oiled patch to lube barrel after loading main charge.

I do have 20 gage plastic shot cups, but am reluctant to use them on account of plastic fouling could be a problem in the field.

All suggestions appreciated.

Birdwatcher

Drop the charge to 70 gr. and watch patterns tighten and improve.

 

[Rifleman1776]

The other thing was a strongly gusting breeze; the priming powder would ignite as it was blowing away.

Unless you were in one heck of a gale or had the slowest lock in history, the primer and charge should ignite before the wind has any effect. That is a puzzlement.

 

[Birdwatcher]

Chambers Colonial Virginia lock w/1" flint, pretty well thought-of I think.

Wind was gusting pretty strong.

Perhaps it was the angle too (often close to vertical).

A pretty narrow vent on that barrel too, the folks at Flinlock Inc at Friendship advised me to enlarge it.

And/or maybe accumulated fowling restricting the vent (even though I picked it between shots), who knows?

But upping the priming charge seem to solve the problem.

 

[Birdwatcher]

My gosh, I expect you have knocked down more'n a few doves in your day.

Thanks for taking the time to type out the recipe.