I have to smoothbores, essentially the same gauge. One likes a patched .600 ball in it's .620 bore, and not a super tight one either. The other,,,,,, no patched ball combo I tried would equal the 1st gun. The closest it came was a .595 ball with a .010 patch, and still wasn't as good, but, easy to load, bore is .615 on that gun.Not good enough.
So based on the experience of Spence and others I started trialing wad and ball combos. Instant improvement. Loading powder, thin card, lubed felt wad, .600 ball, thin card to hold it all in, produced the best groups yet. This was all at 25 yards off the bench, no sense shooting at 50 if it won't group at 25. Tried that load at 50, okay but not good enough, on the right track though. Tried more and less powder, not much change. Different wad, lubed shredded jute twine used like tow (group size grew and went higher), 2 thin cards between powder and wad (slight improvement). Anyway, final solution was a .610 ball in my .615 bore sitting atop 85grains 3f with 2 thin cards and a lubed felt wad, held in by 2 thin cards.
I would like to find a way to get the same results with a simpler loading process, but no luck as of yet.
One advantage is that it is very easy to pull a ball if need be. I've pulled ball due to a few days of hunting in wet weather with no shots taken and questioning the integrity of the load, not once was the powder fouled, and pulling the ball leaves the powder and wads under it in the gun, allowing for a quick switch to a shot load sitting atop the same powder and wad combo.
