A fine copper mesh, with Fine bone meal as a buffer..
Now, I understand what they were describing. You can buy copper mesh wire still-
McMasters.com if you want to try this. I can't say about bone meal.
But, the use of any kind of buffer indicates that the shooters even then understood the need to keep the pellets ROUND in the bore, and were using the fine copper mesh wire to protect the lead pellets from rubbing directly against the bore of the shotgun. The Buffer- any buffer-- keeps the shot pellets from being deformed by the sudden push of the expanding gases when the shot is fired. Buffers are being used today in Premium shotgun shells for certain applications( Long range goose loads and turkey loads come to mind.)
IF we take Makesumsmoke, and Captn. Fred's information, and begin using thick mattress ticking that is well oiled , to make a shot cup, we will get the same improvements that the copper wire mesh cup gave to cylinder bore guns, with some difference, of course:
1. As I understand it now, these mesh cups had no slits to help them open up and release the shot. You would expect it to take more time for the lead shot to separate from the copper wire mesh cup, than it will from the mattress ticking cup. However, depending on the size of MESH used,( unknown) and the size of pellets used( unknown), you are going to get some deformity of pellets on the outside of the load, since the softer lead will be pushed INTO the wire mesh. That means that when the pellets DO release from the mesh cup, they will slow down faster.
By comparison, using a Mattress ticking cup well soaked in Ballistol, or any vegetable oil, you have a LUBRICATING cup that slides over the bore, and Nothing about the fabric that would deform any of the pellets. Since the fabric is soaked with oil, there is little space between threads of the fabric weave into which lead pellets can push. The net result is more ROUND Pellets leaving the muzzle with the rest of the load of shot.
2. With buffers- no matter how fine or how light in weight-- you still have a place in the flight when the buffers Leave the shot column, all at once, disturbing the air flow in an around the column. You don't have that happen with a ticking cup, without the buffers. Test such loads( with and without copper mesh), with and without buffers, to see what gives the best patterns.
However, there is no reason that whatever buffer you might choose to use in a copper wire mesh cup can't be used in your mattress ticking cup. Today, we have a wide choice of buffering agents to mix in with the shot. One that has proved incredibly good, and very cheap, is the Jiffy Brand corn muffin mix. Its a finely ground corn flour, and it flows very nicely into the spaces between the pellets of a load of shot in the barrel. You simply have to tap the barrel repeatedly as the buffer is poured into the shot, to get the buffer to flow into the load of shot and fill all the spaces.
If a buffered load is desired for use in a shotgun with a cylinder bore, this is the kind of thing best done indoors, where you don't have to worry about wind and rain.
Some kind of loading block, or tube needs to be made into which the shot is poured, and the buffer added. Once placed over the muzzle with the ticking cup in place, the entire load would be pushed( or dropped) down into the cup. The fabric would be trimmed to size, and an OS card placed on top of the shot, so that the entire package can be driven down onto the OP wad.
The only Minor difficulty I see is the need to make up a "forming " stick( or "short starter") to form the fabric cup. Using these are nothing new to MLers, I hope, as virtually everyone has used a short starter to push a PRB down the muzzle. The same thing is needed, whether you form the cup from copper wire mesh, or from a Reese's Pieces wax paper cup( or any other wax paper).
If they were available, a dowel of 9/16"(.5625) in diameter would be about perfect for a forming stick. Its wide enough to do the forming, but narrow enough not to become wedged or stuck to the oiled fabric, for easy withdrawal. There is enough "slop", or "play" with a dowel that diameter to allow the shooter some ability to circle the rod against the bore, to insure that the fabric is sticking to the bore all around the circumference.
Without knowing the exact shot load that Luie intends to use, nor the actual bore diameter of his gun, Its a bit of a guess to figure out how LONG the forming stick needs to be. But, a 1 oz, load takes up about 5/8 inches of space in a 20 gauge shell.
A 5/8" dowel can be filed or trimmed down to the desired diameter, and then cut to the needed length, with extra length to fit into some kind of handle. Its no harder to build than making any other short starter, In my personal experience. If you don't have the needed tools, most wood shops could do this kind of small project while you wait.
In my 12 gauge, my load of 75 grains of 2Fg powder, with 1 1/4 oz. of #5 shot will knock pheasants out of the sky as if they were smacked with a tennis racket at least to 35 yards. I believe, that with the fabric cup described by Captn. Fred and Makesumsmoke, that yardage will easily extend to 40 yards. This load is leaving the muzzle at just over 1,000 fps. and was a favored hunting load for the market hunters on the Illinois river, back in the 1970s, and 80s, for killing ducks out to 50 yards!
I do believe that turkey hunters should try to use a load that puts shot reliably into the head and neck area. The problem I have had with using any shot smaller than #7 1/2 is that you may get lots more hits out past 40 yards, but the pellet energy is not enough to cleanly kill these strong birds at that distance.
I believe this is the reason that old time hunters relied on larger shot sizes- #5, #4, #2, #1 and BB-- to kill turkeys. Those heavy shot pellets deliver the energy to kill if even ONE pellet hits a vital area, at that distance, even at relatively low BP velocities.
Again, this is an example of why BP shooting is an entirely different "game" than shooting modern cartridge guns.
People come into this side of the shooting sports, with all kinds of information derived from shooting, and reloading smokeless powder loads, only to find that shooting BP guns requires a different way of doing things.
120 years ago, when shooters, for the first time, were being asked to switch from Black Powder to using Smokeless powder, they must have felt just as confused about how the higher velocities changed just about everything they thought they knew after using Black powder loads all their lives. :hmm: :shocked2:
