BILLYGOAT said:
Round ball I have a 56 cal. and it seems the pattern opens up a great deal after 20 yds. I was using 70 grs. 3f goex 1/2 wad over the powder 1 1/8 of #5 shot and a over shot card. I tried a 28 ga. plastic shot cup without the 1/2 wad over the powder and it did not seem to help. What is a paper shot cup and where do I find them for a 56 cal. muzzleloader? I thought about getting it choked but I shoot patched round balls with it too. If I get some place close to start I may go to the range next week or so and try it out. :hmm:
Billygoat: I know Roundball just told you to increase the powder charge, but I am going to ALSO suggest you try lowering it. Try going down to a 2 dram load, or even a 1 3/4 dram load. ( 55 grs. and 47 grains, respectively) If you read the V.M. Starr article under Bob Spenser's website, " Black Powder Notebook",
[url] http://members.aye.net/~bspen/starr.html[/url]
You will find he recommends lighter powder charges for better patterns in those small gauges. The #5 shot weighs enough to carry a punch well beyond 30 yards, so don't worry about shot " Bouncing off the bunnies", at any range you might reasonable expect to shoot at them with the lower powder charge.
I also think that 1 5/8 oz. of shot is a HUGE( not dangerous, but just unnecessary, and self defeating) overload for that gauge( I don't use 1 5/8 oz. shotloads in my 12 gauge!) Again, see the V.M. Starr article. What you have done by using that much shot is reduce the velocity of that 70 grains of powder by putting so much more shot in front of it. Why not try a load that is not beating up your gun so much, and will kill just as well, throw good patterns, while saving you both expensive lead and expensive powder? Try 7/8 oz. of shot( 62 grains by volume) with a 2 dram, or 1 3/4 dram powder charge just to see how it patterns, and compare pellet counts to the patterns you are getting with your current load.
I think you might change that load, by using OS cards instead of that cushion wad. Put an off-center hole in each card to let air escape and enter to separate the wads once they leave the barrel. The lighter cards will not " FOLLOW " the shot, and bump it, causing the pattern to open up.
Remember, all mass has gravity, and larger masses have more gravity than do smaller masses.( That is why lint is attracted to your dark wool sportscoat! It stays there because of static electricity.) That shot is also producing a vacuum behing the mass of shot for at least the first 9 feet out the barrel. That vacuum " sucks " in the trailing wads.
If you ever watch NASCAR racing, the reason cars pass on the curves is because they can use the vacuum, or " Draft " of the car in front to gain enough speed to pass on the inside of the curve. The vacuum of the car in front means less air hitting the trailing car, so that its engine can produce more relative speed for acceleration of the car past the leading car.
Now, no wad is going to pass the shot in front of it, but the wad is being pulled along, in part, by that vacuum behind the shot.
You want to use lighter wads to push the shot down the barrel, so that they drop out of the line of flight as soon as possible. Using OS cards, with those off center holes in them to allow air to separate the cards as soon as they are free of the barrel is the quickest way to get those " wads" OUT of the line of flight, so they can't follow or bump the shot in the air. The hole in the card also prevents a vacuum from " sucking " the card behind it. That will contribute to tighter patterns.
I also recommend you try greasing the barrel with a lubed cleaning patch after seating the OS cards on top of the shot to hold the shot load in place. YOu can do this in one operation, if you put the cleaning patch in front of your jag, and on top of the OS cards you are running down. That will save reloading time. The grease will allow the outer pellets of shot to slide over the barrel, rather than rub off lead on the bore as they exit the barrel. The more round the pellets remain, the tighter the pattern is going to be. The grease will be there to keep the fouling from the powder residue soft, and manageable, too.
If you make up paper shot cups, or if you want to experiment more with the 28 gauge plastic cups, use scotch tape, or a sliver of plastic insert in the cup to limit how open the petals will go, and limit thereby how fast they release the shot into the air. The delay of only a fraction of a second will extend the tigher pattern's range, considering flight times.
If you don't have it, buy a copy of the Lyman Shotshell Reloading Manual. The tables there on velocities, and pellet energy, flight time, and drop apply to both modern and ML shotgun loads.
You can chronograph any given load you make up for your ML shotgun by making a " slug " out of the shot, wrapping it in a tube of paper( or using a plastic shot cut that you tape shut with the shot in it). That lets the shot pass over the screen of your chronograph without endangering the machine or screens. Since you are measuring Muzzle Velocity with that chronogaph, there will be almost no difference in velocity for a standard shot load, and your " slug " using the same amount of shot.
