Shot from a rifled barrel?

[mauser182]

Can bird shot be fired out of a rifled barrel? I have a .58 cal Enfield musket and would like to use it for small game hunting. Is this possible?

 

[paulvallandigham]

Yes, but the yardage has to be short. In my experience, the rifling spins the column of shot so that it looks like a wrapping off a barber's pole. The shot swirls, leaving a large hole in the middle, that simply gets bigger, the further away the target. We stood to the side of our backstop while a club member fired such a shot, at 25 yds, and you could easily hear( and see) the STRING of shot as it hit the paper in that swirling pattern.

I tried it in my .50 cal. rifle at the Trap Range to see just how far away I could still break clays. !5 yards was about as far as I could expect to hit a flying clay target from the muzzle, about half the time.

Lead shot will quickly load up the grooves of your rifle, and make a serious cleaning chore with lead solvents, and a bore brush. For that reason alone, I don't recommend giving any rifle a regular diet of lead shot. BTDT. :hmm: :thumbsup:

 

[ohio ramrod]

The rifling will "spin" the shot column and give you a broard irregular pattern. I do use shot in a rifled kentucky pistol for snakes and it is effective out to ten yards.But I assume you want somethin g for ranges longer than ten yrds! :hmm:

 

[mauser182]

I would really like a muzzleloading shotgun or a smoothbore musket but I think the price is out of my budget. Does anybody know of a reasonably priced smoothbore muzzleloader to shoot shot out of? I was also looking at a smaller caliber rifle for small game hunting but I'm still new to muzzleloading and wanted something with a little more room for error. Would it be cost effective to have a gunsmith bore a cheap rifle out to create a smoothbore?

 

[necchi]

FWIW, it's about 115-125 to bore a rifle barrel smooth, plus shipping both ways so add another 30-35.