Shot Loads for Fowlers

Quite a few years ago I was attending Dixons Gun Fair and was listening to a few guys discussing turkey loads. These fellas seemed pretty knowlegable about the sport. One Fella
said that after he measured out the shot, he took a piece of nylon stocking,placed the shot in it, made it into a little bag and tied it off. Then the gun was loaded in the gun was loaded in the usual manner. I wasn't interested in turkey hunting at the time, so I never tried it.
This year my brother is hounding me to go turkey hunting with him using his fowler. After I agreed, my thoughts went back to that discussion at Dixon's.
My Question is,has any one here tried this method?
I remember the guy at Dixon's said it really improved the density of the pattern.
By the way, this is my first post on this site, it looks like a good one. Lotsa good information and knowlegable people

 

[musketman]

Welcome...

I think that would be a handy way to carry pre-measured shot charges, sounds good...

 

[Rebel]

If you placed it in the barrel in the nylon stocking, wouldn't the stocking melt to the barrel?

 

[BillinOregon]

Hawk Man: That technique sounds promising. I am about to get back into muzzleloader shotgunning with a 10-gauge double, and am looking for easy techniques for turkey loads and pattern density, and your description sounds good. Now I am trying to think if there would have been any material authentic to the old times that would do what the nylon does. Cheesecloth comes to mind. Don't know as I would want to shoot a bunch of cheesecloth in the woods once fire season starts, but it ought to be perfectly safe in the spring turkey woods.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

sounds like total foolishness to me. The nylon would be melted and abraded on its' ride up the bore and would likely trap some of the pellets causing a clumpy pattern.
I guess that Einstein probably thought the nylon would hold the pellets togather for a while and then magically somehow release them. Ridiculous! If the nylon was not entirely consumed the most it could do is trap some pellets and scatter the remainder.
People keep reinventing the wheel and forget that shotguns have been around for over seven hundred years and for all of that time people have sought ways to improve the pattern. Anything you can think of has been tried and if it had worked it would have become standard practice long ago.
If you need more range from a fowler, load a patched round ball! :shake: :shake: :shake:

 

In about a week we're going to go out and do a lot of s
hooting. We'll try alot of different load combinations etc.
I don' know whether the nylon will melt or not, don't forget you'll have the over powder card wad plus the cushion wad or wads. Look at plastic wads they don't melt, maybe one of us"Einsteins" will come up with something
My brother is a turkey huntin' nut,he's killed alot of turkeys using this 20ga. fowler. If the nylon stocking thing doesn't increase shot density ,then we'll go back to his tried and true loads.

 

[vinnynj]

hawk sound interesting what wad set up are you going to use what size shot ect id like to try it as im a tree rat hunter and any extra range is always welcome whitch range do you shoot at cherry ridge or flat brook?

 

[Muggsy]

I cant see how the tied off nylon would open very well. I recently was trying different loads with shot in a brown paper bag tube- i had about 1/4-1/2 inch space over the shot and I tried lightly folding the paper over. Even that little bit covering the shot caused at most 10 pellets to come out, the rest stayed in the shot cup and tore a pretty sizable hole in my target at 25 yrds. If that had been a bird I wouldn't have needed to gut it!

 

[RussB]

Hawk Man....I have heard of this before. I have never tried it, as a matter of fact it had slipped my mind until you mentioned it here.

Like you said, I heard it made for a great Turkey load. If I remember correctly, the old boys that were doing this were down in Alabama, or maybe Mississippi at the time, and they talked as though it was a very common practice.

Keep us posted on how this turns out, ok?

Russ

 

[roundball]

Quite a few years ago I was attending Dixons Gun Fair and was listening to a few guys discussing turkey loads. These fellas seemed pretty knowlegable about the sport. One Fella
said that after he measured out the shot, he took a piece of nylon stocking,placed the shot in it, made it into a little bag and tied it off. Then the gun was loaded in the gun was loaded in the usual manner. I wasn't interested in turkey hunting at the time, so I never tried it.
This year my brother is hounding me to go turkey hunting with him using his fowler. After I agreed, my thoughts went back to that discussion at Dixon's.
My Question is,has any one here tried this method?
I remember the guy at Dixon's said it really improved the density of the pattern.
By the way, this is my first post on this site, it looks like a good one. Lotsa good information and knowlegable people

Home made paper shot cups work great in my .62cal smoothbore...puts eight #6's in a coke can at 40yds.

 

[musketman]

If you placed it in the barrel in the nylon stocking, wouldn't the stocking melt to the barrel?

The over-powder card and 1/2 inch fiber wad should prevent that from happening...

 

[Rebel]

Yea, i thought of that after i posted the question. Gettin' ld sucks. ::

 

I don

 

[Hoyt]

I had my best turkey pattern using Post-it paper shot cups. I didn't try any with paper crimped completely over top of shot..but my best load was with the paper cut about 1/4" above the shot. I hear a lot about the shot not leaving paper shot cups when paper is long enough to cover all or almost all the shot. I'm thinking there must be a happy medium somewhere between paper even with shot and completely covering shot. This is the pattern I got with paper about 1/4" above shot and crimped over.

.20ga. Pattern

 

[RussB]

Hoyt...That pattern looks mighty fine to these old eyes.

I have had a lot of problems with a "paper shot cup" by not opening the end of the paper cup, before shooting.
Like you said, the pattern was about 10-12" at 30yds....and elongated at that.

I truly believe you can make a shot bag that won't open at all, by gluing the ends closed on a paper shot cup.

That paper seems pretty fragile when you have it in your hand, but when you shoot it, it don't want to seperate from the shot...unless, it's wide open, and a good tight OS card is in place. I've even started giving the ram rod an extra firm tap or two, hoping I will break that shot bag in the bore.

Russ

 

[berickson]

nice looking gun hoyt - throws a good pattern too.
well i can see it all now - in a few weeks we'll be comparing which panty hose brands work best ... ::
(gentlemen prefer Hanes..)
i'm off on a range run next weekend and intend to give this a try. (nylons that is) could be a handy way to carry shot in the field if nothing else.

 

[vinnynj]

if my wife catches me shoping for panty hose im the one who will get shot

 

[CrackStock]

if my wife catches me shoping for panty hose im the one who will get shot

Not if ya shave yer legs first!

 

[momsworry]

Last weekend, I tried using some paper shot cups, using post-it-notes. I left them the full 3" X 3". I loaded 70 gr of Triple Seven in FFG granulation. One card over powder, two wonder wads, the paper cup, then 1 1/4 oz of shot, then a card over shot wad. When I seated the over shot card wad, I could feel the top of the shot cup "scrunching" up. I wondered how it would work, but I found a nice dense pattern with both the Imp Cyl and Mod barrels of my Pedersoli 12 ga double gun. The pattern on the Imp choke side was about 24" in diameter and the Mod barrel, about 18" in diameter. This was with a range of about 25 yards. I had an orange target dot that I was shooting at, that was about 3" in diameter. With the Imp barrel there were 8 pellets in the circle and with the Mod barrel there were 10 pellets. I was using 7 1/2 lead shot. I'm going to try the nylon material as well, I'm just curious about it.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

I'm with you Joe. I just load the old fashioned way with loose shot and I don't seem to have big holes in my patterns. I doubt the old timers used fancy techniques when loading up their fowling pieces. Usually I use wads, but I have used tow and find it works pretty well. I also load either one to one by volume shot to powder or sometimes I go a little heavier with the shot. I'm using a 20 bore flint fowler with a forty inch barrel, and maybe that is helping the patterns, but whatever the reason, I'm happy with the results.