Small bore smoothie?

[Jarikeen]

I'm just curious - are most of the smoothbore shooters tending to use large bore or are there some who tend to shoot smallbore,ie. .45 Cal and under? Would you tend to use this mostly for target work, or can you/do load up with shot/PRB as well.

What I've alway's liked about the smoothbore was that you could load up for bird or for elephant.

 

[54ball]

A smoothbore is the ancestor of the shotgun. If you look at modern shotguns for hunting you will see the most common gauges are relatively large. The twelve gauge followed by the twenty then the sixteen which seems to be enjoying a resurgence followed by some tens then the smallerbores like the 410 which is really a caliber and lastly the twenty eight are the order you will find from most popular to least.
The reason the twelves and twenties are the most popular is the fact they can take small and large game well. For example a .410 is a decent squirrel or rabbit gun but very poor against deer even when using a slug at medium shotgun range. A .410 is not the best choice for bird hunting because of the small shot pattern. It can be done but one has to be an expert with it. A fair shot with a 10,12,20 or 16 will bring the food home but a fair shot with a .410 is a miss.

 

[Many Klatch]

NMLRA rules are that .54 caliber or 28 guage is the smallest legal smoothbore that can be shot in primitive matches. If you are going to be shooting this gun in matches you might want to follow this restriction in case you are shooting at a club that follows the NMLRA rules.

Many Klatch

 

[tg]

The smalr bores suffer when loadedwith shot wen compared to the large ones, there ae originals in the .40 range which were likely smoothrifles useing ball or buckshot.