Smoothbore Accuracy Fixes

[Many Klatch]

There have been a number of threads about how accurate are smoothbores. I don't think we need to address that but I thought this might be a good place to put all the different theories/voodoo about how best to improve accuracy.

I thought I would list a few and then have everyone else chime in with theirs. Who knows, some might actually work.

1) Roughen the ball. A friend of mine that shot in the International Matches swears by roughing the ball up. He uses one or two horse shoe rasps and rolls the balls between them. This causes little lead "hairs" to stand up all over the ball. He then shoots these balls bare over a shotgun wad. I tried it once but it didn't seem to work for me.

2) Tailed Ball. I got this method from a friend that lives in Tasmania. Apparently the British Army experimented with this system back in the day. Drill a small hole in a Bess sized ball, insert a 6"-8" piece of string and then wedge it in with a piece of toothpick. Shoot the ball over a shotgun wad. He said he tried it and it seemed to cure the horizontal wandering but didn't do much for the vertical wandering. He shot into 4" of oak and in every case the string was hanging out of the hole. I haven't tried this one yet.

3) Bending the barrel. I have done this on most of my smoothbores and a rifle or two. This will get the roundball to shoot to point of aim. It does however seem to mess up shooting shot to point of aim. It takes a leap of faith to do this but it does work.

Well, what else do you have?

Many Klatch

 

[Robby]

Well, on number two, you could use a fuse instead of a string and stick the end of it through a hole poked in the wad. Then, on a calm day, you could see a trail of your wandering ball. :hmm: :rotf:
Robby

 

[Grizzled Roberts]

The big problem with "frosting" the musket balls is, when you rasp the musket balls you are altering the weight of each ball. You have to weigh each ball. There will be many different weights of ball. The purpose of the rough surface is so the ball will grab the patch to keep the pits in the barrel of the old original muskets from pulling the patches off the ball while the ball/patch is traveling out the bore.

 

[Lonegun1894]

I just use the tightest PRB combo that will load with the ramrod, and then work up a load just as with a rifle, adjusting powder loads, RB diameter, patch thickness, patch lube, etc, etc. Once I got the tightest groups my smoothrifle will shoot, I then drifted the rear sight for windage and filed the front for elevation, as my groups were a foot low and 5" left when I first started load work up at 25yds.

 

[FishDFly]

There have been a number of threads about how accurate are smoothbores. I don't think we need to address that but I thought this might be a good place to put all the different theories/voodoo about how best to improve accuracy.

I thought I would list a few and then have everyone else chime in with theirs. Who knows, some might actually work.

1) Roughen the ball. A friend of mine that shot in the International Matches swears by roughing the ball up. He uses one or two horse shoe rasps and rolls the balls between them. This causes little lead "hairs" to stand up all over the ball. He then shoots these balls bare over a shotgun wad. I tried it once but it didn't seem to work for me.

2) Tailed Ball. I got this method from a friend that lives in Tasmania. Apparently the British Army experimented with this system back in the day. Drill a small hole in a Bess sized ball, insert a 6"-8" piece of string and then wedge it in with a piece of toothpick. Shoot the ball over a shotgun wad. He said he tried it and it seemed to cure the horizontal wandering but didn't do much for the vertical wandering. He shot into 4" of oak and in every case the string was hanging out of the hole. I haven't tried this one yet.

3) Bending the barrel. I have done this on most of my smoothbores and a rifle or two. This will get the roundball to shoot to point of aim. It does however seem to mess up shooting shot to point of aim. It takes a leap of faith to do this but it does work.

Well, what else do you have?

Many Klatch

1. Is that within the rules of sanctioned NMLRA
matches?
2. See above?
3. Barrel bending, that is done with shotguns in
trap matches and is legal in sanctioned trap
matches. How does one bend an 1' octagon
barrel?
4. One person swears that balls with antimony,
which makes balls harder, shoot better.

I can shoot at 25 and 50 yards and do okay in line matches, 100 yards and the rules all change.

My next plan is to try:

1. Powder
2. 2 hard cards
3. Fiber cushion with lube
4. Patched round ball

I know the above works at 25 yards in pistol matches.

Time to experiment.

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

Besides the above, work on the 'nut' behind the trigger!

I find firing air rifles or other low-power arms (powderless 22s like Aguila Colibri, etc.) and/or dry firing indoors to be a big help.

Once you get a good grouping load, I find that shooting at twice the distance you'll typically shoot to be the best practice you can get!

 

[FishDFly]

Besides the above, work on the 'nut' behind the trigger!

I find firing air rifles or other low-power arms (powderless 22s like Aguila Colibri, etc.) and/or dry firing indoors to be a big help.

Once you get a good grouping load, I find that shooting at twice the distance you'll typically shoot to be the best practice you can get!

I have to agree totally.

I dry fire each morning with a different pistol, 30 minutes.

I dry fire my T/C 45 rifle every other day.

I shoot 2 targets each evening with my pellet pistol.

I will admit with the SB I am lazy, I only shoot it once a year and that is in state matches, not before. This is going to change this year.

I have increased my scores in pistol shooting significantly.

This was done with:

1. Dry fire daily
2. Air pistol each day
3. Handle a different pistol each day
4. A High Master recommended several places to
read about pistol shooting.
5. Talking with the High Masters and Master
pistol shooters I have learned that better
scores are achieved by increased mental focus
(80%) and time on the range (20%).

The above will translate to what ever you shoot.

I hate to admit, but my wife is my best tool, she watches what I do in practice and in matches, at times I would like to strangle her, but most times she is correct in what I am doing incorrect.

Keep a record of your scores each time you shoot and keep your best target and put it on the wall.
When you beat that target, put the better one on the wall.

Holes in targets do not lie.

 

[Grandpa Ron]

I have spent a lot of time and effort chasing smoothbore accuracy. Like many I have tried various powder, wad, and ball combinations. Bare ball, tight patched ball, wads, no wads, sprew up vs. sprew down; I even super glued a rear sight on the barrel for bench shooting. In the end my 28 ga. smoothie seems to like 75 grains of 3F and a well greased patched round ball.

I have had several “ah ha” moments where a particular combination produced very tight group only to be disappointed the next time out.

Coming from a muzzleloading rifle background my general rule is three shots make a group, 5 shots make a better group, 8 to 10 shots tell the true story. So I am working on the human element. With no rear sight, gun placement is important as is dry firing.

As far as roughened balls, etc. I will reserve these for another time.

 

[Bill Bizoff]

I shoot a rough .735 bare ball in a .745 bore with no wad and it works great for me, (about 5” at 50 yds.) .I tried it with a wad and it wouldn’t stay on the paper. You never know until you try.
Bill

 

[matt denison]

"1) Roughen the ball. A friend of mine that shot in the International Matches swears by roughing the ball up. He uses one or two horse shoe rasps and rolls the balls between them. This causes little lead "hairs" to stand up all over the ball. He then shoots these balls bare over a shotgun wad. I tried it once but it didn't seem to work for me.

2) Tailed Ball. I got this method from a friend that lives in Tasmania. Apparently the British Army experimented with this system back in the day. Drill a small hole in a Bess sized ball, insert a 6"-8" piece of string and then wedge it in with a piece of toothpick. Shoot the ball over a shotgun wad. He said he tried it and it seemed to cure the horizontal wandering but didn't do much for the vertical wandering. He shot into 4" of oak and in every case the string was hanging out of the hole. I haven't tried this one yet.

Um, excuse me if I sound rude. I'm not picking on you personally. Both of these ideas are proven to be :bull: and it is annoying to see them recurculated around the internet again.

If you want accuracy from your smoothbore do these tried and true things:

1. buy or build a good gun with a fast lock, good trigger, consistent barrel that fits you reasonably well. A piece of manure won't shoot better with roughed up balls or a tail attached.

2. Work up a load that the gun likes, forget the magic and voodoo.

3. practice, practice, practice.

The Bevel Brothers covered these things in their column in MuzzleBlasts Magazine some years ago. I wish they'd come out with compilation book of their experiments.

 

[Oudoceus]

Shuttlecock Load
I've never actually tried this. It's just an idea I had that would probably be more trouble than it's worth. I's sort of like the tailed load. You would shoot a patched ball but the patch would be attached to the ball with a tiny screw or nail in the center. In theory, the ball would fly true like a badmitten shuttlecock. Has anyone tried this?

 

[pargent]

I have heard of wire guided and lazer guided smooth bore loads but not these string loads in smoothbores .

 

[paulab]

Klatch...in both my smoothbores, the more powder I fed them the better they shot. I'm up to 100 grains of Goex ctg. in the 10 bore and still adding powder. Yikes! cheers Paul
P.S. tried the roundball with string attached.....no improvement in group size in either the .62 or the 10 bore.

 

[Snow on the Roof]

I have to agree with Matt, there is no single magic formula to smoothbre accuracy. It starts with a quaility gun, proper fit { for me that was a big one }, lots of work buildig a load said gun likes and practice. Lots and lots of practice... :shocked2: :shocked2:

Snow

 

[Many Klatch]

My Bess was shooting real well, but the other shooters were complaining about the noise. I told them that they were sissies, I was only using 90 grains of 2F. Then I happened to check what the measure was throwing. Turned out it was 120 grains of 2F. Oh well, as long as it is accurate, it just sucks that a pound of powder is only good for 58 shots.

Many Klatch

 

[Many Klatch]

laffindog, I agree, that the only thing that works is practice, practice, practice. I just thought I would see what other lamebrained :bull: ideas were floating out there.

Many Klatch

 

[matt denison]

laffindog, I agree, that the only thing that works is practice, practice, practice. I just thought I would see what other lamebrained :bull: ideas were floating out there.

Many Klatch

I thought yu were pulling legs but not sure. The reference to Tanzmania was a clue. :grin:

What is not funny is that there was a time when these ideas were considered bonnafide improvements and people were quoting books and experts saying that they really work. Like aligning the stripes on pillow ticking to make a ball curve left or right.

 

[TinStar]

Well; I have some cushion wads, flints, and more round balls coming from TOTW along with some Durofelt to punch out with the new punch I received from ohio ramrod. So when the weather breaks and warms up some it will be off to the range to try and come up with best shot load and the most accurate RPB. Can't wait.

TinStar
Soli Deo Gloria!

 

[George]

... forget the magic and voodoo.

Now, laffindog, you should be careful how you throw such reckless suggestions around. Stop and think a minute about what the real effect of doing that would be. Right off the bat we'd have to stop talking about cleaning our guns, sighting in and making patch lube. Lord knows what else, and the repercussions could possibly spread like a tsunami, forcing the entire site to shut down. I know that was just a throw-away remark, but it's dangerous stuff, need to watch it. :haha: :haha:

Spence

 

[phoenix511]

Eames: you are exactly right. Practice and mental conditioning. Watch the ranking competitors at the US National Matches at Camp Perry and just before shooting they look like they are in a trance, totally focused on the next shot.

Some try to visualize the the powder exploding and try to follow the bullet going through the barrel and in their mind see it going down range.

This visualization, plus hours of dry-firing, builds self-confidence, and that is the 80%.