Smoothbore for all seasons

[BrownBear]

I'm having a ten bore fowler built with the idea of using it for everything. It will have a 4'barrel and weigh 8 pounds or so.

Having used a 20 bore for years, the minimum I would consider is a 16 gauge for a do it all gun. The 20 is just a bit on the small side for some things.

I've been tinkering with this idea for a long time, and like you, the 10 bore is moving to the top of my list, closely followed by the 12. If it's going to try to do everything, I'd rather have "too big" than too small. I had great luck with lighter shot loads in a 12 gauge double, cutting back to half an ounce of shot with great success for snowshoe hares in close cover.

Whichever size the hole ends up being, 12 or 10, two other features are more important to me. I want very good balance for the times I use it as a shotgun, and I want to squeeze the best sight picture I can for precise single ball shooting as the range stretches.

The idea of a "smooth rifle" appeals to me over a true fowler, though it will remain hypothetical till I get to try one. I think I'd be less bothered by the rifle sights when using it as a shotgun than I would by the lack of a rear sight when stretching the range or needing precision with a single ball.

Idle banter till I slap cash.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

For real versatility it's hard to beat a percussion double. Generally at least one barrel will throw a ball to point of aim. One barrel can be cylinder or improved cylinder for close shots and the other side can be choked full or modified for longer shots. Best of all you can have two different loads instantly available by just pulling the proper trigger. On my best day afield with a 12 gauge side by side I bagged my limit of grouse and on my way back to camp I nailed a nice little mule deer buck. There is good reason why the double shotgun is said to be "the gun that REALLY won the west".

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

This is a good and insightful post. Hunting is what it is about. Actually, there is no particular reason why you should get less game with your smoothbore and you may find the opposite to be true. Remember the old saying: Beware the man with one gun for he probably knows how to use it!

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

I had a chance to talk to a man who used a ten bore fowler for years and he said he had developed shot loads everywhere from 1 ounce of #7 and 1/2s up to 1 and 1/2 ounces of 00 buckshot. He said he had that big ball punch clean through a moose at 60 yards (doubt he hit bone) and put the animal down in a few yards. He had the typical groove in the breech area for a rear reference, but when he got older he dovetailed in a rear sight and said it didn't interfere with bird shooting. I based my gun on this information and also on his advice added a provision for a sling.

 

[Deadeye]

For yrs. I swore by my 20 ga. Fucil de Chasse but last yr. I built a .52 smoothbore, 36" barrel, no rear sight, single trigger, fowler buttplate and triggerguard, weights 6 lbs. has given me a whole new outlook on a gun for all seasons. It's deadly accurate with balls and shoots shot patterns better than I would have ever believed, handles like the best upland game guns. So far it's killed everything as dead as any larger gun.
I'll be Deer hunting with it in 2 weeks.
Deadeye

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

When speaking of smoothbores and shot, bigger has always been better. There is no way to get around it. You simply cannot equal the bigger bore's performance with a small bore. For any given shot charge, your shot column is going to string out compared to the bigger bore's pattern. And there is a point where you just can't load as much shot into the small bore as you can into the bigger gun. If you want one gun to do it all, go with a bigger bore.

The reason the different bore sizes came to be was to get around this problem. The ideal "square" load in a 28 gauge is 3/4 ounce of shot and a 20 bore is 1 ounce--though some say this is a better load for a 16 gauge.

Some people still stuff an ounce and a half of shot into a 28 gauge muzzleloder and feel they've created a magnum that is every bit as good as a 10 gauge. It isn't but they're happy and I guess that more than makes up for the unnecessary recoil and wasted shot involved.

 

[Capt. Jas.]

For all around I would choose a 16 or 12 bore. They can hold a large enough shot charge without all of the shot against the barrel, they will pattern better as a rule and ball is manageable when needed and can open a nice hole.

 

[roundball]

Its probably worth remembering that we don't want this thread to bleed over into a trend of "my way is better than your way" with all the talk that this bore is better than that bore, that this load is better than that load, etc.

Some magazine gun writers have written that a "square load" is the holy grail or something...and converesely a long shot string is no good, wasted shot, poor performer, etc. A lot of people repeat what they've heard and as a live example claim that the 3" - .410" shell has a long shot string and is therefore "inefficient / ineffective".

But I and many others at my trap & skeet club...and I bet many right here on this forum...have and can run the table on a round of skeet with 3" -.410" shells all day long...hands on experience is the real test, not whether some magazine gun writers keep regurgitating the same tired old mantras year after year.

Short, long, round, square...at the end of the day it really doesn't matter...as long as somebody's load routinely busts those tiny little 60mph skeet rockets and similar .62cal smoothbore loads bring down crows / doves and take squirrels / turkeys, life is good...

:thumbsup:

 

[tg]

" I think I'd be less bothered by the rifle sights when using it as a shotgun than I would by the lack of a rear sight when stretching the range or needing precision with a single ball."

I think you will find this to be true. I do not even notice the rear sight on my smoothrifle when using shot at Grouches or Quail I think the smaller the sight the better in this situation.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

A long shot string is not as good as a solid pattern. Comparing modern breechloading shotguns using shot-cups and chokes with a traditional muzzleloader is an apples and oranges type comparision of no merit. It's difficult to believe that anyone with any experience would prefer a long shotstring to a nice, broad hole free pattern.

 

[rich pierce]

I think the pincher for the all-rounder is waterfowl hunting. It's possible to get turkeys in close, you can head shoot them, they aren't moving fast, so no doubt a 20 ga will work, even smaller. But on bluebills buzzing the decoys and quite able to dive and get away when wounded, or big mallards not totally committed to setting down, a 20 ga open cylinder could leave you passing up shots all morning long. I have 4 or 5 smoothbores planned and the Hudson Valley fowler in 12 ga, 54" barrel, will likely be a little less than quick on grouse, so big bored big guns can have their drawbacks too!

The 20 bore "Type G" English trade gun I am planning will be my "close to all-rounder" as I'll use it on squirrels to deer but not for waterfowl.

Whatever you do choose you can make it work as long as you know the strengths and limitations- our forefathers did! :thumbsup:

 

[Ridge]

" I think I'd be less bothered by the rifle sights when using it as a shotgun than I would by the lack of a rear sight when stretching the range or needing precision with a single ball."

I think you will find this to be true. I do not even notice the rear sight on my smoothrifle when using shot at Grouches or Quail I think the smaller the sight the better in this situation.

For wing shooting, or shooting of running animals, I find that sights just slow me down. I prefer a single sight on the front of my fowler.

I've hunted everything with a 20 gauge fowler for the last 3 or 4 years. I wish I'd bought a 16 gauge.

Just saying...

 

[Skychief]

For yrs. I swore by my 20 ga. Fucil de Chasse but last yr. I built a .52 smoothbore, 36" barrel, no rear sight, single trigger, fowler buttplate and triggerguard, weights 6 lbs. has given me a whole new outlook on a gun for all seasons. It's deadly accurate with balls and shoots shot patterns better than I would have ever believed, handles like the best upland game guns. So far it's killed everything as dead as any larger gun.
I'll be Deer hunting with it in 2 weeks.
Deadeye

Any pictures to share Deadeye?

 

[Skychief]

A long shot string is not as good as a solid pattern. Comparing modern breechloading shotguns using shot-cups and chokes with a traditional muzzleloader is an apples and oranges type comparision of no merit. It's difficult to believe that anyone with any experience would prefer a long shotstring to a nice, broad hole free pattern.

I agree RTF.....except when the intended target is a gobbler's head. Then a long , dense shot string is VERY welcomed!

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

With a 10 bore and a stiff load of shot, you'll get the job done just fine. And you can throw more shot.

 

[Mike Brooks]

I'd go with a ten bore. I figure you'll only take one or two shots with a PRB per year and everything else you'll kill with shot. I'd go with nothing smaller than a 16 bore.

 

[PGTMG]

For real versatility it's hard to beat a percussion double. On my best day afield with a 12 gauge side by side I bagged my limit of grouse and on my way back to camp I nailed a nice little mule deer buck. There is good reason why the double shotgun is said to be "the gun that REALLY won the west".

I think after this season I intend to do a lessons learned and perhaps go with a double or single fowler in a large gauge as some have pointed out you shoot shot more then PRB.

For now a 20 gauge/62 flinter is what I have and as stated else where on this forum, I dislike very much the trigger pull on it. Since I have all the shot, round ball, wads and over cards this is the caliber for me.

This forum along with the BP notebook enticed me try a smoothbore (this really is an website full of enablers :hatsoff: ).

I wanted to do this last year but chicken out. So this year is it.

please keep the advice coming :thumbsup:

 

[roundball]

Just some additional food for thought...if a .12ga x 1+1/8 shot charge could be thought of as the nominal or 'square load' for a .12ga diameter bore, we should remember that .12ga 3" shells go right on up with shot loads of 1+1/2oz, 1+5/8oz, 1+3/4oz, 1+7/8oz, etc, which surely would make them 'long shot string' candidates but they do just fine

 

[BrownBear]

And don't forget the 3 1/2" 12-gauge, long as you're looking at cartridge performance. It looks to me like an obese 3" 410, but gosh darned. It sure does perform for long shots on waterfowl with the right components.

Point being, if you fiddle with the loads in a ML smoothie, the "rules" put up by folks with more keyboard experience than shooting experience look kinda foolish.

 

[roundball]

As goofy as it might sound at first, the old saying for muzzleloaders rings true as far as I've been able to tell hunting with them:

"Less powder, more lead, shoots far, kills dead"


I'm hoping to get a chance at a goose on a local farm this fall...I now have .62cal GM Flint smoothbore barrel Jug Choked 'Imp. Cyl. Plus' (light modified)...and just received an order of Ecotungsten/Niceshot #4's.

I need to check the place out in more detail before September as that's when the first season opens here...(the second season conflicts with squirrels and deer)...see if I can find a place to sit where they'll come overhead to this little field and give me a wing shot without dropping pellets on the farm house or the two neighbors houses within a couple hundred yards.

:grin: