Ballshooter
50 Cal.
I'll trade you a rifle for your smoothbore.
Smoothbores....
- Thread starter Sun City
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I have a serious question - I don't think it's off topic. With a smoothbore do you ever find yourself with the "wrong" load in your gun? Here's what I mean:
Let's say today you want to hunt rabbits (just for the sake of argument) so you load your smoothbore with shot. You go about hunting but are unlucky and don't find a rabbit to shoot. Tomorrow you go dinking around a deer provides a shot - but your gun is loaded with shot...
I understand loading for what you are hunting. I carry my ML every time I'm at the ranch. My English sporter has two barrels - one smooth and one rifled. I sometimes find when I have the smooth barrel loaded with shot I wish I had the rifle. Other times it's the other way and I have a 550 grain roundball loaded when I wish it was a load of #7 shot.
Do you ever find yourself in this conundrum?
Let's say today you want to hunt rabbits (just for the sake of argument) so you load your smoothbore with shot. You go about hunting but are unlucky and don't find a rabbit to shoot. Tomorrow you go dinking around a deer provides a shot - but your gun is loaded with shot...
I understand loading for what you are hunting. I carry my ML every time I'm at the ranch. My English sporter has two barrels - one smooth and one rifled. I sometimes find when I have the smooth barrel loaded with shot I wish I had the rifle. Other times it's the other way and I have a 550 grain roundball loaded when I wish it was a load of #7 shot.
Do you ever find yourself in this conundrum?
Brokennock
Cannon
Yes.
Unless I’m able to hunt several days in a row I pull a charge and clean. With shot loaded I will have a dirty gun when home.
That's where a double barrel comes in handy!
A double barrel gun makes a good combination gun or can do.
But yes it does happen. Even when I'm out with modern breech loaded I often wish I'd come out with something else!
That can definitely be an issue. I've found that a head shot on a snowshoe hare with my .54 cal rifle loaded with a prb over 95 grains of 3F Goex I don't lose any meat. Even if my shot is off a bit, the big ball causes less bloodshot than some small bore guns. I'm also able to take big game with that load if a shot presents itself.
I do usually use a reduced powder charge (35-40gr of 3F Goex) when I'm specifically targeting small game with a prb in a big bore rifle. I would be in the same boat as using a smoothbore/shot load in those situations since I wouldn't use that load for big game. When I'm targeting small game deer season either isn't open or I've already filled my tags.
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When I'm hunting, I'm loaded for what I'm actually hunting for.
rabbit, squirrel and small game will get a load of #6 shot, turkey will be #4.
after I'm done hunting for the day and haven't got anything, the gun will get discharged before it'll go back into the sleeve in my trunk and reloaded the next time I go out.
@tenngun made some good points in post #11. On this continent, rifles were preferred by white, American frontiersmen and some of the eastern Indians, but Canadians, voyageurs, British adventurers, and most of the western Indians appeared to prefer smoothbores.
This is from Rev. Samuel Pond's book, The Dakotas or Sioux in Minnesota as They Were In 1834:
"The [Dakota] men used smooth bore guns much more than rifles, and it was a considerable time after the percussion lock was introduced, before they learned to prefer it to flint. They manufactured shot from bar lead by melting and pouring it through a sieve of perforated bark held over water, the sieve being jarred while the lead was running, so that it fell into the water in drops." (page 356)
Samuel Pond and his brother Gideon were missionaries to the Dakotas in Minnesota from 1834 until well into the 1850s, and it is apparent that he was describing the Dakota people as they were during that entire ~20 year period. That quote indicates the Dakota hunters preferred smoothbored flintlocks, even when they could get percussion guns, and it describes how they made their own shot!
The northern Indians were still using smoothbored muzzleloaders well into the 1890's. Caspar Whitney mentioned their use of these guns for both shot and ball in his book, On Snow-Shoes to the Barren Grounds (published in 1896):
Whitney also provided an illustration of one of the guns he saw them using, with its decorated leather case:
Lord Milton and Dr. Cheadle crossed the Canadian plains and Rockies, all the way to the Pacific, in 1862-1863. Cheadle wrote the story in his book, The North-West Passage By Land, which I believe was published in 1865. He gave some advice about guns to readers who might consider traveling to the same areas:
So, rifles, as a general rule, were favored by the white American frontiersmen, but smoothbores saw plenty of use in the hands of other people, and they used both shot and ball, depending on the game to be taken. Doubles were very popular with the Englishmen and Scots in Canada. This is from the Earl of Southesk's Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains: A Diary of Travel, Sport, and Adventure, During a Journey Through the Hudson’s Bay Company Territories in 1859 and 1860. M'Kay was his guide:
“My men had various guns and rifles of their own; none were worth much, except a highly-serviceable double-barreled gun belonging to M’Kay, of the best possible pattern for general use in that country. It was as thick in the metal as a rifle, and carried a bullet accurately to more than a hundred yards, and as its bore was of the size (28) universal in the company’s trade, supplies of ball could be got anywhere and almost from any person. Small as these bullets are – for being round, they had none of the expansion of a conical ball, especially a flanged one such as that shot by my rifles, which were really but little different in the gauge – they are large enough, if well directed, to kill any beast in America; stores of them, moreover, can be carried in little bulk – an inestimable advantage for the ordinary hunter.
“This handy and neatly-finished gun, which was made in London at a trifling cost (₤12 if I rightly remember) could also throw shot with a power that I have never seen equalled [sic]. Good as my Purdey smooth-bores were, M’Kay used to kill ducks at distances fairly beyond my range” (p.38)
Best regards,
Notchy Bob
This is from Rev. Samuel Pond's book, The Dakotas or Sioux in Minnesota as They Were In 1834:
"The [Dakota] men used smooth bore guns much more than rifles, and it was a considerable time after the percussion lock was introduced, before they learned to prefer it to flint. They manufactured shot from bar lead by melting and pouring it through a sieve of perforated bark held over water, the sieve being jarred while the lead was running, so that it fell into the water in drops." (page 356)
Samuel Pond and his brother Gideon were missionaries to the Dakotas in Minnesota from 1834 until well into the 1850s, and it is apparent that he was describing the Dakota people as they were during that entire ~20 year period. That quote indicates the Dakota hunters preferred smoothbored flintlocks, even when they could get percussion guns, and it describes how they made their own shot!
The northern Indians were still using smoothbored muzzleloaders well into the 1890's. Caspar Whitney mentioned their use of these guns for both shot and ball in his book, On Snow-Shoes to the Barren Grounds (published in 1896):
Whitney also provided an illustration of one of the guns he saw them using, with its decorated leather case:
Lord Milton and Dr. Cheadle crossed the Canadian plains and Rockies, all the way to the Pacific, in 1862-1863. Cheadle wrote the story in his book, The North-West Passage By Land, which I believe was published in 1865. He gave some advice about guns to readers who might consider traveling to the same areas:
So, rifles, as a general rule, were favored by the white American frontiersmen, but smoothbores saw plenty of use in the hands of other people, and they used both shot and ball, depending on the game to be taken. Doubles were very popular with the Englishmen and Scots in Canada. This is from the Earl of Southesk's Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains: A Diary of Travel, Sport, and Adventure, During a Journey Through the Hudson’s Bay Company Territories in 1859 and 1860. M'Kay was his guide:
“My men had various guns and rifles of their own; none were worth much, except a highly-serviceable double-barreled gun belonging to M’Kay, of the best possible pattern for general use in that country. It was as thick in the metal as a rifle, and carried a bullet accurately to more than a hundred yards, and as its bore was of the size (28) universal in the company’s trade, supplies of ball could be got anywhere and almost from any person. Small as these bullets are – for being round, they had none of the expansion of a conical ball, especially a flanged one such as that shot by my rifles, which were really but little different in the gauge – they are large enough, if well directed, to kill any beast in America; stores of them, moreover, can be carried in little bulk – an inestimable advantage for the ordinary hunter.
“This handy and neatly-finished gun, which was made in London at a trifling cost (₤12 if I rightly remember) could also throw shot with a power that I have never seen equalled [sic]. Good as my Purdey smooth-bores were, M’Kay used to kill ducks at distances fairly beyond my range” (p.38)
Best regards,
Notchy Bob
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I am not recommending this to others, just telling what I do. I hunt with a .56 cal smoothbore. My small game load is 60gr 2f, with wonder wad over powder - 7/8oz of shot - and another wonder wad over the shot. There's always a chance of running into a coyote, fox, fisher, or bobcat when rabbit hunting. I carry a .562 ball and an extra wonder wad in my coat pocket, and if needed ram the bare ball with a wonder wad over it on top of the shot. The remarkable thing is the combo is actually more accurate and shoots a tighter pattern than either by themselves. Learned that the hard way with a couple of squirrels. Body shots with the .562 ball and almost a solid column of shot didn't leave much for the skillet. 
Head shots only now, if the ball goes in on top! Like I said, I'm not recommending this to others - this is what works for me and my gun.
Head shots only now, if the ball goes in on top! Like I said, I'm not recommending this to others - this is what works for me and my gun.
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I have on a number of camped out hunts. Taking the smoothbore for squirrels load with my 70 grn 3 f. 80 grn # 4 shot. It was also early season for deer. Does only. Seeing a couple does working down the ridge. I can pull the shot card with a ball puller. Pour shot in my haversack. Start a patched ball or bare ball. Push it down on the powder And was ready as the deer work in to my under 50 yard range. Also it is Turkey season same time. I have add shot to the squirrel load as I lucked into a flock of young birds. So as with any thing if you live with it and practice you find the way of 18th century woodsmanship. It is my favorite game to play
oh!, yes that is a great compassionate thing to do!I have a deep lake nearby. If you will send me your smooth bores,
l will take care of them.
Teeth and toe nails for supper?Body shots with the .562 ball and almost a solid column of shot didn't leave much for the skillet.
If only allowed to have one firearm, it would be my 20 ga smoothbore, round ball out to 50 yards, shot for small game and birds Great survival gun and mine is Flint
Sun City
45 Cal.
Muzzle loading to me means rifles......not a shotgun or gizmo all- purpose thingamajig that is limited to accuracy and quite often in the hands of the user thereof a losing situation from an odd fitting ball/balls lumbering down a smooth tube or shot wad designed for 40 yards at best for maybe shooting ducks! Something supposedly designed for multiple use in many cases is capability limited and this is my view of a shotgun.....or so-called smooth bore muzzleloader! Hey......I'm proud some folks like 'em but I'm pretty certain when Daniel left home on a long trek he was toting a rifle!
RIP
Mr. Tip
Anyone wanting to make a boat anchor out of a smoothie needs to watch @B P Maniac Shooter videos. That guy has alot of fun with his smoothie and uses all kinds of different stuff down the bore of his. I’ve never owned a smoothie but after watching Mark Ive sure thought about getting one
When I go hunting most of the time I am looking for meat for the pot and am not just deer or bird hunting but will kill both also squirrel and rabbit so my gun of choice is a double barrel flintlock one barrel is rifled the other is smooth I also have a few unmentionables the same way I just love double barrel guns but I do have and shoot single barrel guns
That target shows some first-rate shooting, @smo . Hoo boy… just awesome.
So, did the late Mr. Tip Curtis shoot that? I know he was well respected as a builder, but he must have been a helluva shot, too.
I’m sorry, but I can’t make out what’s written on the target. What type of firearm was he using?
Thanks!!
Notchy Bob
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Sun City
45 Cal.
Duck gun!
