I took the shotgun out today to see if I could hit anything with it. To begin with; I stink at shooting clay pigeons. So today wasn't much better but I felt good at being able to hit a few out of dozen shots.
I had some miss-fires on the left barrel at first. So I rummaged around my black powder tool box and found a Hot-Shot nipple in 1/4-28. It fit perfectly. After that, no more miss-fires on the left barrel. More Hot-Shot nipples are on order from TOW.
Toward the end of our shooting session, I started experiencing miss-fires on the right barrel. So after the left barrel was shot, I removed the Hot-Shot nipple and put it on the right barrel. Problem solved.
I had also experienced the same miss-fires on the Howdah pistol. The breech is the same as the shot gun. I got 1/4-28 Hot shot nipples for the pistol and haven't had anymore problems.
Please keep in mind that I am reluctant to put the blame for the miss-fired rounds on the nipples. This same nipple is used on the Charles Moore percussion pistols that I have. There are not any problems with miss-fired rounds on those pistols.
So I suspect that there might be a too much of a constriction in the flash channel in the Howdah and the shotgun.
I would have got the Hot-Shot nipples for the Charlie Moore pistols but the cone would be too short and the result would be no ignition at all. The hammer doesn't make contact with the Hot-Shot nipple when it is set on it.
Back to the shotgun. I didn't try to pattern it but just started shooting hand thrown pigeons. So I won't attempt to say which method of loading powder, shot and wads worked best.
When I cleaned the barrels I noticed the same thing that I did with the Howdah. If you have one of these shotguns or pistols please take a look at this.
Look at the photo below. Notice how there are gaps above and below the joint between the barrels. This is a good place for water to collect and stay there if you clean by immersing the breech in a bucket then use the patched jag and ramrod to "pump" the solution through the barrel.
I dry everything on the exterior with a towel. Then blast every part of the gun I'm cleaning with an air compressor. That's not historically correct but who cares?
So these gaps get the air compressor treatment. Brake cleaner also does a good job of drying those gaps.
After the air compressor or brake cleaner treatment I push extra long pipe cleaners in the gaps to pick any left over moisture. That works for the Howdah with the extra long pipe cleaners but they don't go deep enough for the shotgun.
I put the muzzle down then drop either oil, or if you wish, WD-40 down those gaps. Then I let it sit in the corner on the muzzle for a few minutes.
After that, I put the breech down on a rag on the floor and let the oil run out.
The other problem that I ran into during the shooting session was that the wedge kept wanting to slide out during recoil.
When I reassembled the shotgun, I put a couple of pieces of Gorilla tape in the channel for the wedge staple on the barrel assembly. It was actually two pieces of tape doubled over.
When I pushed the wedge back in there was definitely more effort required to push. Once in position, I didn't feel any play. Let's hope it stays there. If it works, I may upgrade to either wood or metal shim stock.
Overall, I think I would give the shotgun 4 out of 5 stars. I didn't like the blemishes that came with a brand new shotgun. The miss-fires on both the Howdah and this firearm are too unacceptable but easy to fix with the Hot-Shot nipples from TOW. However, it could just as easily been fixed with magnum caps.
The aforementioned problems are easy to fix or otherwise live with.
For the fun factor, I give this shotgun 5 stars even if I could only hit 2 out of 12 clay birds. Give me a couple of decades and I might be able to double my record.
I think I will be taking a look at an automatic trap by Champion. These might be the thing I need cause my friends with their new-fangled shotguns may grow impatient with me loading my shotgun. This way, I can go shoot by myself.
