Twist in a SB???

[faw3]

Ya it sounds crazy but some of you may have shot at something sharp edged and the ball got stuck on it ( I did get pics) was shooting at a big hog outside my fence and hit the fence with a 62 and the ball is twisted like it came out of a slow twist 1X120 twist barrel? Can just a little a little more push on top or sides give them a little twist, the pics when I have them done should show ball was turnning when it hit the fence, and Ive been shooting since 1971 and seen some stuff but not this. Thanks fred :hatsoffthis is the barrel I'm doing the scoped 100yard test with so I'm wondering about the whole idea now?) :hmm:need a little guy scrathcing his head here

 

[Stony]

You can see a ball spinning in flight? And you can take pictures of it as well?! :shocked2: ( :hmm: I think someone has been out in the mid day sun one time too many.) If you're recovering these balls from a post, piece of wood or just digging them upout of the dirt, could be the wood or dirt making an impression on that soft lead but there should be no rifling in a smooth bore.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Fred: I have seen evidence of a ball rotating as it passes through some wood, but it was not rotating in the air, as it was fired out of a smoothbore. Its the wood fiber that twists the ball as it moves through the wood. In fact, the twisting caused the ball to move in a slow arc down and to the side with the grain of the wood as the ball penetrated, as well as slowed down.

At the time, I was annoyed, because I had shot at a fairly narrow stump, and didn't want the ball coming out the side of the stump where it would go through my garage wall! I wanted the ball to go straight. I stopped shooting at that stump until I could find a more secure backstop to put behind it. And I also found a stump that didn't have such twisted grain!

I can laugh about it now, but at the time I was more than a little angry and frustrated. :cursing: :rotf: :hatsoff:

I suspect that you have just experienced much of the same thing, when your ball hit the fence. In the same vein, my gun club had to ban the use of BLACK POWDER Handguns at our club demonstration because the balls bounced off a knot in an old, pine Railroad tie. The gun used was a flint smoothbore, and I believe it was 20 gauge. The owner never though the ball would not safely penetrate the railroad ties, considering his powder charge( 40-50 grains 3Fg) and the weight of the ball. We could actually see the ball bouncing on the ground coming back at us. It stopped about 6 feet from the firing line, and our Range officer closed the range while we investigated what had happened. The guys with the revolvers that had rifled barrels protested until one of their balls also bounded off a knot in the RR tie.

We later decided that even round balls fired out of rifles, with reduced loads were a danger or bouncing back, so we bought a 1/4 plywood sheet to put in front of the RR ties, and nailed our targets to that board. The back of it served as a pretty good " splash " shield. If shooting opened too big a hole in one spot on the board, we moved the targets to an unused portion of the board. The second day we flipped the board around so the used portion was up high, and the unused portion that was on top was now on the bottom, where we mounted the targets. We purposely set the targets down low so that we were shooting at a downward angle. That allowed balls to penetrate the lowest RR tie, or the ground in front of it. The audience could still see what we were shooting at, and our firing line, and the spectators were much safer.

I have dug a lot of large round balls out of RR ties over the years, just to see what damage was done to them. The smoothbores rarely show much if any of the pattern of the cloth patch, and, of course, NO Rifling. That makes them easy to distinguish from those fired in a rifled barrel. At one time we had both a .62 cal. rifle and a .62 cal smoothbore. It really was not hard at all to distinquish which ball came from which gun.

Both balls could be turned by the grain of the wood on impact. Everyone, especially the two owners of the guns were shocked. No one expected a ball that weighed that much to be turned by wood, even a RR tie. :hmm: :surrender: :thumbsup:

 

[roundball]

Actually a 1:20 twist is a very fast[url] twist...in[/url] additional there should be no rifling in your smoothbore at all of course.

It sounds like you recovered a ball from the fence that had marks in it from the fence that made it look like it had been from a rifled bore.

Otherwise, I'm totally missing the post...

 

[trent/OH]

That was guessed as a 1:120 twist Roundball. I had to read it twice myself to get it right in my eyeballs.

 

[roundball]

"...actually a 1:20 twist is a very fast twist...

Wow, did I ever misread that in his post.

Still think he's saying the fence strand left a mark on the ball that suggested it was done by rifling...dunno.

FW...report in please...we need more details!

 

[paulvallandigham]

Guys: He says the ball looked like it came out of a slow twist barrel( 1 x 120 )... He didn't claim his barrel was rifled. He said that it just LOOKED LIKE IT DID. And it reads 120, not 20 inches.

 

[faw3]

Sorry I didnt make this to clear, I was going out the door to run my mom to hospital she is sicker than we thought. The ball stuck dead center in the chain link fence, you look at the ball its been cut with a 1/4 twist clean as can be I got pics of it in fen and out. Just wonder if even a smooth bore throws some kind of twist in a PRB??? It had to be turnning to look like a pinwheel Right?? Thanks much got to run Fred

 

[roundball]

"...It had to be turnning to look like a pinwheel Right??..."

No...from your description that all happened when it hit the chain link fence...

 

[Slamfire]

If the ball struck the fence, just a tiny bit off center wouldn't it try to turn?

 

[paulvallandigham]

The wire would give before the ball would turn. No, this ' twist " is due to hitting the wire, which gave before it broke, or turned to the side, to allow the ball to pass. In the process, it twisted the ball. A round ball fired out of a smoothbore flies like a knuckle ball thrown by a major league pitcher in baseball. There is no spin at all.

Fred, whenits daylight out again. look down the rows of the wire fencing, and see if the wire hit by your ball is not out of alignment, probably in two directions.

 

[faw3]

It's about straight back 3 1/2" , I knew these couldnt spin UNLESS one side of the muzzzle is shorter. Fred :rotf:

 

[paulvallandigham]

If the muzzle is not square to the bore, the ball will shoot away from the shorter side, but it still will not spin. "Drift" is the more useful term to describe that condition.

 

[brubincam]

if you can have a smooth bore with rifling,,can there be a rifled barrel that is smooth??? :bull: :bull: :bull: don't even say it... :hmm: :hmm: :hmm:

 

[faw3]

I thought it really starnge, it was just to centered and twisted, if I hadnt had that scope on so I could shoot these 100 yd smooth test I would of got the hog , dang it. FRED :hatsoff:

 

[roundball]

if you can have a smooth bore with rifling,,can there be a rifled barrel that is smooth??? :bull: :bull: :bull: don't even say it... :hmm: :hmm: :hmm:

Here's a little known factoid for use as a conversation starter at your next blockparty:

Modern trap & skeet shotguns (smoothbores) can be had with 2 or 4 straight grooves running the full length of their bores...these straight grooves 'lock' the modern plastic wad in place so it travels downbore in a straight line, preventing the occasional 'wad spin' which can adversely affect shot patterns.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Yep, Roundball. Perazzi was written up about this back in the 1960s, and I understand this was being done man years before. In BunkerTrap, where the targets are just a little larger than American Trap clays, are harder and thicker, and more difficult to break, and you call the target from a " low-mount " position, that is no part of the buttstock my be above the armpit until the target appear, and there is a delay built into the release of the target of up to 3 seconds, these guns help improve patterns to break a few more clays. Targets are all shot from 17 yards( 15 meters) and there are 15 machines in the bunker that can throw a target for you just to make the angles faster and harder. You are also restricted now to shooting 24 gram loads, which amount to 4-5 pellets less than 7/8 oz. of shot. Recoil is reduced, while velocities are increased.

A good friend who has shot both the Olympic target loads, at bunker trap tells me that you point the targets like a 16 yard target and slap the trigger. The shot gets there so fast, you have almost no lead to factor in at all, even on crossing targets. He is a 27 Yard Handicap Trap Shooter and is used to shooting targets from that longer range, and having to lead the targets to give the shot time to catch up with the bird.

I have seen the straight groove rifling used in Turkey guns, to hold the wad, before the shot hits the choke. There is an improvement in the patterns, and the only question anyone has to ask is whether the improvement is worth the extra investment. The Olympic Shooters use #7( that's right, #7, not #7 1/2) shot that is high antimony and chrome plated, so that the shot is not flattened or distorted when fired down the barrel. Frankly I think if you use the same shot, the same weight of charge and the same powder charges( 3 1/4 dram equivalent), I think you get pretty much the same pattern at those short ranges without the straight grooves. My friend found he was getting better than 92% patterns at 40 yards shooting those Olympic shells in his Rem. Model 1187. That is, 92% of the shot stayed inside a 30 inch circle at 40 yards. He had a couple of targets where the pattern was 98% !!! That is almost too tight a pattern considering how far away the clay target is when the shot hits it. Most of us might get better results using a Modified choke for those loads.