Windage in a smoothbore

[Bert]

Hi all..I am sure that this has been gone discussed a number of times but I am asking and please be patient with me.
What is your favorite windage (slop)between bore and ball in a smoothbore with patch and without a patch. I will be doing some slow deliberate shooting and fast and dirty shooting a bare ball with the N-SSA . Thanks Bert

 

[Toomuch_36]

I'm not quite sure if this is what you are after, but in my .67 cal. trade gun I will shoot a .648 ball with a .017 ticking spit patch or a .662 bare ball after dirtying up the barrel with a fouling shot of just powder. Both loads seem to work quite well with a 70 gr. load of Goex 3F.

Toomuch
..............
Shoot Flint

 

[J.D.]

Check out the "patched ball in smoothbore" thread for some of the answeres to your question.

 

[Wes/Tex]

My personal rule-of-thumb is ball .020" under bore diameter with a .017" lubed patch. The military, on the other hand, went with .65" balls in French .69's and .690" ball in English .75's. One guy recently wrote of using .630" balls in his .75 Bess and cranked off 10 shots a minute...suppose to have mostly hits on a man-sized target at 50 yards! That must have been interesting.

 

[AZ-Robert]

My personal rule-of-thumb is ball .020" under bore diameter ...

And it sounds like a pretty good guide. Right now I'm shooting .600" balls in my .615" smoothbore and they are just a bit too tight even with a thin patch. Going to give the .595" balls a try but expect they will be just right.

 

[Bert]

I just picked up a French Mod. 1822 at an auction. It is in great shape and found the barrel full of loose rust and the nipple was plugged with a needle and rust. Anyway I measured it to .720 and found some cast 12ga. slugs that fit perfectly. Had to shoot it yesterday evening (the wife wonders why I am so excited) It shoot about a 8" goup at 20yd. Thats ok for now, I just wanted to make smoke. I am ordering a .710 rd ball mold as I need to shoot it without the patch for the N-SSA. I will get a .690 mold to try out from a friend. That may do well with a patch. we will see. Does anyone have any info. on this French sighted smoothbore? Thanks

 

[Beerd2]

"one guy reported shooting 10 shots in one minute...."

I can do that too, with 10 guns ;-)

"and hit a man size target at 50 yards"

have to be a BIG man for me.
..