doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Beginner needs BP shotshell advice?

Hard to find Goex as apparently they had a little fire. Found a distributor for Swiss. My brief foray into the subject has led me to conclude that the subs are a can of worms also. Not like I don't have some but only a small quantity taken from a powder horn formerly in the possession of a famous illustrator. Without implicating anyone, I will just say that it was given me in a manilla envelope with instructions to "dispose of it." I really thought it was (like the horn) just a "prop", maybe fine charcoal for filtering purposes. It weren't! I survived to be reminded of those high school age fireworks assemblers who would occasionally get a rise out of their work in one of those little shacks in Ohio when I was a kid. People have more fun than anybody!

jack

MP;
I don't currently have equivelent powders of different granulations to do a meaningful test. I think though a study of your chart will show it is not in order by Granule size. I don't recall now exactly where the Cartridge fits in but FG, 2FG & 3FG would be in line if granule size was the only difference, but they are not. This is true of any mat'l of this nature, powder shot etc. Given the base mat'l is the identical the smaller the granules, for a given volume the less air space will be present, so the smaller will weigh heavier. A dipper full of #9 shot will weigh slightly more than the same dipper full of #8 etc. Of course if you had a real high antimony #9 vs a pure lead #8 the situation could easily reverse. I have no doubt you accurately measured & weighed, just think there had to be a difference in the powder itself other than the granulation size.

Don't use plastic wads witk BP , they'll melt - Pyrodex and plastic is ok . From test I've done in my guns [ that may not apply to other guns ] - I was useing brass shells and hand tools to reload and found blown patterns when wad column height was increased more than a 1/2" . Also, anything thicker than the thin , .030, overshot wad was used caused blown patterns . BP volume is the same weight , but Pyrodex weight is much less , I think 70gr is equal to 50 , so you'll get more loads per pound because you load by volume but buy in weight . There's some savings there . http://WWW.circlefly.com sells paper wads and has loading advice on his web site . I don't agree with useing 11ga nito cards in the brass shells - from MLing I like a tigher fit so I use 10ga nitro cards . Also use the thin OS cards and glue.

For plastic shells I like the "Federal Gold " [ plastic base wad]- more volume for my load . Don't use any hull with paper base wads that you pick-up . If they're damp inside [ and hell to dry out ] you'll get bad reloads . I had to cut apart 16 boxes of shells once because of this - no fun . With the F.G.'s and a CB1138-12 wad you can use 1oz of shot and 80 to 90grs of Pyrodex . I use a Mec-650 and no powder bushing for 92grs , or 46A bushing for 80grs . The 1 3/8oz wad has a short cushion height that allows the big powder charge , and 1oz of shot will just fill the wad. If useing a progressive reloader make sure you hold the lever down and tap the powder bottle before you let the handle go back up - it takes a bit longer to fill the charge bar [ that's another story about 12 boxes of shells ] . With the above load I shot a 44/50 in S.C's with the Parker boys last year . I'll never do as Jim did , a 25 straight in skeet with a flintlock , but is it fun to shoot smoke and you may never go back . Good luck - Paul

What's you guys thoughts on misting the inside of the barrels with water between rounds?
Some guys I shoot with do it some don't. I've tried it both ways and don't see a real difference in clean up. [/quote


Everybody I shoot with carries a spray bottle of "moose milk" or plain water. I do, too. A healthy shot in each barrel when changing stations on trap or every 4 shots on skeet makes the barrels easier to clean afterwards. Shooting a round or two with smokeless afterwards will make the bores almost clean(low pressure, of course). I wouldn't argue that the spraying makes the gun shoot any better because the one time I won both the skeet and trap cartridge matches at the Western Nationals, I forgot to take my spray bottle out to the trap field. Rather than hold everyone up, I shot the entire match with no spray. Broke 25 straight! Trap straights are not that common for me.

Found GOEX 2FG locally 17$ a lb. Got a couple cans. Did not have over shot cards or over powder. I don't have a roll crimper anyway so will have to order. Clerk told me there was a good bp load for Win AA red wad (RL-12?) in AA compression-formed hulls but he did not have the data. Anyone familiar with this way of going about it?

jack

[quote=Michael Petrov
I’m retired now so I don’t have the time to redo the test but if anyone cares to undertake this and if you find that FFF weighs more than FF per same volume I’ll amend my notes.
[/quote]

I don't have data, but doubt very much that this could be the case. One would presume more airspace in any given volume of FFFG, though the difference would be small (as is indicated by the values given). One could use the metaphor of splitting wood: If you start with a pile of logs and keep splitting smaller and smaller the pile will get bigger and bigger. How's that for science?
Also someone commented that any primer will do as black is "easy to ignite". Of course this is true, but remember the serious rifle guys use the hottest primer they can find and get measurably superior results. That said, I doubt it would have any real application in shotguns but could be worth investigating.

My guess is the clerk doesn't know what he's talking about. As mentioned above, using plastic wads directly in front of BP is asking for a real mess. Point #2 is that I wouldn't waste AA cases on BP loads anyway. The fiber wads will fit straight-walled cases better, plastic wads are not allowed in BP cartridge matches and why waste an AA hull on a one or two shot load. Use junky shells like Federals, Challengers, Fiocchi, etc.

Cool. Thanks Jim.

jack

I note on the setting chart for the Multi-charge bar for shot, that each time the size is increased the bar has to be "Open" up larger for the same wt, except they actually weighed charges using commercial shot. As explained in the instructions there are spaces where a switch was made in shot alloy & some of these have a very slight reversal as change was made from magnum, Hard, shot to heavier chilled shot. The scenario of splitting wood is really not related at all to packing small granules into a given volume, thus not sceintific at all. The most space efficient of all is of course a solid. As the size is dropped & still placed in a given sized measure efficiency drops very fast. As size continues to go down a reversal occurs & efficiency starts going back up, but of course will never return to that of the solid. Ask any "OLD" farmer who ever carried a sack of corn to the grist mill to have ground, it will always go back in a smaller sack, even with an honest miller.