smoothbore rifle accuracy

[richs]

What degree of accuracy can you expect from a smoothbore rifle with front and rear sights and a good trigger?  I'm interested in accuracy at 50 and 100 yards.

[oldtravler61]

  Richs out to 50 to 60 yards expect very good accuracy. 100 never got a good enough group that I would use for hunting deer size animals consistently. But then this is my experience. Others may very on what they are satisfied with. But you have to spend the time to get a good accurate load.  JM2C    Oldtravler

[L. Akers]

 If there is a secret to smoothbore accuracy it is velocity.  You gotta drive that ball--hard.  At 50 yds you probably can't tell the difference between smooth and rifled.  At a 100 a lot depends on the size ball you are shooting.  A heavier ball will retain more velocity than a lighter one given equal velocities.  You will have to experiment to see what your rifle will do but I would expect your groups to be larger than with a rifled barrel.     

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Akers,

That's interesting.  I've always wondered why it seemed like smoothbore powder charges were lower than what you'd expect for a comparable caliber rifle. 

So would it be insane to propel a ball from a smoothbore at a velocity between 1800 and 2000 fps?  And could you achieve accuracy at distances approaching 100 yards with that?  Say from a .72 (12 gauge)?

Does it become more important to use a well-cast ball without voids in the middle?

Would a smoothie benefit from roughing up the ball with a file?

[Daryl]

I had a smooth bore side by side with 26" tubes, front and rear sights, that I could keep 2 rights and 2 lefts on a 10" square steel gong at 100 meters, offhand.
The powder charge was 190gr. of 2F GOEX which produced 1,550fps. It kicked pretty hard and was not even remotely pleasant to shoot. 191gr. is 7 drams.
This was almost good enough for deer, but not quite. It would have been fine for moose or elk, under perfect conditions, which rarely exist when hunting so-
no smoothbore, however sighted, is in my opinion OK for deer at 100yards.
I would still draw the limit at 50yards, bush hunting, whether sighted or not.
One of our guys won a smoothbore event by hitting all of the 150yard gongs.
Before the match, we had a discussion about longer range smoothbore targets at the range.
I told him to double his powder charge for the long targets, which he did, to 140gr. 2F, in his 20 bore.
He said he'd held on the top edge of the gongs and hit every one in the middle, bit left, right, high or low
but hit them all and was the only one to do that.
Everyone else stayed with their normal 65 to 75gr. 2F loads.

[Sharpsman]

I've never liked the idea of trying to make a shotgun barrel into a rifled barrel!!

[hanshi]

With 3" 50 yard groups, my smoothbore has proven itself on deer.  I don't use the "heavy" loads but 70 grains of 3F gives the patched .600" ball 1370 fps, which is plenty, in my opinion.

[Dphariss]

What degree of accuracy can you expect from a smoothbore rifle with front and rear sights and a good trigger?  I'm interested in accuracy at 50 and 100 yards.

The 50 cal I built needed over 100 gr of ff to shoot well and then 5 shot groups at 60 yards were about 3-4". it would shoot 2-3 shots into a pretty decent group 2"maybe, but 2-3 out of five would blow the group and one never knew which shot would be a flier.  A good rifle off of a rest with no wind should shoot 5-10 shots all hold touching. It was a smooth rifle, full oct, rifle sights and set triggers. It was built as a rifle but I ordered a smooth barrel for it just to test. I would not hunt with a SB. Tried it years ago, did not like it. At 25 yards it would not shoot well enough to head shoot a squirrel with any certainty.
Dan

[Dphariss]

If there is a secret to smoothbore accuracy it is velocity.  You gotta drive that ball--hard.  At 50 yds you probably can't tell the difference between smooth and rifled.  At a 100 a lot depends on the size ball you are shooting.  A heavier ball will retain more velocity than a lighter one given equal velocities.  You will have to experiment to see what your rifle will do but I would expect your groups to be larger than with a rifled barrel.   

If a person cannot tell the difference between rifle accuracy and SB accuracy at 50 yards they need more load development or a rifle that is not messed up in some way or they need to work on their shooting skills. Sorry this smoothbore accuracy is all relative to other other smooth bores. If a SB shot as good as a rifle they would never have bothered with the hours of work needed to rifle a barrel.
Where I live a SB is just about useless.

Dan

[Daryl]

Except for birds.

[richs]

Thanks for your information guys.
Rich

[Leatherbark]

Accurate enough for hunting at 50 yards or a bit.

[richs]

Leatherbark,
Thanks for the photo.  Your smoothbore looks like a fusil.  Is that what it is and will you give us particulars on the gun, maker, caliber, barrel length.  Thanks.  Rich

[hanshi]

I really never worried much about accuracy in my smoothbore and just took it for granted it would do the job at the distances I usually hunt.  If I'm in a field - done that quite a few times - where shots will probably range up to 100+ yards, I use a rifle, most commonly a .50.

[rich pierce]

Accurate enough for hunting at 50 yards or a bit.

Nice big deer.

[bob in the woods]

I hunt a lot with my smoothbores . I still use my rifle but more often than not, I'm carrying a smoothbore. Most of the deer and bears I've taken have been inside of 50 yards, with the majority being from 10 to 30 yards. All of the bears have been 35 yards or less....often much less. This year my shot was taken from about 20 yards, last year it was about 10 feet. Distances of 50 and 100 yards were mentioned so I'll give my take on those.  Deer sized animals are limited to within 50 yards . That means a 60 yard shot is possible if distance is mis judged and the deer is large. That's pushing it for me.
I'm comfortable with taking a shot at a moose at 100 yards....not much further.  Hope that helps. 

[Leatherbark]

Not a fowling gun for sure.  2nd model or somewhat close to it Brown Bess. Its a Pedersoli model, 42 inch barrel 75 caliber. My self imposed limit with this smoothbore is 50 yards. The load consisted of 100 grains of 2f Goex and a .715 Lyman ball ticking patched .015 inch.  It was raining but my cow's knee and keeping it under the coat really helped. 



50 yard accuracy with the Pedersoli Bess.

[Daryl]

I once shot a 2 1/2" 5 shot group with Taylor's 10 bore Bess. .735" ball and .030 patch. Seems to me, we were loading only 85gr. 2F. It was 1 group only.
My 20 bore only sometimes will put 5 on a full sheet of 8x11 paper.

[rfd]

EXPERIMENT!

having cast and shot .600, .595, .585, and .575 balls out of a .615 bore front-sight-only smoothie, with varying cloth patch thicknesses and charges of swiss 3f, what she and i prefer is a .577 ball swathed in .015 (whatever that thickness means) cotton patch that's generously lubed with gat feo grease.  no fowling FOULING control needed, no ball starter, 3f in tube and pan, and offhand i can consistently hit 8" steel at 40+ yards if i'm on my trigger and sight game.  works fer me and that's all that matters, ymmv and that's good too!

[hanshi]

The best decision I ever made concerning my smoothbore was to get it with a rear sight.  I sight and shoot it like a rifle, even with shot.

[rfd]

i would prefer a rear sight, too, but many events/matches disallow that.

[Daryl]

You can purchase a rear sight  likely the best would be a low one, and CA it onto your barrel's top flat.  It will stay there until you knock it off. Shooting will not dislodge it if the barrel is clean where you CA'd it on. This "move" is good for testing loads.
If you were going to hunt with a smooth bore but also use it for birds, this system might work for you.

[rfd]

actually, what i use is a neodymium magnet that can be placed anywhere on the flat. it can take any recoil dished out to it without moving, and can be removed easily. 

[Daryl]

Akers,

That's interesting.  I've always wondered why it seemed like smoothbore powder charges were lower than what you'd expect for a comparable caliber rifle. 

So would it be insane to propel a ball from a smoothbore at a velocity between 1800 and 2000 fps?  And could you achieve accuracy at distances approaching 100 yards with that?  Say from a .72 (12 gauge)?

Does it become more important to use a well-cast ball without voids in the middle?

Would a smoothie benefit from roughing up the ball with a file?

I experimented with my 14 bore rifle, powder charges from 82gr. (3drams) to 330gr. (12 drams - accidentally)
I achieved 1,225fps with the 82gr. load  1,500fps. with 165gr.  1,700fps. with 200gr. and 1,770fps with the 330gr. Charge.
I submit that achieving 2,000fps in a 14 or 12 bore might be impossible with a ml. 12 bore nitro rifle, yes.
The heavy 12 bore black powder load of the late 1800's was 7 drama,  ie: 190gr. I found this delivered 1,550fps for me.
You could try rolling a ball with a coarse rasp. You will likely find the ball grows in dia. This happened with the slugs from a mould I drilled  for my .69 rifle. They were
.686" as cast, however grew to .6915" after rolling with a coarse rasp  both to introduce purchase for lube as well as to increase their dia. for a snug fit.

[Standing Bear]

Ok, Daryl, I give.  What is CA?