Diameter for 20ga. bare RB loading in my smoothbore?

[Hungry Horse]

Clean up not a lot worse than any other clean up after a days shooting. Toothpick in the touch hole, barrel full of cold water, let it sit fifteen or twenty minutes, dump it out, repeat the water treatment, a couple of wet patches, a couple of dry patches,and a well oiled patch, and your  done.

  Hungry Horse

[Daryl]

I would expect cleanup about identical to when shooting shot.  This takes a bit more pumping water into and out of the barrel.
That's about it. After shooting patched balls, the water in the bucket has barely a grey tint to it, still clear. After shooting shot
the water is black. There is a huge difference as when shooting patched balls, the only fouling is in the breech area, along with
only the last shot's fouling in the bore.  If a squib load (10 to 20gr.) is fired, there is only a very tiny amount of fouling in the breach
as well.

[Maven]

All, After a few more measurements of the inside diameter of my [Green River Forge] bbl., I ascertained that a .618" RB would be a perfect fit (which is the diameter. I ordered from Tanner Ball Moulds).  The mould arrived the other day, but I wasn't able to cast with it until this afternoon.  The RB's dropped @ .619" x .620", weighed between 334 - 335 grains, and could be pushed down my trade gun's bbl. with no more effort than when loading a .600" patched RB...and that's the good news.  The bad news is that the weather won't permit a range outing for almost a week.   I only hope the bare ball loading will give me some semblance of accuracy out to 50 yd.

[Daryl]

I think you mean they weigh 334 or 335gr.  A .693" (true 14 bore) round ball, in pure lead, only weighs 500.0 grs.

Your testing will be interesting, for sure.

[Maven]

Fat fingers!  Thanks for the correction, Daryl!

[Maven]

Shooting update:  Although the weather hasn't exactly been balmy, it was good enough to test the bore sized RB (Tanner mould) @ 25 yd.  These are the combinations I tried:

Greased felt OP wad + bare "as cast" .618" RB + OS card:  These shot low initially, but upping the powder charge to 80gr. FFFg, improved things, but the group was somewhat to the right of center/hold.  This one bears repeating.

Greased felt OP wad + roughened .618" RB + OS card  These grouped almost as well as the above, but centered on the target.  Same powder charge.

Greased felt OP wad + roughened .618" RB, but no OS card:  Same powder charge. Very promising and worth revisiting.

Greased felt wad + "as cast" .618" RB, but no OS card:  Large dispersion on the 25 yd. target; not worth repeating. Same powder charge.

Btw, I swabbed the bore after each shot so that I could seat the bore diameter RB without undue effort.  It certainly helped as I encountered little difficulty on that score, but I can't say if it had any effect on accuracy.  Lastly, the best of these test loads came close to, but didn't exceed the groups I obtained from a smaller, i.e., .598" - .603",  patched RB (Lee Precision & Tanner moulds cast ~.598"; my Lyman casts ~.603").

[John SMOthermon]

Here’s a couple of targets I shot the other day from my 16 gauge smoothbore, the bore is .653 not a true 16.

I’m shooting a .648 ball over 70 grns ffg Goex, I put a thin over shot card over the ball then a damp 1/2” wad on top of the card.
Wad was dampened with One Shot Cleaner by Hornady , Olive Oil seems too work just as well.

IMHO OO is better for hunting if the gun is to be left loaded over a day or so,
The One Shot says it’s a cleaner / preservative , the last part I’m not so sure of...


13 yard target...



25 yard target... shot without the wet wad....

[img]https://i.ibb.co/zZ43wHp/2-B7-F5-A69-1391-497-F-96-A2-67-B540809269.jpg[/

Using the damp wad over top of the charge helps too keep the fouling soft, other than that....

More testing  too come....

[Daryl]

You forgot the img] on your url.



3 out of 5 looks good. Most testing.

[John SMOthermon]

 Thanks