Lessons Learned Today from My GRF Trade Gun

[Maven]

The fact that smoothies are different from rifles was made abundantly clear today.  First, my .62cal. is largely indifferent to patch thickness.  Accuracy has remained the same when using .022", .018", and .016" patching and both .600" (Dixie mold) and .595" (Tanner mold) round balls.  Loading, however, is a pleasure with the thinner patches.  Second, my rifles need the bore wiped dry after using a spit- or Moose Milk-lubed patch in order to get the best accuracy.  My trade gun doesn't "care" one way or another, but not having to wipe the bore after seating the RB is wonderfully convenient.  Third, I thought I'd test the gun for accuracy using a heavy front rest and a rear bag and a new, slightly oversized  RB (.605", Rapine mold).  It didn't take long to realize that it didn't like that at all, even though I tried to maintain the same sight picture and cheek weld for each shot.  However, kneeling with my left forearm supported by the bench or standing, also with my left forearm supported, gave more consistent and more accurate results @ 25 yd.  Offhand is also good, but I wanted to test the gun today, not my offhand skills or lack thereof.  I'm thinking that my sight picture and cheek weld are more consistent in these 3 stances than from the bench [rest].

The jury's still out:  Someone on another forum suggested using RB's with a lubed felt wad over the powder and another over the ball.  Since I have the felt (Duro, 3/8" medium hardness) and a 5/8" arch punch, I cut some out and lubed them in Crisco + beeswax, 1/2 cup by volume : 10 tbs., respectively.  I tried this only with the ~.605" Rapine ball*, since I already knew how the Dixie & Tanner balls performed.  The results were tantalizing enough to make me want to try it again, which means the group was more centered than when using a patch (balls skewed to the right) and a bit tighter too.  The speed and easy of loading in this manner was tempered by the greasy, soft, bore fouling left behind. 

All testing was done with spit patches and 75 grs. Graf's (Wano) FFg.  Btw, performance was about the same when using 75 grs. or, at Taylor's suggestion, 85 grs. FFg.

My gun may be an anomaly with respect to bench resting, but some guns are sensitive to barrel pressure (harmonics?) and how they're held.  Knowing this will help me improve my offhand shooting or at least avoid some of the mistakes I've been making.


*This one didn't perform at all well with the .018"- or .016" patches.  I'm thinking that .012" may be the better way.

[Dphariss]

Where the barrel is rested can greatly effect group size. So I would move the rest so that is was resting at one of the pins that retain the barrel. Of if you have been try another place.
The best 50 yard groups with my 50 smooth rifle were with 100 gr of FF powder. With this charge and a 480 RB with a heavy patch it was good for 4.5" at 50-60 yards.
Lighter charges, like 75 gr was pretty random.
Many original trade guns seem to have had a rear sight of some sort. Shooting one without simply increases the group size when shooting solid shot.
In my experience the SB will shoot groups about 4-5 times the size of a rifle at 50 yards.
Dan

[northmn]

I use a bag full of plastic stuff like shopping bags etc for a rest and put my hand under the barrel.  I can get at least a 5 inch group out of my smooth rifle at 75 yards.  But I load very carefully.  Also I consider a smooth bore something that primarily uses shot that can be used with a round ball. If I am going to shoot just round ball I will use a rifle as there is really no comparison in accuracy.  A person should be able to get enough accuracy to get deer out to about 75 yards or more, but the lack of a rear sight limits a smoothbore.  Competition requires no rear sight, yet they were very common add on's in smooth bore use.  In the days of the NWTG shot was a common load.  Swan shot was about the size of a #4 buck shot and duck shot about BB size.  Any of these sizes could also harvest a deer with a head shot at under 20 yards.  Especially if they could get it in back of the head.  Shot was a common trade item.  It was claimed that NWTG's pulled out of the Rainy River on the MN border were commonly loaded with shot.  I suspect as goose down was used for warmth by the local natives and the meat fairly edible that they would use them as an opportunity to take waterfowl.    Round ball was used for larger game and war fare.

DP 

[Roger Fisher]

The fact that smoothies are different from rifles was made abundantly clear today.  First, my .62cal. is largely indifferent to patch thickness.  Accuracy has remained the same when using .022", .018", and .016" patching and both .600" (Dixie mold) and .595" (Tanner mold) round balls.  Loading, however, is a pleasure with the thinner patches.  Second, my rifles need the bore wiped dry after using a spit- or Moose Milk-lubed patch in order to get the best accuracy.  My trade gun doesn't "care" one way or another, but not having to wipe the bore after seating the RB is wonderfully convenient.  Third, I thought I'd test the gun for accuracy using a heavy front rest and a rear bag and a new, slightly oversized  RB (.605", Rapine mold).  It didn't take long to realize that it didn't like that at all, even though I tried to maintain the same sight picture and cheek weld for each shot.  However, kneeling with my left forearm supported by the bench or standing, also with my left forearm supported, gave more consistent and more accurate results @ 25 yd.  Offhand is also good, but I wanted to test the gun today, not my offhand skills or lack thereof.  I'm thinking that my sight picture and cheek weld are more consistent in these 3 stances than from the bench [rest].

The jury's still out:  Someone on another forum suggested using RB's with a lubed felt wad over the powder and another over the ball.  Since I have the felt (Duro, 3/8" medium hardness) and a 5/8" arch punch, I cut some out and lubed them in Crisco + beeswax, 1/2 cup by volume : 10 tbs., respectively.  I tried this only with the ~.605" Rapine ball*, since I already knew how the Dixie & Tanner balls performed.  The results were tantalizing enough to make me want to try it again, which means the group was more centered than when using a patch (balls skewed to the right) and a bit tighter too.  The speed and easy of loading in this manner was tempered by the greasy, soft, bore fouling left behind. 

All testing was done with spit patches and 75 grs. Graf's (Wano) FFg.  Btw, performance was about the same when using 75 grs. or, at Taylor's suggestion, 85 grs. FFg.

My gun may be an anomaly with respect to bench resting, but some guns are sensitive to barrel pressure (harmonics?) and how they're held.  Knowing this will help me improve my offhand shooting or at least avoid some of the mistakes I've been making.


*This one didn't perform at all well with the .018"- or .016" patches.  I'm thinking that .012" may be the better way.

Wipe the bore 'after' you seat the ball?   Not really a good thing to do in particular with a flinter....

[Dphariss]

I use a bag full of plastic stuff like shopping bags etc for a rest and put my hand under the barrel.  I can get at least a 5 inch group out of my smooth rifle at 75 yards.  But I load very carefully.  Also I consider a smooth bore something that primarily uses shot that can be used with a round ball. If I am going to shoot just round ball I will use a rifle as there is really no comparison in accuracy.  A person should be able to get enough accuracy to get deer out to about 75 yards or more, but the lack of a rear sight limits a smoothbore.  Competition requires no rear sight, yet they were very common add on's in smooth bore use.  In the days of the NWTG shot was a common load.  Swan shot was about the size of a #4 buck shot and duck shot about BB size.  Any of these sizes could also harvest a deer with a head shot at under 20 yards.  Especially if they could get it in back of the head.  Shot was a common trade item.  It was claimed that NWTG's pulled out of the Rainy River on the MN border were commonly loaded with shot.  I suspect as goose down was used for warmth by the local natives and the meat fairly edible that they would use them as an opportunity to take waterfowl.    Round ball was used for larger game and war fare.

DP 

Location, location, location
In the west where there was a limited opportunity to shoot ducks and geese small shot was not common. Its virtually useless in most of Montana, Wyoming or Colorado for trying to keep yourself in meat with any reasonable expenditure of lead. At certain times there are lots of geese in the rivers but they are still poor fare compared to the larger game. But people stationed at posts on the prairies apparently used shotguns for wing shooting to some extent. But they did not have to carry a 6 months or years supply of ammunition with them either, being at the post.
Shooting birds makes for too much shooting (noise) for what one gets even if you find them. One shot at a large animal provides a lot of meat and it can be jerked.
Gunshots attract people and they were often unfriendly till near the end of the 19th century in remote areas so unless pretty hard up for food shooting a bird was not wise if traveling alone or in a small group.
The natives in the west often used the bow for buffalo. Osborne Russell watches as about 200 head ( as I recall) are killed and not a grain of powder burned.

So around the Great Lakes and in places like the lake country of MN small shot is useful. Other places not so much.  
In an open bored trade gun wadded with blanket or tow using poor quality shot I would expect the patterns to be less than optimum by the standards of today. Most of todays smoothbore shooters do not wad with tow which was apparently the standard even in England until the late 18th century. I suppose its not too bad for over powder but I would think as an over shot wad it leaves something to be desired.

I really wish someone would try shooting some shot with the wads and shot quality (tailed or cut) of the day for comparison with today's wads and shot. Pattern and penetration tests.

Dan

[northmn]

The NWTG was popular in the Western states also and the Canadian prairies where it was used more with round ball.  Very popular for running buffalo on horseback, but ranges were point blank.  Russel talks about the superiority of the mountain men's rifles over the "fusees" of the Indians.  Bows would also be a handy item for buffalo running and Western bows were often very short, made out of horn and antler for that purpose.  What modern archers often do not understand about the native bows was that they were limited to some extent by suitable material for stringing them.  
Back to the subject.  Rupert invented a shot making plate that was used with "poisoned lead" or lead with arsenic added.  It was said to make fairly round shot.  Shot was also cast, but the molds I have seen pictures of would require one to desprue every pellet with a knife or tool.  Also sheet was trimmed but often "hobbed" where the lead was then rolled between two hard surfaces.  I read an excerpt about mountain men rolling cut up round ball between  two flat rocks to make buckshot. Soft lead shot does not pattern all that well in comparison to today's hard shot, but black powder shotguns operate at low pressures and have less setback force than modern guns.  I see that in indentation of shot sleeves.  My no choke 20 is about limited to 25-30 yards.
I get the best accuracy out of roundball using a short started ball, but I think its possible that one using too thick a patch may get deformed enough to want to wander.  I also load with consistency as placing the parting line up. Almost every mold will throw a ball slightly out of round. I am thinking about putting a punch mark in my mold as done by some BPC shooters and using that as an index for loading.  You cut off the little protuberance before loading and mark it with a marker, but it permits one to load the same every shot.  I do not think all the other little "tricks" are as important in a smoothbore as consistency in loading.  Rifling actually cancels out the imperfections that can effect a smoothbore.  Once the ball are weighed and sorted, and a mark placed on the ball for Constancy in loading it really isn't that much fuss.  What we think is "good enough" for a smooth bore may be the opposite.  It good enough for a rifle.

DP

[Daryl]

Paul- when shooting off  bench, I always sit at the bench so both elbows have support. I also hold the gun as if shooting offhand, resting the back of my hand on the bag.  That way, the gun recoils the same as if shootng offhand and the point of impact is the same as well - in every gun I own, modern and black powder.  Heavy kickers are always held onto to get a true sight-in.  Letting the rifle bounce and adjusting sights for centre can give up to 5" error at 100 yards compared to where the gun shoots if held - on the bench or offhand.  The more a gun kicks, the more the error.

[Dphariss]

The shot tower, which made round shot, when invented it was hailed as a milestone in wingshooting so I assume that Rupert shot did not pattern all that well. BUT we have only subjective accounts. Finding exhaustive tests of Rupert vs cut vs tower dropped from 1782 is not likely. So in reality we just do not know.
If tall enough a shot tower could make musket balls. But this requires over a 150 ft from what I have read.
The shot tower simply took Rupert shot technology and greatly increased the drop.
Arsenic also hardens the lead.

So far as setback.
BP will upset lead bullets that even fast smokeless will not, at least not at first ignition.
Smokeless, like Unique, will upset lead bullets but not as BP does. BP will upset undersized bullets before the gasses reach the bullet base.  Now if a filler were over the powder the fast smokeless might do this as well.
But experience with BPCR shows that the bullet upsets before it even moves smokeless almost always gas cuts the bullet rather than upsetting it to fill the bore.
HOWEVER, in a wadded loading like a shotgun the hard acceleration with smokeless may take place as the shot charge is already in motion and the pressure peaks.
I know that Unique is a 38-40 revolver will upset relatively soft lead in the forcing cone.

Dan

[Maven]

"Wipe the bore 'after' you seat the ball?   Not really a good thing to do in particular with a flinter...."  Roger Fisher

Roger, Why is that taboo for a flintlock?  I.e., once the ball is seated, wiping the bore isn't going to push fouling into the chamber or vent, so there must be other reasons to avoid this.  However, I have to tell you that last March accuracy went awry when I didn't wipe the bore of my flintlock rifle, which was the only thing I changed in the loading sequence.  Naturally, this didn't dawn on me immediately, but after cogitating about it for a day or two I realized what I'd done differently.  Not saying all flinters should be wiped, but my rifles, both cap- and flintlocks, sure like it.  Thankfully, the trade gun doesn't, which makes loading so much more convenient.

[northmn]

Set back in a shot load refers to the acceleration of the bottom pellets hitting the top pellets.  In a shot sleeve one sees more indentation on the bottom of the sleeve than the top of the sleeve.  The bottom pellets get deformed more because of this, especially soft ones.  This is why some of the heavy magnum loads did not work so well such as the 1 7/8 oz 12 bore or the 1 1/4 oz 20 ga.  The real offender was the 410 3".  The same to some extent can hold in muzzellaoders but can be alleviated by more wads as there is no case capacity.  Some of the early bismuth loads patterned pretty fair and the shot was far from round, but the bottom pellets would disentegrate before they added more tin.  I do not think that a BP load has quite the setback forces of a modern shotshell.  They also used to preach the square load theory which is in effect that the shot load should be no higher than the bore diameter.  Not necessarily true for small bores.

DP 

[Daryl]

Just a most .410's shoot best with 1/2oz loads, so-did my .44 smooth rifle.  Broke 10 straight with it at a local rondy, to win the trap event.  Everyone else was using double cap guns, 12's and 10 bores.

[Roger Fisher]

"Wipe the bore 'after' you seat the ball?   Not really a good thing to do in particular with a flinter...."  Roger Fisher

Roger, Why is that taboo for a flintlock?  I.e., once the ball is seated, wiping the bore isn't going to push fouling into the chamber or vent, so there must be other reasons to avoid this.  However, I have to tell you that last March accuracy went awry when I didn't wipe the bore of my flintlock rifle, which was the only thing I changed in the loading sequence.  Naturally, this didn't dawn on me immediately, but after cogitating about it for a day or two I realized what I'd done differently.  Not saying all flinters should be wiped, but my rifles, both cap- and flintlocks, sure like it.  Thankfully, the trade gun doesn't, which makes loading so much more convenient.

Running a rod down a flinter with her butt on the ground and your hand, arm
or head leaning over the muzzle is really a safety problem when she is loaded.  You cannot guarantee that you will always remember to have the hammer down and the frizzen open when you do this.  Take my word for this sears break, or on a sloppy lock with metal flash  partly closing off the half draw notch can cause a lock to drop her hammer due to the sear just 'hanging' on the outter lip of that notch.  You cannot also guarantee that you will 'never' pull that hammer back to full draw just before you decide to wipe that bore.  A good jar or catch up in brush or whatever can trip that lock and don't think she won't fire unprimed...  These are some of the reasons why we wipe (if we decide we should wipe) before we load not after
Safety dictates that we load our flinters with the hammer down and frizzen open and we hope no one decides to wipe after she's loaded.  Stuff happens...

This response to your interesting post is an effort to keep ML as safe as possible.  And I hope you accept my answer in the spirit it is given

[Maven]

Roger, Your response to my question was excellent!  I hadn't thought of it as a safety issue and that's reason enough for me to consider changing my loading regimen.  Thanks for your enlightening reply!

[Daryl]

Way back when, at least in the military, muskets were loaded with the frizzen closed over a full pan.  We don't do that today, either, for obvious reasons.  Civilians also did it or at least something similar, using worn or 'new' English self-priming pans. Otherwise, the pan wouldn't self-prime, if not from the powder dribbling out an oversize vent when pushing down the patched ball or shot and wads.

[northmn]

As to the safety issue of wiping after laoding.  I have also had more than one ignition with a flintlock without priming powder in the pan.  Especially if tipped slightly.  Happened after a couple of no sparks and I knapped the flint on a loaded rifle.  Learned to be careful about that.

DP

[frogwalking]

I have one eye with a burn on the lens from a flinter firing from an unprimed pan when I was about 17 years old.  I had to find my way a mile down off the ridge without being able to see.  Fortunately I wore moccasins in those days and could feel the old logging road through the soft soles enough to get me to the road.  Someone picked up the kid with the blackened face and flintlock shotgun.