Got barrel? An experiment w/ 1Fg powdah

[Flint62Smoothie]

Won 2nd place in a woodswalk yesterday ... using my Dutch Hudson Valley club butt fowler of 60” barrel (by Greg Christian) in 75-caliber. I hit all the long shots (out to 80-yards) but put the huge roundball over the back of a few closer 4” gongs. But man, when that 75-cal RB hit the gongs - they sure rang with authority!

On the advice of an old-timer, I recently started experimenting with 1Fg black powdah as the main charge in my loooooonnngg fowlers and so far the results are highly encouraging!

Besides an improvement in accuracy consistency, the larger loads are a dream to shoot - really no felt recoil, just a shove. Even better ... no more dreaded ‘crud ring’ part way down the barrel where the expanding gases and combustion by-products begin to settle and stick to the bore. Yesterday I got 30-shots ‘without cleaning’, out of that big Dutch fowler using 90-grain charges of 1Fg powdah, tightly patched to boot! Even the last load loaded easily ...

[Daryl]

Well done - that's quite a gun! What is the barrel length?

[Flint62Smoothie]

Well done - that's quite a gun! What is the barrel length?

She is 60” long for the barrel ...

And just for fun, I did take a few steps backwards (safely) during the woodswalk event ... just so I couldn’t be accused of ‘cheating’!

[Daryl]

We take a few steps back from the line for loading. We only allow priming and shooting 'at the line'.
It doesn't matter what the barrel length is.
Safety is of the utmost importance & enforced, but I can see the 'humour' of what you did.

[Robert Wolfe]

What size ball do you use in your .75? I'm currently working on a fowling gun with a shorter Dutch barrel in 75 cal.

[wattlebuster]

I use Fg in my 12 ga smooth rifle that is my turkey gun. I love the stuff an try to get everybody that shoots the big ga smoothbore to try single F powder. Mr V.M. Starr sure knew his business when when he suggested it. Single F tightened my patterns a bit an like you said just give a gentle shove for recoil

[Flint62Smoothie]

What size ball do you use in your .75? I'm currently working on a fowling gun with a shorter Dutch barrel in 75 cal.

Patched I use 730s with a thin patch, but prefer using 710s or 715s for paper cartridge loads, my preferred loading method (to be historically correct). But I imagine back then that the longer Dutch fowlers were used many with shot or swan shot loads. That said, the French Fusil de Boucaniers were used w/ RB loads as there's historical remarks about the longer range of those long guns (my 65-cal wears a 54" long tube).

FWIW the thin patches (homespun, 0.010" thick) won't survive heavy 2Fg powdah charges, but works great with the 1Fg load!