New to smoothbores

[Mike from OK]

Around here, a 25 pound bag of shot costs $80.00.  That's a bit rich & hard for casting into balls, when we paid $0.50 per pound for absolutely pure, Xray wall lead.
The harder lead is OK in a smoothbore, due to the normally undersized ball.  I use a .595" ball in my .618" bore smoothie. If using hard lead, an even smaller ball would be likely needed
for the "tight" patch I use.

80 doll hairs?!!! I thought the $44 I paid was high! Lol

Mike

[Bob McBride]

Around here, a 25 pound bag of shot costs $80.00.  That's a bit rich & hard for casting into balls, when we paid $0.50 per pound for absolutely pure, Xray wall lead.
The harder lead is OK in a smoothbore, due to the normally undersized ball.  I use a .595" ball in my .618" bore smoothie. If using hard lead, an even smaller ball would be likely needed
for the "tight" patch I use.

80 doll hairs?!!!

Mike

The genius of auto-correct never gets old.

[Mike from OK]

Nope, that wasn't autocorrect. Totally on purpose. Lol

Mike

[WadePatton]

Nope, that wasn't autocorrect. Totally on purpose. Lol

Mike

I liked it.   

That's the trouble with good punnery these days, everyone assumes some AI did it for you.  No.  We work at it--some of us actually disable the A/C feature rather than fuss about it. 


edit:
AI = artificial intelligence
A/C = oh come on you got that one figured by context. 

[hanshi]

Humor belongs with much of what gets posted here.  I'm immersed in it and sometimes have difficulty keeping it at bay.  Just me but I think everyone (not just here) would do well to "lighten up" and feed that funny bone.

[thecapgunkid]

Never met a smoothbore I didn't like.

Read and re-read all the advice offered here.  Then go out and buy all the various supplies and shot you'll need to narrow down to one consistent load for shot and one for ball.

Find a nice, quiet range to bang away and don't run out of patience before you run out of powder.

When you get those loads, and post your targets here, take all the stuff you are no longer going to use and either put it away for the next new gun or start throwing it out on trail walk trade blankets.

Trust me.  Works every time.

Don't shoot yore eye out, kid

The Capgun Kid

[Nessmuck]

Welcome to the dark side ,Mike. ...yup,gonnah need some 20 guage nitro cards, wads, .010 patches....you probably have .015 patches. Does it have a rear sight...or period correct ( like mine). You gonnah love the new challenge.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

My 20 gauge is a Chamber's Penn fowler.  It has a Longhammock barrel and I shoot it with 85 gr. FFg GOEX, .018" denim patch with saliva lube, and a .609" pure lead ball from a Lee .600" mould.  It shoots like a rifle (no rear sight) out to 60 or so yards, and I've aced many a trail with it.  I built it for Leatherbelly may he rest in peace, and bought it back from him 'cause he couldn't hit anything with it.  I was glad to get it back. Never tried bare balls, but look forward to the experiment.