20 gauge smooth accuracy

[northmn]

AS you stated, you have a 60 yard hunting gun.  I wonder if the the nature of powder has anything to do with it.  Ie 2f vs 3f.  Swiss vs GOEX etc.  Usually, when hunting we shoot with a cleaned barrel.  Does fouling play more hob with a smoothbore than a rifle?  I would like to experiment with some of these questions, but it has been below 0 and the snow is deep enough and my shooting range far enough out that I would have to dig it out with my Kubota.  May do so for warmup.
Personally, I think that we tend to forget that when we use a weapon type we need to accept its limitations.  No sights.  You can do well on a shooting range and bench with about any kind of sight.  This hunting season I realized that what shoots well on a range is not necessarily a good hunting combination.  No sights under the pressures of hunting may limit the range.  Load accuracy is another.  I probably would have had a couple of more deer this year had I been using my 30-30 with a peep sight, know I would have with the 270 and scope.  Used a flintlock and didn't do as well.  I accept the learning curve and the limitations which includes range.

DP

[Salkehatchie]

G. Hansen:

Bought the gun. Will see what is engraved on the barrel, can not recall it though as the barrel was rust/browned.  Anyway, lots of new things to try.

As far as jug choked...I would say not.  Jug choking is done nearer the muzzle and do not seem to have any problems that way.  Will pull barrel and check.

Rear sight glued on.  Have thought of that to "establish a base line", then go from there.  Also might need a touch up on the crown.  Am going to take the gun to a couple of good shooters here soon as I can get out.  Weather has just been too nasty to go out and shoot though.

I have tried a couple of different combos.  .595 and .010 and .015 patch.  And...the proverbial bees wax and .60 ball.  I really can not tell if there is any difference in groupings on them.  Again, never shot strings of each in one day.  Time has been limited this fall.  An hour at a time at most.  Darn!  One thing I have thought about is; more powder, a smaller ball and a thicker patch.  And will try a standing "stick" series of shots also.  Just for the heck of it.  Those are all on my list of things to do too.

[Roger Fisher]

G. Hansen:

Bought the gun. Will see what is engraved on the barrel, can not recall it though as the barrel was rust/browned.  Anyway, lots of new things to try.

As far as jug choked...I would say not.  Jug choking is done nearer the muzzle and do not seem to have any problems that way.  Will pull barrel and check.

Rear sight glued on.  Have thought of that to "establish a base line", then go from there.  Also might need a touch up on the crown.  Am going to take the gun to a couple of good shooters here soon as I can get out.  Weather has just been too nasty to go out and shoot though.

I have tried a couple of different combos.  .595 and .010 and .015 patch.  And...the proverbial bees wax and .60 ball.  I really can not tell if there is any difference in groupings on them.  Again, never shot strings of each in one day.  Time has been limited this fall.  An hour at a time at most.  Darn!  One thing I have thought about is; more powder, a smaller ball and a thicker patch.  And will try a standing "stick" series of shots also.  Just for the heck of it.  Those are all on my list of things to do too.

"Standing stick"   Hmmmm Standing tripod maybe.  Standing stick alot of wiggle kinda like the neighbor lady just will not stay still!

[Collector]

Mr. Fisher,  Much can be inferred from your references to a wiggling standing stick and your wiggling neighbor lady!  And a tripod... kinky!!        Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

[Roger Fisher]

Mr. Fisher,  Much can be inferred from your references to a wiggling standing stick and your wiggling neighbor lady!  And a tripod... kinky!!        Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

Well now that we have your attention!!  Those references are so true!!

Serious --------  Shootin off a staff involves a heck of a a lot of wiggle!  A standing tripod much steadier.   

[Dphariss]

AS you stated, you have a 60 yard hunting gun.  I wonder if the the nature of powder has anything to do with it.  Ie 2f vs 3f.  Swiss vs GOEX etc.  Usually, when hunting we shoot with a cleaned barrel.  Does fouling play more hob with a smoothbore than a rifle?  I would like to experiment with some of these questions, but it has been below 0 and the snow is deep enough and my shooting range far enough out that I would have to dig it out with my Kubota.  May do so for warmup.
Personally, I think that we tend to forget that when we use a weapon type we need to accept its limitations.  No sights.  You can do well on a shooting range and bench with about any kind of sight.  This hunting season I realized that what shoots well on a range is not necessarily a good hunting combination.  No sights under the pressures of hunting may limit the range.  Load accuracy is another.  I probably would have had a couple of more deer this year had I been using my 30-30 with a peep sight, know I would have with the 270 and scope.  Used a flintlock and didn't do as well.  I accept the learning curve and the limitations which includes range.

DP

The comments on shooting in the field vs the range are important.
I had a tough year with the FL too. As I have stated before the shots here are often pretty long. I shot some hair off a MD buck at 144 yards. Held at the top of the hair and thats where it went. Right to the sights. Suppose I may have had too much front sight??. Should have dropped in and killed him.  No reason for this other than it was not the his day to die. The one I killed was relatively close for this year, 90 yards. Had to shoot him moving. Something I have never previously done with the ML or even a BPCR and very seldom with anything else. But it was crunch time.
in the end I shot all the does with a modern, average shot was probably 250 yards. Then I had to cut all them up at about the same time and the work load was a PITA. None of this is normal for me.
In years past I could go out and kill a deer almost on any given day hunting does getting under 100 yards shots were pretty easy. But it has really got tough on public land in my area.
This year I probably only walked 30-40 miles, last year I know I walked over 50.
The SB needs more work and I think FFG might be the key. Shooting Swiss with Neatsfoot oil on the patches seems to negate any fouling issues but I only shoot 5 shots then wipe it. The 7/8" straight barrel does get hot though. And I was shooting in the summer time. All groups with store bought swaged and tumbled balls don't know if this is a plus or minus.
Back to the bolt gun. I built this for my daughter about 15 years ago. But it has come in very handy for hunting whitetails in hayfields, the only whitetail I killed this year was 300+. I don't particularly care for hunting with it but its a valuable tool when things go to $#*! as they have the last couple of years and the freezer is out of hamburger.
Wife wanted to got shopping this AM in Billings, but it snowed last night and now wind is 20 gusting to 35 so its a stay in day.
Dan

[Daryl]

Of course, I have some comments and observations.  Dan's 16 bore is a shooter, that's for sure. IT also likes to be fed a big meal and due to this, is a wonderful big game rifle. I do wish I could shoot a large bore flinter this well - maybe some day.

 -  G. Hansen- about shooting balls from a jug choke.  Once, I built up a .44 smoothbore using a piece of 'seemless' Shelby Tubing for the barrel.  It had a nicely polished bore, octagonal at 7/8" across the flats.  I jugged the bore about .006" over 3", 1" from the muzzle and it shot splendidly with shot- nice beautiful patterns with up to 3/4oz shot. Broke 10 straight from 16 yards at one rondy, winning the event. Of course, the 12 and 10 bore doubles with their choked bores should have won - didn't.  At that time, many years ago, there were no 20 bore fusils or trade guns on the range.  As to shooting RB's, it shot well enough to stay on a snowshoe hare's head off the bags and pretty much did just that shooting offhand when hunting. The odd miss might have been me or the gun - who cares? It was a killer with round balls.  Nowadays, people jug-choke much more deeply than that, calling them full chokes. modified, etc.  Round Ball has a 20 bore barrel on one of his TC's that is jugged deeply, and he says it shoots well with patched round balls and does well with the heavy shot loads he uses in it. I don't see a problem shooting patched RB's from a jug choke.  As with any pelter, results will vary depending on the load development.

 Dan's thick wad, vs. no wad shooting in the 16 bore rifle shows what I found with the smaller bores - it reduced accuracy. In my 14 bore rifle, a .020 (thin) hard card didn't hurt accuracy, but did in the .40 and .45 cal. rifles I tried it in.  I wanted to test the thin hard card as a powder/patched ball separator.  I didn't try thick wads and if Dan's testing is indicative of their shooting, I'm glad I didn't. I was disappointed at the loss of accuracy in the small bore rifles with just the thin wad.  Of course, as rifles are wont to do, results differ gun to gun - maybe the thick wad would have been better.  When I say the results were worse with the wads, I'm talking about enlarging groups from under 1' to just about 1 1/2".  They'd still do for hunting, of course.  Chronographed velocities were the same, wad or no wad.  What I did find interesting in the .45, was that the shorter 200gr. REAL bullet, grooves filled with Lyman's Black Powder Gold lube, shot to the sights at 50 yards using 80gr. 2F.  I lubed the bullets in a Lyman 450 lube sizer, bumping them to .452" so they'd engrave well upon loading. Loading was easy.  I fired off 20 or so of them, then went back to shooting round balls without having to wipe the bore - no velocity loss and right into the same group.  Neil's testing of them on mule deer gave excellent results, but really no improvement over patched round balls.

 Oh yeah- smoothbore accuracy.  What many have found, is that the gun will shoot to one side or the other, consistently. To 'fix' this side shooting, some put up with it and 'hold' in some windage, while others like Taylor, simply bend the barrel to make it shoot straight to the centre flat of the breech. Too, if it shoots high or low, bending will remedy this too. He uses a handy tree, while others get more scientific in their approach to bending the barrel - lead hammers and shot bags, that sort of thing. The trees are handy on the range.- shoot, take the barrel off and thump a tree, barrel back on and test- all In a matter of minutes. Repeat if necessary.

[Collector]

Per a PM from Mr. Salkehatchie, his barrel is not a Getz, but rather a "Colerain" and is stamped "20" on the barrel.

Daryl,  Thanks for your comments on the jug choking.  It sets aside some long ago comment from an 'expert.'

The rule of thumb, for smoothbores, has been .020" under bore size, but like Mr. Fisher, I also have a "sissy" 28 ga. (mic. to .540) Getz barrel that is very happy with a .530 RB and a .016 patch.

[altankhan]

I don't know how you  hunt, but I like a well-positioned ground blind with a wall of logs in front of me -- I can use the top log as a rest and sight in from it beforehand -- often the deer walk right into the sight picture -- you might also lay some markers out in the field to help you gauge distance -- all these things may help keep some variables under control and keep withn range of yr sights

[northmn]

We use a lot of tree stands in Nortern Mn as we have a lot of trees.  One major industry is hardboard manufacturing.  In other years I could hunt over my hay field before dark and shoot two or three deer.  Used a ground blind to good effect with brush tied up for concealment and X sticks.  Had holes through the brush.  Also have a large permanent stand overlooking an area of the field.  During the summer and after snow had seen tracks under the stand.  This year was different and many have said so.  I walked up a deer that got out of its bed and dropped it with the 30-30.  My shots at other deer were longer and tougher with the flintlock.  I spent the ML season rethinking my strategy and setting up like we used to before the deer got so numerous.  Set up a lot of woods stands.  One of the problems you get hunting heavy wooded brush areas is that they will bed up in young aspen stands where you cannot see much more than 20 yards and may not be able to shoot that far. We also have a lot of hazel brush and tag alders in more open woods and have to cut shooting lanes.  Ruffed grouse love that cover and it makes MN one of the top grouse states but also makes for miserable hunting.  With the heavy snowfall this early in the year I think that I may have to learn to hunt again instead of taking it easy.  Didn't bow hunt this year, next year I will, it helps tune the senses one might say.  Have to get things going by carving out another bow.  have some iron wood seasoned.  Haven't got one with a all wood bow yet, but have with the glass longbows.

DP

[Daryl]

Hunting with a self-bow gives a new perspective and provides a feeling of being a true primitive hunter.  Finding or cutting a long chunk of pine or fir and splitting out a few arrows then tying on your split-off turkey or goose feathers and a flint of obsidian head with deer, moose or elk sinue, adds to the 'realism' of being primitive. Using your own self-bow and 'self' arrow for deer hunting makes this the ultimate in primitive hunting.  Taylor took a large black bear with a hand made fir arrow sinued fletches and flint point, along with a hardwood nock glued to the shaft. Excellent performance with huge entance and exit holes.