smoothbore round ball no patch help

[sonny]

Well, I would like to try a round ball only with my 16 gauge officers fusil , an not quit sure what size round ball to drop down the bore for accuracy like everybody is talking about without patching..........soooooooooooo, what size round ball will be my "hot @!*%" sweet size???.........sonny

[Brokennock]

Probably going to have to try more than one size. I don't have a 16 so can't speak to exact bore:ball numbers. I have two 20 gauge smoothies with two different bore diameters. In the one that likes no patch  im using a .610 ball in a .615 bore, but I'm also reducing the sprue as much as possible.

[hanshi]

It was easy to notice how much better my "bare ball" loads shot when the balls were larger than .600" and seated while on a lubed wad.  WW gives me a .606" ball but I sure would like a .610" ball much better.

[Hungry Horse]

Seating the ball on a wad disrupts the cone of gas that centers the ball in the bore, increases recoil, and pressure, and keeps the ball rattling up the bore, instead of floating in a cone of hot gas. Close to bore size balls, make the cone of gas too small to stabilize the ball for any effective range. Just sayin’.

  Hungry Horse

[Pukka Bundook]

Old Hoss,

With my short matchlock  I found it worked better with the wad. Recovered wads have a definite cup in them, where the ball sat on the way out.

Group shrank about 1/3 with the wads.
This is maybe different to normal guns, as the tube is only 24".    Bore is a bit over .60",  and .60 ball rolls down.

Charge  was only 75 grs, so maybe too light for the bare balls to work?

[Mike Brooks]

Well, I would like to try a round ball only with my 16 gauge officers fusil , an not quit sure what size round ball to drop down the bore for accuracy like everybody is talking about without patching..........soooooooooooo, what size round ball will be my "hot @!*%" sweet size???.........sonny

I'd try the ball you're using now. if that doesn't work out go maybe .010 bigger.

[Brokennock]

Seating the ball on a wad disrupts the cone of gas that centers the ball in the bore, increases recoil, and pressure, and keeps the ball rattling up the bore, instead of floating in a cone of hot gas. Close to bore size balls, make the cone of gas too small to stabilize the ball for any effective range. Just sayin’.

  Hungry Horse

B.S.

[yulzari]

Seating the ball on a wad disrupts the cone of gas that centers the ball in the bore, increases recoil, and pressure, and keeps the ball rattling up the bore, instead of floating in a cone of hot gas. Close to bore size balls, make the cone of gas too small to stabilize the ball for any effective range. Just sayin’.

  Hungry Horse

More politely, if the wad is soft enough then the ball is centred into it and carried along in a rudimentary sabot. Two champions in musket competition (national and international from two different nations) have both recommended to me the system of a thick soft felt wad pushed into the bore, then as large a ball as would roll down the barrel, a squeezed ring of water based gel (e.g. KY Jelly) and a thin soft felt wad over the top of the sandwich then the whole set rammed down the bore onto the powder. This wets the barrel walls on the way down and again on the way out allowing you to fire several shots without fouling issues even with a tiny windage. Ideally over as much powder of as large a grain as you think safe.

Possibly you are thinking of a hard wad? May I refer you to David Miller's public thesis on 17th century musket internal ballistics at https://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/bitstream/1826/4605/.../David%20Miller%20PhD.pdf. Not entirely on topic but a scientific study of what happens inside a musket barrel and what happens to the ball inside the barrel. It is in reference to large windage military muskets and notes the movement of the ball inside the barrel, obturation of the ball and gas erosion of the ball. The short version is that the ball rests on the bottom surface of the barrel and the gas then moves it irregularly up the barrel. There is little indication that the gas lifts the ball off and centres it in a cone of pressurised gas. I do find that the scrunched paper sabot of a service style paper cartridge does improve the accuracy of even a large windage service size ball over a loose ball.

[hanshi]

A soft op wad makes a huge difference in accuracy.

[smylee grouch]

Yulzari:  I tried that link to David Miller and was not rewarded. Can you double check that link address please. Thanks.

[Frank]

 
[/quote]
More politely, if the wad is soft enough then the ball is centred into it and carried along in a rudimentary sabot. Two champions in musket competition (national and international from two different nations) have both recommended to me the system of a thick soft felt wad pushed into the bore, then as large a ball as would roll down the barrel, a squeezed ring of water based gel (e.g. KY Jelly) and a thin soft felt wad over the top of the sandwich then the whole set rammed down the bore onto the powder. This wets the barrel walls on the way down and again on the way out allowing you to fire several shots without fouling issues even with a tiny windage. Ideally over as much powder of as large a grain as you think safe.


Wow. This is way to much effort for the primitive woods walk I shoot in. I think I like a bare ball held in place by a wad of Tow.

[Daryl]

In a different 12 bore smoothie, I used the plastic (bear with me) gas-check base off a trap wad, set cup-up to hold an undersized ball. This, due to the diameter of the plastic base, held the ball in the middle of the bore.  A card wad over this held the ball from rolling out the bore. Beneath this 'combination' I used a lubricated wad, and a hard 1/8" card between that and the powder.
Thus I had a card, then lubed fiber wad, then plastic cup, then ball, then card.

This 'combination' allowed me to shoot 10" round ball groups offhand, at 100 yards from that SxS shotgun. I say 10" 'group' as I was able to put 2 rights and 2 lefts (4 shots total) on a 10" square plate of steel at that range, fired from the offhand position.

You can ask Taylor if it kicked. The first shot spun me around like a weathercock.  That taught me to HOLD it tightly. I was using 7 drams of 2F. That's 191gr. and produced 1,550fps with my .682" ball.

No cone of fire needed, as the cupped wad held the ball in the middle of the bore.  This would or could easily have been duplicated with a fiber or card wad that had the centre punched out. I got

this idea from the Swedish Cup wad shown in WW Greeners, book, The Gun and it's Development 9th Edition.  From what you guys are saying, a soft wad seems to work as well.

Also, smaller powder charges worked just fine, but - since this 'delivery' is about identical to a knuckle ball thrown in base ball, the faster it is going, the further out it will get before it gets erratic -

I assume.

I have watched through binoculars as guys shot smooth bores shoot balls towards longer range targets, that is, targets at 90 yards or more. I have observed the difference between light

 charges in the 60 to 65gr. range and charges of 3 (82gr.) drams and more.

Oft times, with the light charge, the ball would appear to be traveling straight in line, although arched towards the target, but then just before the target appear veer off to the right, left, low or

 up, missing it by as much as 2 or 3 feet.  They seem to get out a certain distance, then the balls seems to start spinning takes over and they become a curve ball, hook, riser or slider. I am

assuming this spin is mostly due to a sprue, or inner void to off balance the ball. Now, it could be these 'irregularities only exacerbate what will eventually happen, anyway.

With the heavier charges, I did not witness this radical curve, although those balls were equally visible.  There seems to be times when the balls are easily visible, while other times, they cannot

 be seen. Much depends on lighting and backgrounds with wind strength and direction also having a large effect the ability to see them.

[smylee grouch]

Daryl: I assume that was from an open choked gun. That would be a great Bear load/combo in a side by side, even good for Moose at 100 or so yds.

[Daryl]

Yes - no chokes. Should have been very effective on 'heavy & dangerous' game. The reason I tested that load, was that 7 drams was the 'heavy' 12 bore load of the late 1800's, with round balls.

 The other 'standard' load was 4 drams, at 110gr.

There was a ctg. gun charge for long 3" 12 bore cases & very heavy 12 pound guns, that shot heavy conicals and 9 drams of powder. That was 245gr. of powder.

For Africa, the 12 was deemed the smallest effective dangerous game rifle calibre.

For India, Forsyth suggests 16 bore as being the smallest round ball gun for the four dangerous animals, rhino, elephant, tiger and buffalo.

Samuel Baker once noted, in "The Field" paper, that: " 4 1/2 drams (123gr.) will drive a ball of that size (was referring to the 14 bore) through both sides of an elephant's head, and 4 1/2 or even

5 drams (136gr.) may be used in such a rifle without any very unpleasant recoil and etc."  In writing this, Baker was referring to a rifle, however the same could easily be said for a smoothbore

within it's accuracy range.

[yulzari]

Yulzari:  I tried that link to David Miller and was not rewarded. Can you double check that link address please. Thanks.

Weird. I get no proper response either when I use that URL yet if I click on the source in Google it immediately downloads it.
Type in Google 'david miller phd musket' and you will get the top item as the source for the URL. Click on it for the PDF download.
I leave it to clever people to understand why but it works for me and is worth the trouble. I am but 'a bear of simple brain' smylee.

[yulzari]

I have watched through binoculars as guys shot smooth bores shoot balls towards longer range targets, that is, targets at 90 yards or more. I have observed the difference between light
 charges in the 60 to 65gr. range and charges of 3 (82gr.) drams and more.
Oft times, with the light charge, the ball would appear to be traveling straight in line, although arched towards the target, but then just before the target appear veer off to the right, left, low or
 up, missing it by as much as 2 or 3 feet.  They seem to get out a certain distance, then the balls seems to start spinning takes over and they become a curve ball, hook, riser or slider. I am
assuming this spin is mostly due to a sprue, or inner void to off balance the ball. Now, it could be these 'irregularities only exacerbate what will eventually happen, anyway.
With the heavier charges, I did not witness this radical curve, although those balls were equally visible.  There seems to be times when the balls are easily visible, while other times, they cannot
 be seen. Much depends on lighting and backgrounds with wind strength and direction also having a large effect the ability to see them.

Daryl. The Miller thesis (see my note below) touches upon the instability of the ball as it transits from supersonic to subsonic and how this occurs over a wide velocity range. i.e. it is not a 'sound barrier' but something that begins before it slow to subsonic and continues thereafter. This is why I use a large charge in my musket to keep up the speed until it reaches the target. For short ranges I suppose that a light charge would keep it stable below transonic speeds.

[smylee grouch]

Yulzari: Thanks for checking that out, I will try that on Google. A lot of techno stuff for a 250 year old process but interesting non the less.   

[Daryl]

I have watched through binoculars as guys shot smooth bores shoot balls towards longer range targets, that is, targets at 90 yards or more. I have observed the difference between light
 charges in the 60 to 65gr. range and charges of 3 (82gr.) drams and more.
Oft times, with the light charge, the ball would appear to be traveling straight in line, although arched towards the target, but then just before the target appear veer off to the right, left, low or
 up, missing it by as much as 2 or 3 feet.  They seem to get out a certain distance, then the balls seems to start spinning takes over and they become a curve ball, hook, riser or slider. I am
assuming this spin is mostly due to a sprue, or inner void to off balance the ball. Now, it could be these 'irregularities only exacerbate what will eventually happen, anyway.
With the heavier charges, I did not witness this radical curve, although those balls were equally visible.  There seems to be times when the balls are easily visible, while other times, they cannot
 be seen. Much depends on lighting and backgrounds with wind strength and direction also having a large effect the ability to see them.

Daryl. The Miller thesis (see my note below) touches upon the instability of the ball as it transits from supersonic to subsonic and how this occurs over a wide velocity range. i.e. it is not a 'sound barrier' but something that begins before it slow to subsonic and continues thereafter. This is why I use a large charge in my musket to keep up the speed until it reaches the target. For short ranges I suppose that a light charge would keep it stable below transonic speeds.

I am well aware of the gross transonic speed instability (just below to just over SOSound) with projectiles from shooting air rifles with waisted pellets.  Bullets are not as susceptible to this instability, or less so, as noted with handgun bullets shooting very well indeed, at long ranges.

The sound barrier was of course, beaten by Chuck Yeager in the X1(wasn't it?). Once he beat the "sound barrier", it no longer existed - my poor choice of words. Sry.

I had this very conversation with an incredibly good smoothbore shooter at Hefley Creek Rendezvous some years back, concerning the spin transonic speed problems.

He entered a smoothbore money match, winning it with some long range shooting with this 20 bore , 50" bl. I think it had. His charge was double his normal 75gr. 2Fcharge. The targets/gongs

 were 150yards distant and he did not miss any of them.

[Fowler610]

Late to the party on this.  For bare-ball, my fowler likes a .610 ball loaded with a shotgun load column, that is: powder, over-powder card, 1/2" cushion wad soaked in Crisco, bare ball, over-shot card.  Works good for me, but it's a hassle loading all that during a match.  That wad deposits a nice layer of lube in the bore when it gets rammed home.  Your mileage may vary...

[Daryl]

I tried just wads in my .44 cal. smoothbore, card over powder and thin "B" over ball card. This was much less accurate than a cloth patched .433" ball.

This gun killed a lot of bunnies out to 50yards, all head shots. I initially built it as a flinter, but had Taylor convert it to cap (Durr's Egg lock). After than, the bunnies were

easily dispatched with head shots, instead of ending up 3' long rags. If sitting facing right, they were complete misses. A flinch with a right handed shooter, hits low right,

hence the 3' long rags of bunny.

The barrel had a lapped-in jug choke, about IMP Cyl- .005" or so. Patterned shot nicely - shot 10 straight in trap with 1/2oz. #8 1/2's.

[WesTex]

If by '16 gauge officer's model' you're referring to North Star West's version, the bore is .662" and their model is for a .645" ball. I'd recommend getting some TOTW .626" and ..648" and see which your gun prefers. Friend's does it's best with .648" and 90 grains FFg. Good luck.