Light 20 gauge roundball loads for whitetail?

[rfd]

i see no need to chronograph ball speed.  even a slow traveling 300+ grain ball will kill deer dead-right-there IF hit in a good spot.  the problem is distance.  that slow traveling 300+ grain ball, with that light powder load touched off behind it, will knock a deer down for the count at 100 yards let alone 75 yards, IF hit in a good spot.  it's all too obvious what the concern will be.  it still comes down to consistent accuracy of both the gun and its operator - and under realistic hunting venue conditions, not out at a comfy gun range. 

you find a good, stout load that yer gun likes, and that you can achieve consistent minute-of-deer at 75 yards and then you've got a good beginning.  luck will still be needed, but that's hunting.  been there, done that.

[hanshi]

I like to chronograph projectiles and especially those from my guns.  Using a chrono will tell one much more than just velocity.  One think is velocity "consistency".  Bullets/balls with the lowest extreme spread Usually give better long range accuracy and often at close range, too.  Study "es" along with "sd" to see if the first round was way slow and the following round way fast.  Most any ol' gun will look pretty good to okay at 25 yards.  But it's at 50 yds on out where one sees the difference between "uber" and consistent.. 

[smylee grouch]

Good point Hanshi, it's like Rich said, I think you want to do more that " tink " the gong when your talking about taking a deer cleanly.

[Huntschool]

Lets remember the OP was talking about a .62 smooth bore gun, so rifled gun info may not apply.  I am not, however, saying velocity will not have an effect on group or general accuracy.

I have owned one smooth bore gun to date but am building a .62 smooth rifle as we speak. It will be more like a rifle then a smooth bore as I will add good sights and a set trigger system.  Its a very old Getz barrel and I expect good things from it once I develop my loads.

Just sayin

[Jerry]

One reason I'm asking Hungry Horse, I'm reading 'the encyclopedia of the fur trade'.  In it, I'm seeing the majority of the North West guns weighed about 6 pounds.  Many listed were 5 1/2 pounds.

Made me wonder if we are using larger charges than the natives did when using these guns for killing deer.  So, my question became how light of a charge will predictably kill whitetail out to 75 yards or so using a 20 gauge smoothy.

Hard to fathom their using 110 grain loads in such light guns.  Seems it would be hard on both the gun and its user.

A .600" or so ball starts out big and heavy.  I wonder if we are fooling ourselves regarding how much velocity is needed to kill deer with these, assuming the ball is placed where need be.

Any thoughts?

Best regards, Skychief.

[rich pierce]

I’ve read where settlers and white scouts could tell a Native American had fired a fusil because they used lighter charges of powder. I’m guessing 70 grains was a medium powder charge for round ball in a 20 gauge for most folks as that’s about what charge would be used for one ounce of shot. Just a guess.

Learning from Daryl I know shoot a squib load in my guns as the last shot to clear and burn off any fouling close to the breech. It’s kind of fun guessing then seeing how low a ball shoots with 20-30 grains of powder. I try to guess hold-over and try the 100 yard gong. It shoots at least a foot lower than a regular load at that range.

[Daryl]

In re-reading this thread along with the answers, I am left with the thought that Taylor's response about accuracy is one if not THE best answer.

I will qualify this statement by stating that in order to achieve the requisite accuracy at whatever range you desire, you will need to use more and
more powder as the range becomes longer.  To shoot the pie plate (10") at 40 yards, requires less powder than to consistently hit the pie plate at
75yards. With smoothbores shooting round ball (assuming the OP is talking about smoothbores) you must be prepared to shoot the longer ranges,
even though your shot might only be 40yards.
Thus, the onus is on your to do your due diligence and find out what your 'range' is by testing.
If the firearm is a 20 bore rifle, ie: a .615" (actual 20 bore) to .620" in the bore, a load of 82gr.(3 drams) to 85gr. is likely a decent load for shooting
good sized deer to 100yards or so. Even then, better accuracy will be achieved through the use of more powder, however the 82-85gr. charge will
be plenty accurate enough for deer and produce a decent trajectory.

[Nessmuck]

Good luck hitting a deer at 75 yaahds with a Smoothbore.

[Hungry Horse]

 My old huntin’ buddy the late Glenn Wilds killed a nice bull elk with the trade gun, that him, and I, built from basically junk. It was 20 gauge, with a 28” shotgun barrel, a rebuilt (by me) Lott lock, and my hand forged furniture. He shot that elk at eighty five yards, with eighty grains of 2F, and a patched 595 round ball. I turned that elk upside down, broke a rib on the entry side, passed through both lungs, and was under the skin on the off side. A young hunter who has lived in Idaho his entire life and seen lots of elk shot, said he wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it. So I suppose a whitetail doesn’t need anymore killin’ than that.

  Hungry Horse

[Bsharp]

Just think of your load as a 22 Long Rifle  pushing a 320 grain ball.

[Leatherbark]

Try extrapolating from this load and a larger bore.  This Bess was loaded with 80 gr. of 3f Goex and a patched .715 ball.  The shot was 60 yards or so. The ball entered the left side at an angle and blasted out the right side breaking the shoulder where the leg bone attaches before exiting. The deer limped for 20 or so yards and bled out  I suspect a .600 ball over 80gr. would do as much damage or enough to take the meat.

[Nessmuck]

I need more practice...to keep up with you guys....

[Daryl]

Good luck hitting a deer at 75 yaahds with a Smoothbore.

Have you tried shooting a smoothbore at 75yards? 100yards? Have you tried shooting at those ranges with larger and larger powder charges - THAT is
what I was getting at and thought I had spelled out. It can be done - BUT - you have to feed the beast to do it.
For shooting at 100yards & consistently hitting that pie plate, might take 120 or 130gr. powder. But - the gun will do it if you feed it correctly.  I have sincere
doubts that a naked ball will work.  I had a 12 bore that would consistently shoot into 10" at 100 meters (109yds) alternating each barrel (SxS), but it took
190gr. of 2F to do it.  It also kicked nasty/bad - not much fun to shoot.  I also shot a deer with it at about 95 to 100yards on a logging slash. It might have
been a bit further than that - hard to say. It worked and the ball exited making a 3/4" hole in and out, high lung shot. The deer went down.
Vel. 1,550fps, 500gr. round ball.

[Hungry Horse]

 Oh, and by the way Glenn’s little junkyard trade gun weighs only five and a half pounds loaded. A hundred grains of powder in that little gun with its traditional tradegun stock, would break your face for sure.
  Stop depending on high velocity, and start concentrating on hitting the deer in the right end.


   Hungry Horse

[Scota4570]

If the reason for the OP's question was to reduce recoil, try 1F powder.  Slower acceleration reduces felt recoil.  He may be able to use quite a bit more 1F than 2F.  That might give lower recoil and same or higher velocity. 

[bob in the woods]

Here is what I know. My friend shot a dow with 60 gr FFg at about 40 yards. The deer got away and was found the next day after coyotes had their fill.  He hit it a little too far back. Not by much , but enough.
We shot the 20 bore with loads down to 40 gr FFg.  We found that RB's over 40 Gr will bounce off stumps.  Not good.   I suspect that load would still kill a deer at under 25 yards, but the limitations would be very real.
We want an accuracy load for our rifles, and test the variables to find it. I do the same with my smoothbores and I know that my 20 will not shoot to it's capability with anything under 100 gr FFg.
That's using my paper cartridges.  That load is actually capable of the somewhat mythical 3 in group at 50 yards.  Less powder, or a loose ball opens that to 6 to 8 inches at 50 yards.  A 6 in group at 50 yards is next to useless at 100 yds if you are deer hunting.  I suggest folks find out what their guns like in terms of accuracy and go from there. If you want to limit yourself to 25 yards, there's a lot more leeway [ much like rifles ]

[Daryl]

  I suggest folks find out what their guns like in terms of accuracy and go from there. If you want to limit yourself to 25 yards, there's a lot more leeway [ much like rifles ]

Pure gold, Bob.

  Picking a load and using that for shooting at 50 or more yards, is not what needs to be done. Working up a load is.

I've noted this a few times here on the forum, to explain what I have seen happen, with light loads vs. heavier loads.  One of our guys used 65gr. 2F in his 20 bore fowler
with patched round ball & .020" patch.
On one particular 92yard gong, perhaps due to the normal lighting on that shot, oft times through the binoculars, I could see quite a bit of his ball's flight. The ball would
 arc towards the target, seemingly in the last few feet, to divert like a hook, curve or drop-ball in baseball, to miss the gong by a good 3 feet.
Taylor's shots, on the other hand, using a full 85gr. 2F in his (also long barreled) 20 bore also with a .020" patch, arced toward the gong and hit, more times than not, without
 showing the curve balls - not once.

One of the regular smoothbore winners at Hefley Creek rendezvous, who oft times posts scores that beat the rifle shooters quite handily, uses 75gr. (I think) 2F in his 20 bore
for most of the shots. I had a bit of a conversation with him regards smoothbore balls taking on a spin and spinning away from the line of departure like baseballs. Also, a
slight advantage could be found with increasing the velocity somewhat, so that the ball got out further before taking on that spin.  He asked how much and I simply said, the
further the shot, the more powder needed.
Well a day or so later, there was a smoothbore match held & one of the shots was 150yards. He was the only one who hit it and he did it twice in a row. He was overjoyed at
this, and of course, as was normal, he won that event. He came to my camp site to tell me about it as I was there & had not competed in that event. I asked "how much powder
did you use"  He replied "150gr. 2F and aimed right at it".

[hanshi]

The 20 ga. smoothbore I own has never been fired farther than 50 yards; and 50 yards is a seldom encountered shot in the places I've mostly hunted.  My average shot has probably been 25 to 30 yards, maybe even less.  With the guns hunting load of 75 grains of 3F and a patched .600" ball typical 50 yard 3-shot groups range from 2.5" to 3.0" off a bench.  The gun has a rear sight and is fired like a rifle.  I later found that the ball some 15' from the muzzle was clocking pretty close to 1400 fps.  I even tried on up to 100 grains of 2F with no noticeable improvement in performance.  The last deer I killed was with that gun/load at 20 yards, again typical.  The shot was a DRT.  Deer are easy to kill if the shot is directed toward the heart-lung area.  Other hits work just as well and I've probably made them all, or at least the vast majority of them.  Neck, shoulder, spine, head, etc, they all worked even though I did not aim at those areas other than a few times, maybe three total.

The only long shots taken have been when hunting in pastures & fields, and those, dear hearts, were accomplished with rifles, not smoothbores.  And with the emphasis on "more powder at longer range" the charges were significantly larger than the woodland-brush deer required.

[Daryl]

Funny Hanshi, about the "other" hits.  John Whooters used a CVA (I think) rifle to shoot a buck once, wrote it up. It was a perfect centre of the neck shot. Later in the story, he noted he had aimed
at the heart/lung area behind the leg and then stated he had come to believe from this, that "all neck shooters are liars."

[hanshi]

He do have a point thar Daryl.

[Jerry]

I shoot 65 grains of FFF in my 42 inch barreled smooth bore. First deer I ever shot with it was 75 yards. Dropped in it's tracks.

Shovelbuck, Excellent point. Your load is all that’s needed.

[bob in the woods]

I shoot 65 grains of FFF in my 42 inch barreled smooth bore. First deer I ever shot with it was 75 yards. Dropped in it's tracks.

Shovelbuck, Excellent point. Your load is all that’s needed.

If you hit it in the right spot     I've seen some 3 to 5 shot groups at that distance that would speculate wounding or missing as a all of the dice

[alacran]

  I suggest folks find out what their guns like in terms of accuracy and go from there. If you want to limit yourself to 25 yards, there's a lot more leeway [ much like rifles ]

Pure gold, Bob.

  Picking a load and using that for shooting at 50 or more yards, is not what needs to be done. Working up a load is.

I've noted this a few times here on the forum, to explain what I have seen happen, with light loads vs. heavier loads.  One of our guys used 65gr. 2F in his 20 bore fowler
with patched round ball & .020" patch.
On one particular 92yard gong, perhaps due to the normal lighting on that shot, oft times through the binoculars, I could see quite a bit of his ball's flight. The ball would
 arc towards the target, seemingly in the last few feet, to divert like a hook, curve or drop-ball in baseball, to miss the gong by a good 3 feet.
Taylor's shots, on the other hand, using a full 85gr. 2F in his (also long barreled) 20 bore also with a .020" patch, arced toward the gong and hit, more times than not, without
 showing the curve balls - not once.

One of the regular smoothbore winners at Hefley Creek rendezvous, who oft times posts scores that beat the rifle shooters quite handily, uses 75gr. (I think) 2F in his 20 bore
for most of the shots. I had a bit of a conversation with him regards smoothbore balls taking on a spin and spinning away from the line of departure like baseballs. Also, a
slight advantage could be found with increasing the velocity somewhat, so that the ball got out further before taking on that spin.  He asked how much and I simply said, the
further the shot, the more powder needed.
Well a day or so later, there was a smoothbore match held & one of the shots was 150yards. He was the only one who hit it and he did it twice in a row. He was overjoyed at
this, and of course, as was normal, he won that event. He came to my camp site to tell me about it as I was there & had not competed in that event. I asked "how much powder
did you use"  He replied "150gr. 2F and aimed right at it".

In a smooth bore, the ball must be kept supersonic to keep it from turning into a knuckle ball when it goes transsonic. As my late friend Bruce Schwidt used to say."MORE Powder !!"

[smylee grouch]

I have heard that same point from long time Bench shooters about keeping the ball going over the speed of sound ( some place around 1400 fps ) other wise they would start that Knuckle Balling. Those good bench shooters know a thing or two about the round ball in flight.

[Bsharp]

"In a smooth bore, the ball must be kept supersonic to keep it from turning into a knuckle ball when it goes transsonic. As my late friend Bruce Schwidt used to say."MORE Powder !!"

I had not thought about the sub sonic speed.

Maybe that's why the 'ole' 7 bore shoots a 1000 grain RB quite well at 1100 fps.

What about birdshot, does speed matter?