Smoothies?

[Panzerschwein]

For a smooth rifle with front and rear sight and good old development, what can they achieve accuracy wise with a round ball? Are PRBs most accurate in these?

[Wayne B]

        After sight in, the last 3 shots are @ 3 o'clock in the ten ring. This is a 31" 54 cal smoothie at 50 yds. I was very surprised at how accurate a smoothie can be.

[Panzerschwein]

Here's a 50 yd. 'group' with my .570 bore NWTG using a walking stick brace.  The larger hole at low 5 o'clock is where the 'sloppy wet wad' hit after a trial shot load.
Cheers,
R

WOW looks about like a 2” group?

[rich pierce]

Sometimes we grade accuracy by the best group ever versus average group size. A consistent 3” group at 50 yards is often achievable with a smoothbore. A 1” group is often achievable by old men with open sight at 50 yards with a rifle.

[Panzerschwein]

Sometimes we grade accuracy by the best group ever versus average group size. A consistent 3” group at 50 yards is often achievable with a smoothbore. A 1” group is often achievable by old men with open sight at 50 yards with a rifle.

Thanks, Rich!

I’m in talks with a builder to have a .45 smooth rifle made for me. I’ve read they can be quite accurate to 50 yards and with shot can be good for squirrel and rabbit.

Seems real fun and neat to work up loads with. Are guys getting best accuracy with PBRs or bare balls?

[Maven]

Here's a pic of a 50 yd. target I recently fired from my Green River Forge NW Trade Gun. I used a .618" (bore diameter) RB with tow wads fore & aft and 85gr. Goex FFFg (all I had on hand).  If you ignore the two foulers, and shot labeled 4 & 10, I think it shot pretty well.  Shot #9 (low & left), I can't explain.  Btw, I tried to repeat this a few weeks ago with 90gr. - 100gr. FFg, also Goex, and couldn't:



For that particular gun, I think I'll stick to a patched .597" - .598" RB, as it is more consistently accurate @ 25 yd., but needs to be tested @ 50 yd.

[Panzerschwein]

Here's a pic of a 50 yd. target I recently fired from my Green River Forge NW Trade Gun. I used a .618" (bore diameter) RB with tow wads fore & aft and 85gr. Goex FFFg (all I had on hand).  If you ignore the two foulers, and shot labeled 4 & 10, I think it shot pretty well.  Shot #9 (low & left), I can't explain.  Btw, I tried to repeat this a few weeks ago with 90gr. - 100gr. FFg, also Goex, and couldn't:



For that particular gun, I think I' stick to a patched .597" - .598" RB, as it is more consistently accurate @ 25 yd., but needs to be tested @ 50 yd.

Thanks, Maven!

[bob in the woods]

My smoothbore seems to shoot best for me with paper cartridges. I consistently shoot 2 to 3 inch groups off hand at a measured 35 yards . I can count on that.  At 50 yards, again, off hand, that opens to around 4 to 4 1/2 inches consistently .   I will take a shot at a deer at up to 50 yards and know were that ball is going.  Sometimes, for no reason I have ever been able to find, a shot will go outside that group and stretch the size to 6 inches at 50 yards.  That's a smoothbore for you.  Since 99.99 % of all the deer or bears I've taken have been inside of 35 yards I'm confident hunting with my smoothy.
I have a personal max distance for deer of 50 yards and  100 yards for moose.  There's always that unexplained group opening shot that I've learned to take into account.

[Panzerschwein]

Any evidence civilians used paper cartridges in their smoothbores?

[bob in the woods]

I haven't been able to find evidence of paper cartridges being used by civilians.  Brown paper wads with shot ...yes.   I'm experimenting now with a bare ball on the powder with a wool wad [ blanket] on top.
It looks promising. 

[Panzerschwein]

Seems group size can vary from 2-3” with a smoothie at 50 yards.

Good enough for me! I’m ordering one now from Joe Schell.

[rich pierce]

A lot seems to be luck. I’ve got a .69 with a light barrel that shoots into 3” at 50 yards. I have a short (32”) 1” across the flats octagon 20 ga that will just shoot into 3” at 25 yards. Friends who are great rifle shots find that some smoothbores shoot accurately. For reasons unknown other smoothbores they have will not shoot well. These are shooters who know how to win matches against great competition with original and modern rifles. They know how to find accurate loads.

I’m 100% sure I can find an accurate load in a day with a rifle barrel from any of the usual barrel makers. With a smoothbore it seems to be a luck of the draw thing with round ball or sometimes much more tedious.

[Daryl]

I’m in talks with a builder to have a .45 smooth rifle made for me. I’ve read they can be quite accurate to 50 yards and with shot can be good for squirrel and rabbit.
Seems real fun and neat to work up loads with. Are guys getting best accuracy with PBRs or bare balls?

I had a .44 cal. smoothbore I built (forgot about that one) back in the 70's.  I lapped in a mild jug choke that shot patched round balls well enough to shoot bunnies to
50yards, mostly head shots.  It patterned shot well enough to win the trap event at our club one year, with 10 straight, shooting against SxS's in 12 and one 10 bore.
I used 45gr. 3F, a card, then .410 shotshell wad trimmed off at the muzzle to hold 1/2oz. 7 1/2 shot.  While it didn't powder any "birds" it did break 10 straight.
The .433" round balls I used were patched with .015" denim lubed with bear grease - 6 ounce denim I think it was.

[Panzerschwein]

Sounds good, all. I’ll push ahead with the build.

[Daryl]

Sometimes we grade accuracy by the best group ever versus average group size. A consistent 3” group at 50 yards is often achievable with a smoothbore. A 1” group is often achievable by old men with open sight at 50 yards with a rifle.

LOL - how true it is.

[Daryl]

This target was shot at 28 yards, from a rest.  My .62 cal. smoothie - 31" bl.
At 50 yards, I can barely keep them on an 11" x 8" sheet of paper, yet I've hit the 100 yard rabbit sil. on our range. Strange things can happen.

[Leatherbark]

No rear sight but here was my Pedersoli Bess at 50 yards. I could see a rear sight tightening things up a bit because I always had to be able to see around 3/4 inch of the plane of the barrel under what was called a front sight and doing this consistently is difficult.  Disregard that little target at the bottom.

[Daryl]

That's really good shooting, Bob., and so are the are
others.

[Nessmuck]

Here’s a pile of shots @ 50 yards ..offhand...no rear sight ..62 cal Tulle Flintah...85 grains ...wad.. .010 pAtched .600 RB.  Sure....I could use more practice....

[hanshi]

The smoothbore I own is a .62 and has a rear sight.  First target is an excellent bare ball load.  The bottom photo shows another bare ball group and the right hand target shows patched ball group.  This is close to my average results with these loads at 50 yards.  I expect prb loads to group 3" (+ or -) for three shots at 50 yds.  The bare ball groups aren't actually that far behind patched ball groups.  I mostly shoot 3-shot groups with a smoothbore, and the bare ball size is .606" from my .600" Lee mold.  A lead .600" ball is used patched while the larger .606" WW ball is used in bare ball loads.  The bare ball does seem a little more subject to fliers than the more uniform prb.


Bare ball on left and prb on the right.

[Clark Badgett]

Any evidence civilians used paper cartridges in their smoothbores?

While it would be quite hard to find evidence for certain, but it's easily within the realm of possibility. One advantage of the smoothbore over a rifle is fast reloading, and nothing reloads faster than an easily fabricated paper cartridge. There are reasons why muzzleloading smoothbore muskets were one of the top selling firearms up through the taming of our last frontier.

[Daryl]

Any evidence civilians used paper cartridges in their smoothbores?

While it would be quite hard to find evidence for certain, but it's easily within the realm of possibility. One advantage of the smoothbore over a rifle is fast reloading, and nothing reloads faster than an easily fabricated paper cartridge. There are reasons why muzzleloading smoothbore muskets were one of the top selling firearms up through the taming of our last frontier.

Clark some time ago on this site, we had a thread on paper ctgs. for rifles - likely 6 to 10 years ago.  Several members at that time tested them and came to pretty much the same results
as I had in my 14 bore rifle. Equal accuracy to well patched round balls. There was a stickler though - the patched ball had to be engraved on the patch by the rifling when loaded.  Dphar and B
Strickling had the similar results to mine.
I hunted with these loads during the "special weapons" (ML or archery)moose season in Northern B.C.- Oft times the temperature would drop to -40, or even colder- once it was -65F.
That is cold hunting & we were living in a tent.
In training for that hunting, I practiced with the mink oil patched ball first shot, then paper ctg's after that.  After practicing I was able to shoot - then time started and could load and shoot an
aimed second shot in 8 seconds.  I thought that was pretty fair as it beat the military musket timing of 3 shots per minute.
For capping, I used a 'wheel' capper made of leather that Taylor made for me. It was very fast & holds 24 caps around it's periphery.
So- paper ctg. loading can be very fast with a rifle, as well.
My buddy Keith had a rifle by Taylor, Track's Purdey style in .75 cal. (Getz deep round grooved bl.)that also shot well with the ctgs. although he could only fire 3 before needing a light 'cleaning'
load with a wet patched ball. Mine, a GRRW bl. with square rifling was able to fire 10 accurate shots before needing a cleaning load to be fired.  That was faster than swabbing the bore & allowed
another 10 accurate ctg. shots.

[Clark Badgett]

Daryl, it doesn't surprise me that good accuracy was had with paper patched balls. Someday I plan on trying out the paper patch side of things my self. Been doing lots of reading into that lately.

[Daryl]

I actually need to try them in my smoothbore. It has a 'normal' choke and doesn't shoot as well as I'd like, with patched round balls.