Pedersoli Indian Trade Musket shooting observations

[Leatherbark]

Traded this musket up a week or so ago.  Trigger pull is awful but still very well satisfied with it. I molded a hundred Lee .600 balls and cut some .018 No. 40 drill cloth and red striped ticking along with some 2f and 3f Goex.  First time out with the drill cloth and 80 grains of 2f and it was a disaster.  A splattermatch of a group ………..80 gr. of 3 f was a little better but no consistency in the grouping.  Then I tried some thin red striped Wal-Mart ticking. All the patches burned through but the accuracy was very good.  Below is a few pictures of the 50 yard offhand group and a 75 yard offhand group at a B-27 type silhouette.  Also is an image of the burned through patches.  I'll swear I believe the fire ball from the burn through helps center the ball as it makes the trip down the bore.  The accuracy of the intact drill cloth patches were not even close to the accuracy of the burned through thin red striped ticking and 80 grains of 3f. All patches lubed with TOW mink oil.  The better accuracy with the easy loading thinner burned patches goes against logic.

50 yards offhand



75 yards offhand below .  The miss at the left was my last shot and the barrel mirage was terrible.



Burned through patching. 

[bob in the woods]

I tried a bunch of different tightly patched combinations in my smoothbore and never could get it to shoot as I expected it to , until I went to an easy loading ie smaller ball , or thinner patch or no patch at all. The best shooting load I came up with today in my gun utilizes a paper cartridge . It loads easily.
It seems that smoothbores have their own eccentricities 

[Justin Urbantas]

I would try 2f or 1.5f. The 3f might be burning too fast. Have you tried it from the bench to eliminate shooter error?

[Marcruger]

I agree.  With that bore size, 3f seems excessive.  2f or Swiss 1-1/2f I think would be better. 

Overall, I think you have too many things going on here to say that the thinner patched load is better. 

As noted, you need to bench the gun to eliminate as much human error as possible. 

Blown patches are never a good thing.  You get velocity variations due to blow-by that will ruin accuracy.  Also, make sure your patching is 100% cotton canvas.  When you said Walmart, I immediately thought, "Uh oh". 

The main thing is eliminate the human component (bench rest it) and then change ONE thing at a time.  Get a patching that holds together.  I use The Minute-Men untreated canvas patching in .015 or .018.  Great stuff.  I cannot see the sun through it before or after firing.  That is my pass-fail test.  Sunlight. 

Once you have settled on the patching, then ladder up your powder in 5 grain increments until your groups shrink.  I'd start at 60 grains with the bore size. 

Once you have that charge settled, trying going up or down a ball size and see if that makes a difference.  You may have to go up or down 5 grains of powder with the new ball to see if there is a sweet spot. 

You have too many variables changing to draw any conclusions from your first session.  Go methodically through the process and you'll find the best that gun is capable of shooting.  Blown patches are not the way to get there. 

Also, a terrible trigger pull is not going to help you get the most out of your gun.  Maybe see if someone can clean that up a little?

I hope some of this helps.   God Bless,   Marc

[old george]

Wow!! That is some of the worst burn thru I've seen. Could be the poster boy for it.

george

[Leatherbark]

Yes the blown patches bother me also.  Those #40 drill patches with the 2f looked like i could reuse them several times.  Accuracy was nil.  I need to do some more experimenting with 2f and the red ticking to see if it burns through........Plus start at 60 grains for a plinking load.  I did bench the gun at 25 yards.  Had 4 shots in a nice cluster about the size of a lemon with a flier about 4 inches away.  After that it was off hand all the way.

My goal is to consistently keep the shots within the kill zone of a deer at 75 yards. To me that is about an 8 inch group maximum and consistently with as heavy a load as I can do it with benched of course.  I know that cannot be pushed to 100 but 75 might be doable.  My load of 80 grains of 3f Goex with the burned through patching chronographed two shots at 1248 fps and 1220 fps.  A plinking load will be nice also as this load I'm using utilizes Isaac Newtons law of equal reaction very well.

I do believe sighting errors also play into my consistency. Using the octagon area and the 16 sided area in relation to the front sight helps.

Bob

[bob in the woods]

Good luck with your goal of 75 yard consistent accuracy.  My gun will do what you want, but I keep shots at deer to 50 yards.  Moose, I'll stretch that to 100 or maybe 125 if conditions are perfect.
Luckily , most of my deer are taken at 25 yards or less, which is why I like to use my smoothbore

[Daryl]

Paper ctgs. for hunting makes a lot of sense, (especially in freezing temps) however they must be snug, ie: the paper wrap around the ball should be snug to the bore, so
there is really no flame past the patched ball.  If there is blow-by, the ignition of the paper is a consideration.  In my rifle and Bess, there was no ignition of the paper ctgs.
I'm sure Bobinthewoods has the same results.

[bob in the woods]

Paper ctgs. for hunting makes a lot of sense, (especially in freezing temps) however they must be snug, ie: the paper wrap around the ball should be snug to the bore, so
there is really no flame past the patched ball.  If there is blow-by, the ignition of the paper is a consideration.  In my rifle and Bess, there was no ignition of the paper ctgs.
I'm sure Bobinthewoods has the same results.

Exactly !

[Maven]

Bob H., Yes to improving the trigger pull and maybe dropping the charge to 65 - 70gr. FFg. Also, a .600" card stock or wool felt wad over powder wad should help with the burned through patches.  (Cereal boxes, corrugated cardboard or hard wool felt*, all of which I hand cut, work for OP wads.)


*Google Duro-Felt Products

[Daryl]

About the best smoothbore trail walk shooter we have, built a Chamber's Pennsylvania Fowler. It's the only ML he owns and shoots.
In it. he's using the same recipe as I use in my 20 bore, with a Tanner mould cast ball of .595" and a .020" to .022" patch.  I've been using 85gr. 2F
GOEX while he wins with 85gr. GOEX 3F.  His patches are reusable just by picking them up and re-lubing them. He uses spit for lube.
I have yet to try 3F, but will, at some point.

[Leatherbark]

This is my second round with a 20 gauge smoothbore in the last 20 years.  Tinkering with the loads is half the fun.  Especially when you get a stellar group and then try to duplicate several times and prove the first group wasn't a fluke.  I have a variety of patch material, wads, cards and tow.  I am working on the trigger pull on this Pedersoli. The main culprit was the sear spring.  After thinning and shortening it a little the trigger is much better.  I have already polished the sear notch and sear tip.

Bob

[alacran]

Haven't really tried this, but I plan to . I will superglue a rear sight on my smooth bore. I will do my best to get the notch as close to center as I can. Then I will shoot at a target probably offhand at 25 yards. I will shoot only for group to determine best load combo. Then I will verify at 50 yards off cross sticks. Seems to me that the biggest problem developing a load with asmoothbore sans a rear sight is a consistent sight picture.
 As far as superglue goes. On my Tulle I super glued the front sight since I knew I could pop it off and change its location easily.  Since the Getz barrel  round section was flared, it allowed me to adjust both elevation and windage through experimentation. Once I determined where I wanted it I left it super glued just to see how long it would stay on. It stayed that way for five years. Since the barrel was left in the white, the patina it had acquired showed me just where to solder it.

[Daryl]

Interesting experiment, alacran.  I also tested one day using a CA'd rear sight on the 20 bore. Lousy, rainy day and my heart just wasn't in it.
A year or so later i tried one of the holed rare earth magnets, just stuck on the breech. Although the hole was too high in elevation, it worked quite
well as a peep sight.  I intended to re-test, but just didn't get around to it.  One day?

[Panzerschwein]

Nothing at all wrong with a Pedersoli.

They will often shoot as good, or better, than any custom rifle for a fraction of the cost. The savings can be spent on marksmanship training and components.

[Jeff Murray]

I made a "long range" sight that fits on top of the barrel of my rifle.  It is a piece of aluminum that was milled/filed to fit snugly on top of the barrel flats with a sight dovetailed into the aluminum.  I epoxied the bottom of the  aluminum block to friction fit tightly on the barrel so it would not come off due to recoil.  Used it to shoot out to 250 yards just to see what kind of results i could get.  It was a far more accurate setup than aiming at a rock that looked to be a foot above the silhouette with the barrel mounted sights.  ( silhouettes fall before you hear the "clink" at that range)  It will fit on my 20 gauge barrel as well, just a little farther forward.  It is great for figuring out powder, patch and ball combos that group in a sightless smoothbore (they will shoot high).  Then you just have to find out where to hold when you take it off.  If you try this, be sure to heavily lube up your barrel and edges of the stock with release compound when you do the epoxy fit.  Otherwise you will end up with a smooth bore mortar..