Nice gobbler.
We have to wonder about back in the day when they often used cut shot and maybe cut and tumbled shot or tailed shot (short drop) and tow for wadding? How does that work? Remembering that the shot tower (making shot that was actually round) was not invented until 1782. And IIRC did not appear in the US until about 1800. How a 40 ( built and tested a 50 cal smooth rifle some years ago with ball and lead shot) or 32 bore smoothbore can be made to work today with modern technology does not inform on how they worked in 1770 or 1820. And just how useful they really were. While a lot of them (light fowlers) were made they were not what the market hunters (unless shooting water fowl on the water then it was a 10 bore or so if shoulder fired, +- 1” if a punt) used from most reports. A man who wrote an account of being captured by the Shawnee(?) off a flatboat on the Ohio stated that he and the Lawyer he was working for had “nothing better” than light fowling pieces. He narrowly avoided the stake when a British trader bought him and he finally got back home. I have read accounts of people getting off a boat on the Ohio in the then “West” with fowling pieces being laughed at. While such things were required for militia use they were really not that useful in civilian life. Especially in the frontier areas. But there were no shotgun only seasons back in the day either.
On patterns and such. BP is/can be very hard on projectiles longer than a RB unless very hard by 18th/ early 19th c standards and the initial acceleration is pretty violent compared to most smokeless, even most “pistol” grades. So the shot next to the over powder wad gets jammed pretty hard into the shot column. Unless very hard this can deform a significant portion of the shot charge. Plus the ones forced hard against the bore to slide along it. I think this is why the “cushion” wad and “chilled” shot was developed. Why the modern super hard shot works better perhaps. If you look at the hoop jumping the British did for who knows how long to get patterns from a ML gun (jug choke is a “new” invention) you realize that unchoked shotguns do not pattern well, by even 1870s standards.
The things the British tried…Everything they could think of… To get the velocity (penetration) up they tried roughing up the first 12” or more of the bore to “retard the wads” to make the powder burn better/get the pressure up. They tried bores that were tighter in the middle than at either end. They tried roughing the muzzle end of the bore to “retard” the over powder wads so they were not blown into the shot column. Shotguns (the smaller bores at least) did not become effective, in the modern sense, until the breechloader and choked bores. Then the “power piston” was invented that greatly improved patterns. People started using these in MLs by the late 1960s. The British, sometime in the late ML era, developed a wire cage sized for the shot that let the shot filter out through the gaps to make for much tighter patterns. But at shorter ranges the pattern might be too tight?? I suspect that a paper sleeve (shot cartridge if you will) would do the same thing for turkey loads. Open at the business end with or without cuts down the sides. Also in a 54 I think that 7/8 to 1 ounce of shot (20 gauge weight) will do much better than lighter charges. Maybe even more but then the weight is reaching or exceeding proof load bullets. Powder granulation might be a factor as well. F might give a little slower pressure rise but flame propagation through the charge might be faster. I know shooting a Brown Bess with F and a RB gave very low velocity.
I did some testing with a 54 caliber 1:66 rifled FL pistol about 40 years ago using either 7 1/2 or 6 shot. I found that with about 1 ounce of shot and maybe 50 gr of powder it would pattern well enough to kill grouse at 15 yards or so. But at this distance I had killed grouse on the ground with a RB from the same pistol so it was, from a practical sense ( something to eat in the high country), a pointless exercise. I did this small shot test after a discussion with a friend who had shot small shot out of a 54 rifle with the same twist. I have not tried hunting with a ML shotgun since about 1969. Not a shotgun guy. Too limited in their usefulness. And I hated picking shot out of my teeth. Oops, thats a lie I did kill a Hungarian Partridge with a trade gun back about 1980. It was even flying! It was the only thing this gun ever killed SFAIK. Even this it was not the one I pulled the trigger on. That one swerved up and another swerved down into the shot charge. It shot pretty darned well with a RB, for a SB, but would not hit anything with hair on it. A friend I traded it too shot several shots (6 IIRC) at the same bull elk and finally gave up in disgust (or the Elk got tired of the noise) and he is a really fine shot and highly experienced hunter. I tried at least two Antelope and at least one deer.. No joy. It was, however, a rock killing machine out to 80-100 yards but the rocks did not have hair on them….
Reported from a friend some years back who tried Buck and Ball in a 20 bore shows that this is very effective on WT deer. Though he ended up with more deer than usual for one shot fired.
Yeah I wrote another “book” here. Sorry.
