Smooth bores

[Fly]

This is kinda a loaded question.I have never owned a smooth bore.But not
knowing ANY thing about them have some questions.Just how accelerate
can they be.

Range, PRB or Minie & so on.I know this is a very open question, but as
I said above, I have no knowledge of these rifles.

Thanks Fly:drinks:

[Hanshi]

With patched round ball it should be little trouble to get a group under, say, 6" at 50 yards. I was able to get that accuracy using a bare ball. Using prb I managed to beat the 6" at 50yds but you will have to work up your own loads since no two barrels are the same. Much past 50yds accuracy becomes less easily acquired. My flintlock 20ga smoothbore took a deer last year quite nicely. Mine does have a rear sight on the barrel which makes aiming much, much easier and doesn't interfere in the least with shot loads. Smoothies do very well with WW ball and that's what I prefer to shoot in it; saving the soft lead for my deer rifles. Some smoothbore shooters do very well up to 100yds.

[Maven]

QUOTE=Fly;1854080]This is kinda a loaded question.I have never owned a smooth bore, but not knowing ANY thing about them have some questions. Just how accurate
can they be? Range, PRB or Minie & so on? I know this is a very open question, but as
I said above, I have no knowledge of these rifles. Thanks, Fly:drinks:[/QUOTE]

Fly, Acouple of things: First, they don't use conicals of any kind. Second, your projectile options are shot; patched RB, or RB with overpowder- and overshot wads. (Greased felt for the OP wad, dry felt for the OS; or nitro cardstock for both). Third, with a rear sight and a properly fitted RB, accuracy may equal that of a rifle out to 50 yds., but velocity will be much lower, assuming equal bbl. lengths, powder charges, and ball diameters. E.g., I was on a trail walk last week where one of the winning shooters used a smoothbore and PRB with an aperture rear sight fashioned from a washer welded to the tang screw. (That addtiion made it a "smooth rifle," btw.) Lastly, patch thickness isn't nearly as critical in a smoothbore as it is in a rifle, as the patch doesn't have any grooves to fill. Ball diameter, however, is another matter. (Don't ask how I know this!)

[waksupi]

accuracy may equal that of a rifle out to 50 yds., but velocity will be much lower, assuming equal bbl. lengths, powder charges, and ball diameters.[/QUOTE]

I actually think the velocity would be higher, as you are not moving the ball up an incline as in a rifled bore. I have observed at longer ranges, the smoothbore seems to have a flatter trajectory than a rifle with comparable loads.

The more you shoot them, the more accurate they are at longer ranges. Practice makes perfect.

[HARRYMPOPE]

I played with a .62 and .56( both with rifle sights) and 12ga and at 50 yards they were not near what a good RB gun would do.A good RB gun will shoot 1"-1.5" 5 shot groups often enough to be interesting.I see the best groups people brag about seems to be about 2"-2-1/2" at 50 yards.I never got and average like that but shot a few that small.I would say 4" or a tad bigger was closer to an an honest groups size.I had to shoot them with alot of powder to get accuracy.I admit to being far from an expert on smoothebores but this is what they did for me.

George

[Maven]

George, I think your assessment of typical smoothbore accuracy is right on the money. And yes, they are much fussier in that department than a ML-ing rifle.

Ric, I based my statement about velocity on data Thompson/Center published about the .56cal. Renegade Smoothrifle.* A comparison with the T/C .54cal. Renegade showed a big difference. Moreover, I reasoned that since a rifled bore presents greater resistance to a patched RB, all other things being equal, velocity would be higher. Is this not the case?

Fly, Here's a 25 yd. target I shot with a .62cal. trade gun (no rear sight) on 7/11/11 using a .597" PRB + a .014" patch and 70 grs. Diamondback FFg.




*These were produced (late '70's - early '80's?) to conform to Massachussetts' hunting regulations.

[waksupi]

Ric, I based my statement about velocity on data Thompson/Center and Sam Fadala, separately, published about the .56cal. Renegade Smoothrifle.* A comparison with the T/C .54cal. Renegade showed a big difference. Moreover, I reasoned that since a rifled bore presents greater resistance to a patched RB, all other things being equal, velocity would be higher. Is this not the case?



A good question, I had not seen the review. I was basing my thoughts on a discussion long long ago on the old Shooters.com board, where we started out. Also, on my own experience shooting at longer ranges with both barrel types. We were surprised that at two hundred yards we were using less holdover with the smooth bores, than with the rifles. To me, raising the ball against the incline is absorbing some of the usable velocity to convert the energy to rotational force. The smooth bore does not have the "lift" to overcome, so to me it would have higher velocity, all else being equal.
I hope some of our scientists like Felix see this, and add in.

[HARRYMPOPE]

I got a few groups like that but never on a consistent basis.My 62 patterned .310 "buckshot" loads pretty well at 25 yards.They really are very versatile hunting guns.


i wouldn't think at 200 at-yards a smoothbore would be accurate enough to evaluate holdover.Maybe it is like BB gun and not spinning it sort of curves upward.

George

[1Shirt]

Back when I was shooting front stuffers, I shot the smooth bore matches with a CVA 12 gage Side by Side, and tight patches lubed with spit. Most of the time at 25 yds I could stay in the black. If memory serves me right, I used 60 gr. of 2F. Shot both bbls.
1Shirt!

[Maven]

George, That target was shot at a distance of 25 yds. kneeling with my right elbow resting on a bench and it's pretty typical of the best groups that gun will produce. The other ones, i.e., those that I don't post, have ~6" spread at that same distance. What I've discovered is that that particular smoothie prefers the .597" Tanner RB (which is the only .600" RB I currently own*) + patches anywhere between .014" - .020" (blue or red striped pillow ticking, duck cloth, respectively) and powder charges between 65 grs. - 85 grs. FFg or 70 grs. FFFg. Lately I've been practicing with it offhand at 25 yds. using the NMLRA Postal Match target and can sometimes put two (out of five) in the 10-ring. The other three have a much wider spread, I'm sorry to say.

Just a brief comment about patches: Patches thicker than .018" will work, but they are very hard to start and seat, and produce NO improvement in accuracy for the increased effort. The duck cloth I mentioned compresses to ~ .016" and works well, but I haven't found a replacement for the few square inches that's remaining. 7 oz. denim is promising, but something a tad thicker would be better. Btw, regardless of thickness or powder charge, the trade gun has never "blown," shredded, or torn a patch. In fact, they could easily be used a second time.



*Although the Dixie mold cast a perfect .600" RB, performance was more erratic than the slightly smaller Tanner. I also had a virtually new Rapine .600" RB mold, which cast a .605" ball that my gun flat out didn't like, meaning wide dispersion of shots and almost never any touching. Both molds have since been sold.

[HARRYMPOPE]

MY 12ga NW gun would do that that sometimes 25 yards.At 50 is when i ran into problems.Actually my TC New Englander 12 was pretty accurate at 25 yards but beat the snot out of me.

[Hanshi]

almost any decent smoothbore will shoot small groups at 25 yards so that distance tells one nothing about how accurate the load/gun really is. To determine a smoothbore's accuracy it has to be tested at 50 yards. At that distance, what worked fine at close range can be all over the place at the longer range. For woods deer/bear hunting, groups of 4" to 6" are all that's required. A 6" group means that no ball is more than 3" from poa. Of course many can do better; some much, much better. Velocity is irrelevant as power is concerned. A 600" or .590" ball hits like Thor's hammer with the same results. If you intend shooting at 100yds or farther, velocity is important. The velocity difference between rifle and smoothy varies from gun to gun and is normally very small with little advantage going to either one.

http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/hanshi_photo/Picture011.jpg
This was 8 shots, I believe. Distance was 50 yards. I'm trying for a load that's easier to seat in the field.

http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/hanshi_photo/PICT0586.jpg
This is what's important, and if your gun/load can do it, then you are doing fine.

[Lonegun1894]

I think this is just a matter or load work-up. I usually use a Lyman GPR flinter with a GM .54 Smooth barrel with front and rear sights for the things that I need a smoothbore to hunt. The good loads give me 2-2.5" groups at 50yds. The bad ones during load development were up to 18" across, so those were just useless for my needs. I think this just shows that while a smoothbore may not be as accurate as a rifle, it still needs some attention to load work-up, and not just dropping anything small enough to fit down the bore as I have read in the past. For most of my hunting, I really think that smoothbore .54 is plenty good, but as of right now, with practice and the loads it likes, I trust it to 65-70yds on deer or hogs, but wouldn't think twice about taking a shot on the same game at 100yds, and possibly further if the conditions were right. So I go hunting knowing that I may have to pass up some shots, but this is a limitation that I can accept and usually doesn't affect me much as most of my shots are closer.

Hanshi,
BTW, nice gun and deer. Congratulations on both. And I think I have seen that picture posted elsewhere that we both visit. :)