Pumpkin balls/in a shotgun.

[Willyp]

Remember them? I think they were just a slug but were called pumpkin balls by us hill folks!
Anyhow,the hunters i grew up with,most of them could not afford 2 guns. I mean a shotgun and a rifle,so they used 12 gauge slugs.
I recall seeing the men taking a knife and carving x's across the face of the slug? Would this really do anything to the slug upon hitting a deer? I mean act like a hollow point slug?
If so,what would doing it to a Real bullet or a Maxi do upon hitting an animal? Any thoughts on this?

[johnson1942]

you know it may have done something to the ball. i shot a antelope at 125 yards once with a 50 cal roundball with 100 grains of real black behind it. it hit it in the left shoulder blade and the ball split in half and one half broke the right leg and the other half cracked the right shoulder blade. maybe the pumkin balls split in half on impact also. mine were not marked but they split in half. like to hear from others on this.

[fouronesix]

I always thought a shotgun slug was a conical and a shotgun pumpkin ball was a roundball. May be a regional thing?

At slower impact velocities I can't see any advantage or great effect created by Xing the nose of such a conical other than possibly making it less accurate.

I've also heard that the term "pumpkin roller" had something to do with a musket. The true origin of the term seems unclear but may have something to do with a large/slow projectile, either Minié or roundball, fired from a musket, imparting enough momentum to a pumpkin to cause is to roll.

[bob208]

when I first started hunting they were called pumpkin balls. my first use was with a Stevens 16 ga. single barrel. any one remember when the hardware store kept broken boxes and would sell you how ever many you wanted or could afford?

[Geezer in NH]

Modern/1900 era modern, cased shot shells have been loaded with a round ball and were referred to as Pumpkin balls

[Hellgate]

The 69cal RB is the pumpkin ball I use in 12ga.

[Good Cheer]

Serious fun trying to get two barrels figgered out!!

[gnoahhh]

One time as a young teenager, I gathered up all the old paper hulled 'pumpkin ball' loads my old man had laying around and went out and shot them all at fence posts with my old single shot 12 gauge. At the dinner table that night I was describing that ballistic experiment in detail- how well they cracked open locust fence posts- and Pop blew a gasket. Who would've thought he cared about a handful of old shells...

[bedbugbilly]

gnoahhh - LOL - Love that story and I can just see it happening! Hey, let's face it . .. we all did things like that we shouldn't have when we were kids! My Dad would have exploded as well . . . but that's one thing I never would have tried! We had 10 miles of fence to maintain on the farm and my Dad, brother and I were the ones who had to do it. I've dug more holes for end posts and "dead man" posts and driven more steel posts than I care to remember. We used a lot of rail road ties, locust and osage orange posts. One thing I do remember was we finished up a line fence one time a week before pheasant season started. It was a hard stretch to build as it was up and over hills and through swamps. We were so proud of that fence. A week after pheasant season started, we went to check on the cattle we had grazing and were ready to move and in less than 6 rods of that new fence, there were 7 "dog holes" cut! We were lucky that the cattle didn't get out and as aid, I didn't realize that a set of "side cutters" was standard equipment of some of the hunters who'd sneak in and trespass to hunt. I was brought up to respect what others owned . . . I learned quickly that a lot of folks weren't brought up that way.

I can also remember the "pumpkin balls" . . . that's what we called the "round ball slugs". The comment about the open boxes at the hardware store brought back many memories. Our local hardware did the same thing . . . you could buy 1 or whatever you wanted by the piece. Those days are certainly gone!

[fouronesix]

Reading through these posts jogged my memory. My first shotgun was a 16 ga single shot hammer break open I found. At about age 9 or 10 I had enough shotshells fired through it to gain enough confidence to turn to my "experimental" side. Growing up in a rural area offered lots of time to entertain one's self or in other words time to get into some kind of trouble. One day I had the bright idea to pry open the crimp on a shell and insert a glass marble of just the right size. Aha! a glass punkin ball shotshell. Well, the ballistic performance of that was pitiful and didn't impress me in the least, even at that inexperienced age. Kind of a whumpf sound and no recoil. Actually, a black cat sized firecracker propelled a glass marble out of a homemade hand held cannon with a heckuva lot more authority. I imagine the low mass of the marble simple didn't force the powder to pressurize itself and come up to full burn rate.

[Rick N Bama]

First off let's get the terminology correct! It's a "Punkin" Ball, not Pumpkin Ball

[longbow]

The term "Punkin' ball' originally referred to round ball loads as far as I know but may well have carried over to the later Foster HB slugs the factories offered.

I tried punkin' balls (0.690" RB's) in my old Pedersoli side by 12 ga. muzzleloader about 40 years ago but could not ever get any sort off accuracy from it. I tried it in cartridge guns as well and again no sort of decent accuracy. Fast forward to about 5 years ago (or maybe a little more) when I got going on serious slug shooting experiments and again, I could not get decent results from that 0.690" ball (Lyman mould). However, I did get excellent results from both 0.662" ball in shotcups and 0.735" ball naked on a hard card wad column with pretty predictable 3" to 4" groups at 50 yards.

In fact so far out to 50 yards I have had few home cast slugs perform as well as round balls. Factory Foster slugs are a different story. They seem to do very well to at least 50 yards. I think the factories work hard on good wad columns to support and center the slug.

Now as to carving "X's" in the nose. Having tried various things I have heard about back when I was young (like "X's"), I will say it would have no effect unless actually sawed deeply into the slug and since Foster slugs are very thin walled I think you would have to almost cut right through the nose to get a "petal" separation. On a round ball no effect because you could never guarantee the "X" would be on the "nose" since balls spin in flight. They tend to over expand anyway so why bother?

Certainly no harm in doing it or trying if you are curious though. Experimentation is always fun and informative even if you don't find what you are looking for.

I believe a good HP would be more effective and easier to make. A REAL, Maxi or other conical can be drilled in a lathe or jig (or HP mould made) to make a central HP that is consistent unlike carving a hole or "X" but do you really need extra expansion from a 12 ga. slug or large bore muzzleloader conical? Soft lead should do all you want.

My $0.02 anyway.

Longbow

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Good story, gnoahhh. My dad would have been equally as mad about the damaged fence posts!

Have y'all seen (or done?) the thing where they take a knife and cut all the way around the middle of a shotgun shell's hull (but not quite clear through) and fire it? The shell separates where the cut was made and the whole front end goes out like one big slug. The shot is held together by the front end of the hull and it's pretty devastating. No--I haven't done it myself.

[fouronesix]

Good story, gnoahhh. My dad would have been equally as mad about the damaged fence posts!

Have y'all seen (or done?) the thing where they take a knife and cut all the way around the middle of a shotgun shell's hull (but not quite clear through) and fire it? The shell separates where the cut was made and the whole front end goes out like one big slug. The shot is held together by the front end of the hull and it's pretty devastating. No--I haven't done it myself.

Yep, called a "ring around" (that's what we used to call them anyway). I hadn't done it or been around anyone who know what they were for at least 25 years, then a few months ago I found the remnants of a ring around at the local range.

[dondiego]

They are also called "cut shells" and are illegal to use for deer hunting in Michigan as are round "punkin' balls".

[John Taylor]

Actually, a black cat sized firecracker propelled a glass marble out of a homemade hand held cannon with a heckuva lot more authority. .

A piece of 1/2" water pipe, an elbow and plug make a very good marble gun with black cats. Found out it will put a marble through a chalk board and make a big dent in an old steel garage door.

On my old Knickerbocker SXS 12, I use .715" round ball and could hit a pop can at 50 yards most of the time.

[toot]

pumpkin balls in a 10 gauge paper shell really bring back memories. about 65 years ago I took some of my fathers roll crimped paper shells and saw that it had a round ball in it and I remember that it had a 5 pointed star on the top of it, so I just had to cut it open to see if it was indeed a round ball? well it was and my father went ballistic over his PUNKIN BALL SHELL that I cut open. some things you never forget!!.

[curator]

Lyman .735 round ball wrapped in greased pillow ticking patch in all brass shells can be relied on to shoot 4" groups to 75 yards from my rifled 12 gauge single shot H&R. I did add lead weight to the butt stock to tame some of the recoil. 1250 fps using 28 grains of Unique, 2, .125 11 gauge card wads and one 11 ga. 1/2" cushion. For shock and awe substitute 80 grains of FFg black powder. Patched ball fits tight enough that no over shot wad or crimp is required. The key to "punkin' ball" accuracy is tight fit in the bore. ACWW alloy is most accurate in my rifled bores but pure lead works just as well in my cylinder bore "coach gun."

[toallmy]

A little five and dime store in parsley va. Would sell us kid's as little as one or two shells at a time thay would take soda bottles as well . No thay did not ask for Id .thay New you. I get my id checked for a box of 22s now .

[TheGuyFromSouthamerica]

What about an Lee Round Ball (lead) diameter .562" in an 20 gauge shotgun as an slug?

Will be a kind of George Washington musket load. As I remember the smooth bore shotgun is nothing else then an modern musket. I believe the Brown Bess (english musket) was an 10 gauge, the french frontier musket was an 20 gauge and the american musket was an 12 gauge (if I remember well). So the shotgun is an modern slide action cartridge musket.