Black Powder Shotshell reloading

[8Bore]

Greetings All,
I recently picked up a pretty unique shotgun and am wondering if anyone else out there shoots anything similar.
It is a Belgian double barrel 8 gauge. In most respects it is like many other common Belgian shotguns of the late 1800s - turn of the century with external hammers, underlever, twist barrels, etc, but it is a massive 8 gauge.
Barrels are very heavy and thick with great smooth and shiny bores. They are uncut at 34 inches and choked full x full. Locks up tight and solid.
It is in great shape and I am planning to shoot it and wondering if anyone out there has any favorite loads for the big 8's.
Im no stranger to black powder and antique weapons, having used them for the majority of my hunting and shooting for the past 30 years. Please refrain from any warnings about the horrors of shooting Damascus
My plan is to start out with very mild 10 gauge style loads of about 4 drams of 1f and an equal amount of shot with appropriate card and cushion wads and a roll crimp. According to my copy of The Gun and its Development by W.W. Greener (9th Ed.) the service load for an 8 bore is 6 drams (164 grains) of black and 2 1/4 oz shot. That seems much heavier a load than I will ever need, plus he is talking about shooting top quality British guns, which my Belgian export gun sure aint!
I also have an old Dixie Gun Works catalog, and in the back there is a chart of "1887 Muzzleloading Proof Loads" (I assume this is from the Birmingham proof house). There it states that the service charge is 4 15/16 drams (135 grains) and 1 15/16 oz shot. This sounds like a more reasonable general purpose load.
Anyway sorry for being long winded, just wondering if others out there enjoy the big bores.
Tried to post a few pictures but couldn't get them to upload.
Thanks!
Zach

[Knarley]

Close as I can come is a muzzle loading 10 ga. I also have a Damascus 16, they are both a hoot to shoot. Pheasant hunt with the 10. I say to start on the lower end first and work your way up. I would also stick with wadding, the plastic shot cups tend to melt when using Black. Ballistic products will most likely have every thing you need, have fun.
Knarley

[elk hunter]

I too have an 8 bore like yours. I use the commercial 8 bore cases and I swage the reinforced base inward rather than cut the excess metal off. I haven't shot it in years so can't recall the exact load but do remember that I loaded 2 ozs. of shot, powder was probably equal volume to the shot. Do use single F powder and start with 10 bore loads. I've only shot clay targets with mine as we can't hunt birds with it here. At 16 lbs. it's a bit heavy and slow to swing but powders the bird if you center it. Be careful as I had mine double on me and will just say the result was a real awakening.

[bedbugbilly]

8Bore . . . . pictures! pictures! Would love to see your 8 bore! Over the years I have owned several 10 gauge side hammer/damascus barrel shotguns but I never shot them - wished now that I had kept them and not let them go. The largest bore that I have owned was an original muzzleloading percussion "market gun" that was a 4 gauge. It was in great shape but I was never man enough to load it up! LOL I sold that one a number of years ago.

Good luck with your project - sounds like a nice double and ought to be a lot of fun!

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Your thinking seems very sound. Do you mean that the barrels are very heavy in the sense of thickness, or just being an enormous gun? As you probably know, damascus isn't a bad barrel material unless it has been impaired, either by pitting, reboring or the raising of excessively deep dents. Heavy walls are unlikely to have been deeply dented, and a shotgun of this age is likely to bear the bore diameter and weight of the barrel assembly, to determine whether it has been bored thinner.

http://damascus-barrels.com/Belgian_All_Proofmarks.html

A general principle of shotgun design is that there is no point in making the barrels resist greater pressure than the action, or the action than the barrel. The rotary underlever lasted longer in large calibres and in rifles than it did in ordinary sizes, because it is one of the strongest. That isn't because it draws the barrels down tightly onto the action table, which doesn't much matter, but because it removes less metal at the most vulnerable spot, the right angle junction of the action table and the standing breech face.

[Reverend Al]

I used to see the odd 8 gauge shell at local guns shows, but I haven't seen any in years. CIL (Canadian Industries Ltd.) used to load industrial 8 gauge plastic shells with a BIG flat topped zinc slug. They were fired from a tripod mounted 8 gauge single shot to break up the "clinkers" that build up in concrete baking kilns. Winchester made them too so you might try contacting them to see if 8 gauge industrial hulls could be purchased from them?

[8Bore]

Trying to post some pictures but I cant get them to upload. Not sure what im doing wrong but keep getting an error message. I have the pics saved on my phone, computer, and in dropbox so if anyone can tell me how to get them to upload here id be glad to try again.
Elkhunter what do you use to swage down the industrial band on the shells? I have a supply of industrial shells and have cut the bands off several of them but swaging seems like it would be much easier. I have not yet been able to stomach the turned brass shells at $15 each.
Ballistics in Scotland when I say the barrels are very heavy I am referring to both the weight and the thickness! I wish I could get the pictures to work because I have a pic of the 8 next to a 12 and the breech is just massive. Barrel walls are very thick and there are no dents and the bores are very nice. It has not been rebored or honed as best I can tell. They are not prefect it just looks like a gun that was well used but also well cared for. Thanks for the chart of proofmarks! I will check under the barrels next time I have a minute and see what they can tell me.

[elk hunter]

8Bore,

I made up a steel ring type die from 2.50" diameter round stock with a 1" long tapered hole through it with slightly rounded edges. I use an Arbor press to press them in to and out of the die, first into the large end then the smaller end. The large end of the die is .950" the small end is .928". those sizes work for my cases and gun. Much easier than cutting the reinforcing band off.

[8Bore]

I think I finally go the pictures to upload....lets see if this works.
The big 8 is sitting next to a American Arms semi hammerless 12 gauge. It looks like a baby next to the 8.
And that is a 10 ga shell inside the 8 ga shell btw.

[Stopsign32v]

How much does a fireable 8 gauge SxS shotgun cost? I looked and saw most all in the thousands. Also I'd imagine an 8 gauge would be hell on a stock.

[8Bore]

For sure they are not cheap. For one thing they are fairly rare in this country because they were outlawed for hunting so long ago.
Believe it or not all 8 gauge (and larger) guns were Not exclusively "market" guns. Before they were banned they were actually quite a popular general purpose hunting gauge.
The development of smokeless powder eventually allowed a 12 ga to shoot more like the old short 10ga (2 7/8" vs the modern 3.5 ") which is a very simplified version of how the 12 ga came to be the most popular all around shotgun gauge.
Before that the 10 ga was the utility gun, much like the 12 ga is now, and a 10 ga would have been commonly used for everything from dove and squirrel to geese on up to big game.
But back when the 10 was king the 8 was much more widely used for things like goose, duck and turkey hunting where more power and longer shots were needed (like market hunting).
It was also a very popular defense weapon. Again the 10 ga was king, but the big 8s were also used heavily by "shotgun messengers" guarding payroll, stage coaches, etc. First example that comes to mind is when old west lawman Heck Thomas used an 8 gauge to kill outlaw Bill Doolin in the late 1890s.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

That is an extremely nice gun, and I don't see a thing to suggest that it wouldn't be perfectly usable with the sort of loads for which it was intended. From the point of view of safety it is the thickness of the barrels in the area around the front of the chamber that matters. and that looks ample.


For a long time it was possible to put a shotgun load into a longer case of the next size smaller, and yet you got better patterns if you didn't. Steel shot and shot-cup wads have reduced that advantage, but I don't believe it is gone entirely, and it is the weight and speed of what comes out the front end that makes the recoil.

Does the US ban on hunting with the 8ga apply only to birds? It would be extremely good with buckshot on deer or pig, going a long way towards solving the dilemma of whether you go for big enough shot or small enough spaces between them. Nobody is going to take much of a hammering from the number of those you would fire in a day.

I can't see how the ban was any better for conservation than firing five much cheaper cartridges in rapid succession from a semi-auto or pump-action.

[8Bore]

Ballistics in Scotland, regarding the regulations I can't speak for the rest of the country but I just checked the regulations for the state of Georgia where I live. From what I just read for deer and Bear any Centerfire weapon that is 22 caliber or larger is legal. regarding shotguns it just says 20 gauge or larger with either slugs or Buckshot is legal. For turkeys it just says shotguns with number 2 or smaller shot. Regarding small game and fur bearing animals any shotgun with a three and a half inch or less length shell is legal regarding waterfowl the regulations state that any 10 gauge or smaller shotgun is legal. So from what I can tell really the 8 gauge is only banned from shooting waterfowl. Hogs are considered a nuisance and there is no closed season on them so no regulations on Weaponry that I could find. Of course if anyone out there has any differing information I would be glad to hear it but from what I can tell using the 8 gauge for deer bear turkey and Hogs would be fine

[Ballistics in Scotland]

It's good to know it can still have a role in the hunting field. Whether or not you do it, that makes it seem more real than a suit of armour or a grandfathered Thompson.

I have an idea, though I can't find it in any reference book, that there was a 4¼in. 8ga cartridge, but if so it was uncommon, and you are unlikely to have one of those. You would have to check the regulations carefully to see whether the use of the shorter cartridge in the long chamber is permitted.