Round ball in 20ga

[SuperBlazingSabots]

Greetings, I just really enjoyed reading this old post full of great ideas for 20 ga RB lovers.
With the 20 ga .575RB as I kept raising the powder charge by 1/2 gr thePOI kept coming up !

The first .125- 28 ga nitro card Must be pushed down home so I used this from my socked set with 3/8 socket to push it home !



If look at the picture above carefully, three .125- 28 gauge nitro cards below the RB is Ok but two cards sure needs to be changed to 2 1/2 cards for a better fit, next time use 2 1/2 nitro cards below .575 RB and one in the bottom cavity !
Best regards,
Ajay K. Madan
Super Blazing Sabots

[bcp477]

I am shooting round balls in 20 gauge, with great success (at least for targets, as I no longer hunt). I use a Hornady, swaged 54 cal. ball (actually .530" dia.), in a Claybusters CB1075-20 wad. I load these in both tapered hulls (Winchester), as well as straight hulls (Fiocchi and Cheddite) - with a small variation. The load for the Winchester hulls is as follows: 14.0 grains of Hodgdon International, the CB wad with the petals cut off approx. 1/2 of their normal length, one 1/2" dia. card in the bottom of the shot cup, followed by a dry- rolled paper cup rolled from ordinary lined notebook paper (to take up the excess space in the shot cup and prevent the ball from bouncing around), with the the ball placed inside the paper cup (of course). Lastly, an overshot card on top, with the shell closed up with about 1/8" of ordinary parrafin wax ("candle wax"). The "small variation" is for use with the straight hulls (Fiocchi and Cheddite) - as the CB wad gas check portion does not fit those hulls. So, I add a plastic gas check over the powder, followed by one overshot card...then the rest of the load the SAME as before.

As for results...I am getting about 2" groups at 25 yards...and about 6" to 7" groups at 50 yards. The stogun is a Stoeger Uplander 20 gauge SxS, with barrels cut to 20"...and thus, cylinder bore. The sights consist of simply a fibre optic front bead and a half- round notch cut into the top of the receiver (to serve as a rear sight). Note though, that lining up the front bead directly into the rear notch causes the gun to shoot about 10" low at 25 yards. So, I hold about 0.2" high at 25...and about 0.4" high at 50. That corrects for the elevation. The rear notch, thusly, is really only used for windage purposes. But, I have become used to the sights, rudimentary as they are, so they don't seem to hinder my shooting.

In future, I will probably fabricate a higher rear sight and install it on the receiver, so that I can aim directly using the sights like a "normal" set. That will probably give me more precision, especially at 50 yards. I have not tested this rig beyond 50 yards, as of yet.

I should also add that I have no idea of the velocity, as I have no chronograph. But, the balls are about 225 grains, so I would imagine that they are moving pretty quickly, given the powder charge is the same as for a 7/8 oz. (382 grain) shot load.

But, I am pretty satisfied, so far.