Black Powder Buckshot: Well what did Doc Holiday use?

[RMc]

Ran across this article where 1880 vintage doubles were test patterned:

http://thetombstoneclub.com/randylish/shotgun/

[cpileri]

I wonder if that is a phenomenon we can replicate here: tight patterning short barrel shotguns?

Reason i muse is that i havea friend w a cheap Chinese 12ga double, cylinder bore that shoots remington 00 buck shot to all 9 pellets in 5" at 20 yards. I was really impressed.

maybe its the low velocity? the fiber wads? the shotgun? i dunno.

Also, we might want to look into Virgil Earp's shootgun, as it may be that is the one that Doc Holliday had at the OK Corral:
In Stuart Lake's Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal, Wyatt states, "Doc Holliday never carried a sawed-off shotgun into a fight but once in his life and upon this one occasion (the Tombstone gunfight) he threw the gun down in disgust after firing one shot and jerked the nickel-plated Colt's which was for years his favorite weapon."

[35remington]

The black powder patterns are pretty decent, admittedly. At 30 feet they were around 5 1/2 to 7 inches, and using non flite control buckshot and sorting through a few brands a cylinder bore modern shotgun can duplicate that. Some buck will do 8 to 9 inches at 30 feet, but some will do about the same as black gives. With flitecontrol buckshot the pattern is one .73 caliber hole at 30 feet in my riot pumps. In other words, the buck hasn't come out of the wad yet to give an increase in pattern diameter.

All accounts have Doc Holliday killing Frank McLaury with a shotgun. If he "flung the gun down in disgust" that only had to be after it was empty, or misfired. I can't imagine anyone, gunfighter or not, flinging down a functional shotgun with a shootable shell left and giving preference to any handgun.

Shotgun wins over handgun every time as to hittability and power.

[Hogtamer]

35r... are you working on a jackleg flite control wad we can duplicate????if it can be made it can be copied to some degree. most folks don't get the lethaliity of buckshot at distances of up to 50 yds. in about 3 seconds i can put 50 .330 balls in the air moving at about 1300 fps with 15 -20 in a 10 " circle. that's a wall of lead in any fight. i'd love to tighten that pattern up, thus my interest in those wads. maybe we can get folks to get their thinking caps on....

[cpileri]

Any usnlit wad (BP sells CSD and others) can be cut w the petals like a flightcontrol wad. The over powder part is different and the plastic is not as stiff, but the petals, that are still "attached" (so not petals at all) around the top of the wad but which come away a few millimeters from the top, could be cut.

I have a FC wad somewhere, and i will try to post a pic later.

C-

[kens]

shotgun patterns get tighter with lower velocity.
jack up the velocity to get wider patterns.
An old black powder shotgun way to adjust barrel choke.

[RMc]

That both the 10 and 12 gauge doubles used in the article had 20" barrels, this suggests that both were cylinder bore. Other pattern variables could include lower pressure / slower acceleration resulting in less pellet deformation and shorter card/fiber wad columns, (due to BP bulk). A short wad column would have resulted in reduced pattern disruption compared to dense smokeless powder loads with a long heavy card/fiber wad column ramming into the shot at the muzzle.

The historical connection with the physicians description of the wounds sustained at the OK Corral fight certainly added an element of authenticity to the article.

[cpileri]

Here is the pic I promised. Since the wad is black, it is hard to make out details, so I drew up some diagrams and took measurements. Hope you all can enlarge the pic enought to be useful. C-

[Hogtamer]

perfect illustration carl, thanks! ok, so i've got long multi-metal wads...if i could magically cut 3 "flaps" just above the OP section i'd be in business...a hot razor blade might do it....looks like federal would just sell the wads at a premium, still not that many shooters as a % are reloaders. don't see where it would hurt their sales.

[cpileri]

right, shouldnt be too hard.
we can even do an experiment: cut one to match the FC.
the other cut 4 or even 5 petals thinner, same length maybe, but narrow enough that a buckshot will not pass through it even by chance; so less than .320-ish wide.

the trade off would be less surface area to fan out and catch the wind to peel back; it also might be more likely to fly coocked since 3 points are always coplanar(*) and a three petalled wad might be better. Have to experiment and see.

C-

(*) though that plane might still not be perpendicular in all apsects to the bore axis

[cpileri]

Hogtamer,
Did you ever get to cutting any DIY-flightcontrol wads and have any success?
C-

[ksfowler166]

I am not sure how well some of these techniques work with black powder (or buck shot for that matter) but I do know they work with smokeless powder and birdshot. Some things you can do to tighten groups is to;

1)Reduce the powder charge, well actually having a low velocity and most importantly low pressure. It is a waste of time to reduce a 13000psi load to 11000psi when a 7000psi load is available.

2)Use a plastic wad especially one with a large cushion section. Make sure to use a nitro OP card otherwise you will have plastic all up and down the barrel.

3)Use hard (high antimony content 5-6%) shot.

4)Use a buffer.

5)Use a couple pieces of Scotch tape to tape the petals of the wad close.

Or you always could just install choke tubes or a jug choke but where is the fun in that.

[Hogtamer]

Better yet, struck a deal to buy some Carl. Don't know how folks come by them but I'm hoping to have them next week.

[cpileri]

Really!!! OK, I guess maybe your source wants to be kept anonymous, but...
Where did you find them?!?!?!
C-

[Multigunner]

I'd read that Doc Holiday held the Shotgun sideways the barrels one above the other and when he fired both barrels went off one a split second after the other. He had meant to shoot his opponent in the legs but due to the kick the man was peppered by 32 buck shot from the top of one foot to the top of his head.
Don't know how much truth there is in that.

The gun going off like that may be why he threw it down in disgust.
Probably kicked the dog do out of him as well.

[Multigunner]

All accounts have Doc Holliday killing Frank McLaury with a shotgun.

It was Tom McLaury that Doc killed with the shotgun.
Frank was gut shot then shot in the head with a pistol bullet.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I think a razor blade would cool down too quickly, and the job might be more laborious with a cold one. For shortening 10ga cases to the old 2¾in. size, I bought a cheap electric soldering iron, cut a slit in the tip with a thin saw blade, and silver-soldered a modelling knife blade in place. I think just squashing the copper onto the blade in a vice would do as well.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Impossible, I think. A loosely held shotgun may move quite a distance, but not in the twentieth of a thousandth of a second or so that it takes for the shot to exit the muzzle, first pellets to last. How could a fast shot ever shoot a fast bird if it sprayed the shot like a hosepipe?

[Bullshop Junior]

The black powder patterns are pretty decent, admittedly. At 30 feet they were around 5 1/2 to 7 inches, and using non flite control buckshot and sorting through a few brands a cylinder bore modern shotgun can duplicate that. Some buck will do 8 to 9 inches at 30 feet, but some will do about the same as black gives. With flitecontrol buckshot the pattern is one .73 caliber hole at 30 feet in my riot pumps. In other words, the buck hasn't come out of the wad yet to give an increase in pattern diameter.

All accounts have Doc Holliday killing Frank McLaury with a shotgun. If he "flung the gun down in disgust" that only had to be after it was empty, or misfired. I can't imagine anyone, gunfighter or not, flinging down a functional shotgun with a shootable shell left and giving preference to any handgun.

Shotgun wins over handgun every time as to hittability and power.

Only out to a certain range. If some guy jumped on a horse and took off, and got out to 100 yards, I'd rather have the pistol too.

[35remington]

Yeah, but knowing you're going to be in a gunfight in a town, as the Earps and Holliday did, you'd be foolish to choose a pistol over a shotgun for the first two shots the double carried. Then you can fling it down when it was empty......but there would be absolutely no reason for "disgust" given that the shotgun fired normally.

A guy speeding along on a horse at 100 yards is not in serious danger from a pistol shooter from that era or, realistically, even this one. Some danger, yeah, but mostly to the horse. Since this gunfight, as well as most others, took place at way less than even 50 yards once again shotgun trumps pistol. Holliday knew that or he wouldn't have brought it along. Doc was nothing if not savvy in what works best when danger is imminent.

Also keep in mind most of these guys were banging away at each other with blackpowder revolvers at ranges in the vicinity of 30 feet or less, if even that. Before the shooting commenced the reports of the fight placed them even closer together than 30 feet. The great majority of shots fired missed. The hit/miss ratio was low.

Pistols are carried for convenience, mostly, not for a high level of hittability. The smart gunfighter, if he knows he's getting into a fight beforehand, carries a rifle or shotgun. Doc was smart in these matters.