Roundball Takes Deer

[TRG3]

The .690 roundball out of my 12 gauge H&R Ultra Slug Hunter worked great yesterday on the next-to-last day of the Illinois doe season. I took two does eight hours apart from the same base of a black oak tree. A couple of deer drives happened between taking those two does and, as usual, I was not in the right spot. Both does that I took were about 50 yards away and dropped in their tracks. One was a broadside lung shot and the other was a facing neck shot. I recovered the roundball from the latter in the hind quarter and, even through it was soft lead, it was barely deformed. Judging from the recoil of my load compared to a factory load, I'd say that mine was on the lighter side. At 50 yards off the bench, I've gotten 1" three shot groups from the following:

2 3/4" Fiocchi hull
27 grain of Herco
thin overshot card (to keep powder from creeping past wad)
Federal S3 wad with .125 20 gauge hard card in base of wad for roundball to sit on
.690 soft lead roundball with sprue reduced by rolling between two steel plates and loaded sprue up in wad
roll crimp

While I've not tried a heaver powder load, I may go up a grain or two just to see what it does at 75 yards or so.

[stripercrazy]

congrats on your deer

[bbs383ci]

Congrats

[nekshot]

Awesome and thanks for the load info. The shotgun scene with round balls is calling me loud and clear!

[littlejack]

Winter meat is good.
I have a few .690 rb's, that I want to load up and shoot in my 870 with the Hastings barrel. I hope they shoot as good as yours
do.
I have been loading the Lyman 525 grain Sabot Slug with 30 grains of Herco in a Remington case. Shoots very well with scope.
You should be able to raise your Herco charge some safely.
Jack

[longbow]

Congratulations on the hunt! Good shooting.

On load details, have you recovered wads? I am curious how they look after firing in rifled gun. I have as yet to get decent accuracy from 0.690" RB in smoothbore. I do well with 0.662" in shotcup and 0.735" on hard card wad column but for some reason the shotcup/ball combos I have tried with 0.690" just haven't worked for me. Even those shotcups that push easily through the barrel with a ball in place tend to shear or squish petals.

I am curious as to what yours look like because petal condition in rifled gun must have to be pretty good or accuracy would be poor.

Having said that, most shotcups I have tried are a bit thick for 0.690" but even those I tried that were a decent fit didn't shoot decently. I have not tried the Federal wads though as they are not readily available here. I may have to order some as many say they are very good wads.

I do like round ball shooting. They cast easy and load easy so that is a bonus.

I shot some 0.735" RB's through a borrowed rifled 870 a couple or three years ago and they shot very well. Makes me wonder why people bother with conicals ~ a 580 gr. round ball packs a punch! Different strokes! Also good to know that the 0.690" RB in shotcup is working well for you.

Good going!

Longbow

[SuperBlazingSabots]

Greetings TRG-3, I'm happy to read about your experience and success!
Thanks for sharing!

" No man is a failure, who is enjoying life" - William Feather

" A happy man is one who loads his own slugs and burn's powder at the range" - Blazing Sabots!

Time to start cooking your own, home cooked meal ( Sabot slug )

Knowledge not shared is knowledge lost!
Ajay
BlazingSabots@Gmail.com
Blazing Sabots, LLC
www.BlazingSabots.com
http://www.facebook.com/BlazingSabots?ref=hl
www.PreciousVideoMemories.com

[6pt-sika]

Congrats !

This makes me think I wanna give the idea of shooting single roundballs outta my 10 gauge W&C Scott as well as possibly my 16 gauge Parker .

Just need to decide on the correct diameter that I can shoot using the Remington SP wads .

[6pt-sika]

I have as yet to get decent accuracy from 0.690" RB in smoothbore. I do well with 0.662" in shotcup and 0.735" on hard card wad column but for some reason the shotcup/ball combos I have tried with 0.690" just haven't worked for me.


If I might ask what kinda accuracy did you get and at what yardage ?

With my old damascus smoothbore guns I am thinking if I can keep both barrels in a paper plate at 25 yards shooting a roundball that should be plenty good enough .

[longbow]

6pt-sika:

Is your gun choked? If so then you need a combination that will just fit through the tightest choke. If too tight the petals get squished and accuracy disappears ~ in my experience anyway.

Another option is to make or buy (if still available) donut wads. They are a felt wad with a hole in the middle. One under a "choke sized" ball keeps it centered in the bore. For that you trim petals off shotcups. An inverted gas seal can work too if the right cup size in it, or if available in 10 ga., the BPI brush wad is supposed to work well with undersize balls.

Not sure but I bet 0.735" RB's would fit into a 10 ga. shotcup. Might not make it through a choke though.

What is the Remington SP petal thickness?

What is the choke diameter (if it has chokes)?

The ball diameter plus two petal thicknesses should be about bore (choke) diameter so that will determine the ball diameter.

Ajay may have some info on 10 ga. He is always posting good info on wad/ball/slug fit but I wouldn't have paid any attention to 10 ga. I should though as I picked up an old W&C Scott & Son 10 ga. damascus barreled shotgun about a year or so ago. I have been meaning to get some photos of it to send to Hallowell to see if it has any collector value. If not I will refit it and make it into a shooter again. It is loose and has been abused but it could be fixed up. If it is worth anything as a collector piece (or parts) I would rather just sell it so it can be restored or used as a parts gun rather than "bubba" it.

If not then I would be looking at making a BP slug gun out of it.

I have no clue why but I like shooting these big round balls!

Longbow

[longbow]

Hah! I just posted and we were typing at the same time!

With my good loads for both 0.662" RB in a shotcup and for 0.735" RB on hard card wad column I am getting dependable groups of 3" to 4" at 50 yards. In a rifled gun I got 2" +/- a bit groups with the 0.735" RB loads.

The 0.690" RB loads are no better than most hollow base slug loads I have tried and good groups were running around 8" at 50 yards and some worse. It is all about fit. For the most part the wads I have are too thick for the 0.690" RB and petals squish or shear regularly. However, even with some thin petal wads I found that gave pretty good fit, accuracy still wasn't good. Not exactly sure why but possibly just gas seal or wad failure.

I usually load and shoot 10 for accuracy and also look for wads to check condition. For the most part, if accuracy is poor either the gas seal has failed or the petals are squished/sheared. Generally I find that a loose slide fit in the barrel has worked best for me if using a shotcup. Also, the 0.735" naked ball has done well in cylinder bore and rifled barrel. it is more work to make wad columns though.

If you get a good load going you should be able to do better than paper plate accuracy at 25 yards... from an individual barrel anyway. A tight choke may complicate things a bit and trying to find loads that work from both barrels with reasonable accuracy might be tricky though.

I have an internet buddy in North Carolina that has a Pedersoli 10. ga. muzzleloader side by and he uses round balls in it. He loves that gun and says he gets good accuracy for brush hunting with it. I am not sure if it is choked or cylinder bore.

Longbow

[TRG3]

Longbow...Concerning recovering those pinkish Federal S3 wads...In the vast majority of them, all four wad petals are still intact, show signs of the rifling, and exhibit a little crumpling. Only on a very few is only one petal missing. I suspect that if the Herco powder charge is increased from 27 grains, more wad damage will result. I've also used the Federal S3 wad in combination with Herco powder with the Lee Key Drive slug (34 grains) where one or two wad petals were often missing. Still, that load managed to print 3" groups off the bench at 50 yards. Going to a 3" Fiocchi hull in order to accommodate 40 grains of 4756 utilizing the Federal S3 wad, the Lyman 525 sabot also managed 3" groups at 50 yards off the bench, again some of the wad petals were often missing. All of the roundball, Lee, and Lyman loads proved to be very good at taking deer at 60 yards or less. Because I stand hunt in scrub timber, all of my shots are in this range. Also, I had limited results with the Lee slug using wheel weights in my load combo but the plumbers soft lead proved to be more accurate, so I have stuck with this type of lead for my slug/sabot/roundball loads.

[TRG3]

Longbow...In re-reading your post, I noticed that I did not respond to your mention of roundballs in a muzzleloading shotgun with which I also have some experience, having used one utilizing a roundball to take several deer. With my 20 gauge Fusil (smoothbore), a patched .600 roundball, and 70 grains of FFg black powder, it will shoot a cloverleaf off a bench at 30 yards. This was not happening until I placed a felt wad between the powder and patched roundball. This is very good accuracy when you consider that this firearm only has a front sight and the rear sight becomes consistent placement of your head on the stock so that you get the same sight picture time after time. (Using shot, the same smoothbore has taken a couple of turkeys.) At some point, I plan to use a patched roundball placed in a shotgun hull and used in my 12 gauge H&R USH. I'm not sure yet which to try first, a smaller patched roundball in a Federal S3 wad or a larger patched roundball without the wad. I think a patched roundball has potential. Anybody out there already gone down this road?

[725]

Congrats and good shooting. Thanks for the load data.

[6pt-sika]

Hah! I just posted and we were typing at the same time!

With my good loads for both 0.662" RB in a shotcup and for 0.735" RB on hard card wad column I am getting dependable groups of 3" to 4" at 50 yards.

Heck if I can get 4" both barrel groups at 35 yards with the W&C or my Ithaca SxS 10 gauge I'll be happy . The Ithaca is tight F&F , the W&C not as much so although I've not gauged it . I have shot quite a few rounds of skeet with the W&C and a number of them were 24 outta 25 . For some reason I always seem to let up and miss one LOL's !

The gun does well at trap and jap trap , so I am assuming it's a bit tighter then modified .As I've hit alot of trap birds that were a ways out there .

I think when I get home the end of February I might make a concerted effort to get a roundball mold for the pair of 10's and maybe one for the 16 Parker (the Parkers pretty much cylinder as an inch was cut of the ends of those barrels).

[longbow]

TRG3:

Thanks for the info. I always try to recover wads and do an inspection especially if accuracy isn't good.

Yeah, I copied an article about shooting round ball from smoothbore flinter here:

http://home.insightbb.com/~bspen/SmoothboreLoads.html

He gets pretty decent accuracy using an undersize ball over card and cushion wads. I also read an article where a fellow got consistent 3" groups at 75 yards with patched round ball from smoothbore.

As for patched round ball in a cartridge, I for one would not have thought that would work but... not only did I read on this site recently about a fellow using patched 0.690" RB (IIRC) in a 12 ga. cartridge with good results, several people have posted that they use a patched round ball in bottleneck cartridges for plinker rounds in rifles. I would have though the patch would strip of in the cartridge or during the jump through forcing cone/throat.

I would be wrong there according to them so it is certainly worth a try. Possibly the gas pressure keeps the patch wrapped on the ball as there is always some leakage. I just figured the ball would scoot out of that patch at its earliest opportunity because unlike a muzzleloader where the patch is tightly trapped, that is not really so in a cartridge or during the first bit of travel from cartridge to bore.

I have used a patched round ball in shotcup when using 0.662" balls with thin petal shotcups to take up the slack. That worked well for me but it was in smoothbore not rifled barrel. I guess if fit is good it should work in rifled barrel too.

I do like full bore balls but I also have a fear of one finding its way into a choked gun one day. That would not go well! Consequently I tend to load undersize balls in shotcups. Also, I have to admit that it is quicker and easier to load a ball into a plastic wad than to cut gas seals and build up hard card wad columns.

Longbow