smoothbores - how small can you go?

[GARD72977]

I attended a match last month and a guy was shooting a 40cal smoothbore rifle and doing quite well out to about 60 yds. It got me thinking about doing a smoothbore 32 cal. I only want to shoot out to about 35 yds anyway. would this work?

[DIRT Farmer]

short answer yes. my little smooth bore is a 45, reasonable for deer hunting and as it is built as a fowler have ran 14 on a skeet field (16 in M/L skeet) with a load of 3/8th oz of #9s.

Best day by a long shot!

[rhbrink]

I've read of 25 cal smooth rifles mainly used for small game hunting at close ranges. If I really think about it during most of the squirrel season in my parts a 25 yd shot is a long shot with all the foliage. Later in the fall when the leaves start falling then it's easy to stretch shots out a bit. But even at that a 35 to 50 yd shot at a squirrels head over open sights is pretty iffy for me. Now 30 years ago different story.

RB

[Nobade]

Well, there are 9mm rimfire shotguns available so a muzzle loader that size should work for very short range shots. Come to think of it, a little 9mm flintlock fowler would be a great thing to build for the kids to play with. CVA used to sell cheap muzzle loading .410 shotguns and they bring stupid big prices these days on auction sites so somebody must think they work.

-Nobade

[Nobade]

I've read of 25 cal smooth rifles mainly used for small game hunting at close ranges. If I really think about it during most of the squirrel season in my parts a 25 yd shot is a long shot with all the foliage. Later in the fall when the leaves start falling then it's easy to stretch shots out a bit. But even at that a 35 to 50 yd shot at a squirrels head over open sights is pretty iffy for me. Now 30 years ago different story.

RB

That would be interesting to try. I have read about several people building rifles using Ed Rayl's 25 cal. rifle barrels and shooting #4 buckshot in them with good results. For the ranges involved, I wonder if a smoothbore wouldn't work just as well and be easier to deal with.

-Nobade

[GARD72977]

I was thinking that loading and cleaning would be much easier with a smoothbore. If the accuracy of RB is ok for short shots it would be fun. I don't think that there is any use for a load of shot from anything smaller that a 45cAL

[rhbrink]

If I were to make one I think that a 32 would be small enough. Just thinking about a ramrod - cleaning rod small enough to go down a 25 bore would be enough to scare me off. Maybe some kind of brass rod guess you wouldn't have worry about wearing out the rifling.

RB

[Whiterabbit]

.25" brass rod for sure. Or for a quarter bore, 3/16" if that will fit.

My 58 cal uses a 3/8" solid brass rod for a range rod and it is the bee's knees for all things loading and cleaning. tap one side 8/32 and the other side 10/32 ad you are GTG.

I'd like to build a flint pistol. It will use a brass ramrod also.

[Bullshop]

Daisy made a lot of smooth bores in .177

[Nobade]

Sitting at my bench today looking at an old rusty .22 barrel and wondering how it would work for a tiny muzzle loader if relined with some stainless hydraulic tubing, about 1/4 inch ID. Hmmm.....

As you said, BB guns work so why not this?

-Nobade

[GARD72977]

im really thinking of doing a 32 underhammer smooth bore. I may even do the octagon to round bbl. Keep it light and long

[Bullshop]

""As you said, BB guns work so why not this?""
Fouling maybe.

[John Taylor]

Many years back I made an underhammer BB pistol. Used about 4 grains of 4F. Barrel was made from a piece of brass and I used a number drill the same size as a BB. Had to buy the more expensive BBs because the Daisy BBs had a flat on each side and would not shoot strait. At 25 yards it went through a 1" board, found out after shooting at a paper target on the back fence. It was about as loud as a 38 special. Someone called the Sheriff on us when we were shooting at pop cans that we picked up off the beach in winter and were throwing into the river, trying to sink them before they got out of range. Deputy walked down the beach and asked what we were doing and I said " shooting pop cans with a BB gun". He had not heard the gun go off so he walked away with a disgusted look and said someone told him we were shooting a .375. He never asked to look at the gun. One guy shot at a 100 yard target and hit it, this out of a 3" long barrel.

[fouronesix]

:mrgreen: Oh that brings back memories! Today the kids would be in juvenile detention going through a bunch of de-programming anti gun/anti terrorism psych therapy and the parents would be in jail!

When kids, 10-12 yrs old or so, we used to build tiny smooth bore cannons and even some hand cannons- mostly for shooting at the opposing "army" of lead soldiers and forts. The smallest used a coupling off a wire motorcycle spoke. Cut open some shotshells for the pellets. Packed a little powder in the coupling, tamped in a pellet maybe size #6, hold a match to it...... pop! The ideal cannon was a piece of steel tubing with about a 1/4" bore. Screwed a plug in the end, drilled a touch hole and mounted on a block of 2x4 shaped like a carriage. Used fireworks fuse and a little scavenged fine BP from fireworks. Put a little powder in, rammed down the right size ball bearing, inserted fuse, aimed cannon, light fuse... bang! Even fashioned a hand held "hand cannon". A little bigger bore and would shoot marbles like nobody's business! One of the many good things about growing up in a very rural area- no busy bodies around to call the law. And since everyone living within earshot had a gun or two and hunted occasionally, no one payed any attention to a "bang" now and then. My have times changed.

[John Taylor]

The spoke guns were lots of fun, used a wad of tin foil and a crushed match for powder. You never knew when it was going to go bang as it had to be heated up with a match. Then there was the firecracker guns made from 1/2" water pipe. Did you know a firecracker gun could put a marble through a chalk board and leave a big dent in a metal garage door? How about a little 1/4" bore canon using jet-ex fuse and match heads. Got in trouble for that one.

[rhbrink]

OH Yeh! Firecracker guns they will get a feller in trouble. I made one up once that looked like a minature cannon, the only problem was that I didn't have a full understanding of breechplugs and breech pressure. I found out real quick.

RB

[Boz330]

How about a little 1/4" bore canon using jet-ex fuse and match heads. Got in trouble for that one.

Jet-ex fuse, I haven't thought about that stuff in years. I also used match heads in my early exploding experiments. Did a number on my hand once when one went off during construction. Geeeessshhh, I'm lucky to be as old as I am.

Bob

[fouronesix]

Hah! Thought I was the only unsupervised miscreant juvenile delinquent.

If nothing else, I learned from a very early age to respect the stored energy in powder be it black or smokeless and even primers. Having a 22 and single shot shotgun since 9, I was taught the meaning of muzzle control and loaded gun... in no uncertain terms as in leather belt reinforcement training. The other high danger/gotta respect/no ifs, ands or buts about it, besides respect for firearms, IIRC, was farm machinery- namely the powered implements and power take off equipment. I grew up in the pre safety shield era of farm equipment.

Nothing like first hand experience with harnessing the energy of relatively small quantities of powder like seeing what a cherry bomb or M-80 could do. It was even a given that the much smaller black cat was nothing to mess with. And even the tiny lady finger was not to be held in hand! So, this hands-on learning carried over to making those first crude firearms- like the small "toy" cannons. And even today those lessons have served me well in better understanding and respecting, at least the potential of confined powder, in a "real" gun.

[Whiterabbit]

aaaaaaaand thats why we are in the mess we are in. kids arent allowed to be kids anymore, dont understand firearms, dont respect them, and end up accidentally or intentionally shooting up a liquor store or liquorstore owner or school full of kids.

Therefore, noone may be allowed these products.

[GARD72977]

When I posted this I was thinking 32cal. Ya'll have taken this down all the way to .177 I have lost control of this thread!!!!!!!! Now Im even thinking of doing something stupid with a real small homemade gun!

[OverMax]

My father after two days of my ownership broke the stock off my Red Rider smooth bore when I punched a hole in our neighbors basement casement window by accident. If he only knew what I did latter on he would of put me in a State Institutions for boys till I was 21.


doing something stupid with a real small homemade gun! Made a few myself. "Zip Gun"

[johnson1942]

now you guys have got all us older guys going and confessing. in my later teens i took a piece of about 4 inches in diam by 5 inches long steel and had a friends dad who had a lathe bore a 3/4 inch hole in it to about a inch from the back. then bored a touch hole in it . made one of these civil war motars out of it in a crude sort of way. we got a can of black powder and used fire cracker fuses in the touch hole. we would shoot it at a vacant part of the lake we fished on in minn. off of the top of a picnic table. we would shoot 3/4 inch bolts cut off as bullets. they would go like a canon and it was very powerful. i then went to the navy and when i got out 4 years later it was in a box of junk of mine at my parents house. well my teenage cousin from ne. was visiting and i gave it to him. well you all probably guees the next part as police were involed. he took it back to ne. and was shooting it in his driveway useing only newspaper in front of the powder but my uncle said it was very very loud. of course my aunt and uncle werent home at the time but the police talked to them later. well the police showed up took it from him and then they took it to a local blacksmith and had him cut it up with a cutting torch. end of cannon. some how the police was at the end of most of our stories. also about 25 years ago while at a very large lake in n.dak. i saw a cannon a guy made to scale. its barrel was about 18 inches long and the diam was to scale in diam. it shot golf balls useing black powder and it was very powerful and fun to watch. no police in that one. the fellow who invented the magspark nipple made a few guns that would shoot a regular copper plated bb useing a shotgun primer as the power behind it they shot well he said. this is all off track but fun to read and brings back many of memories. also on a serious note and i think i will get a few amens. all that shooting we did when we were very young helped us stay alive when the real shooting started and we knew how to use guns when the bullets were going both ways when we were in the military. i loved the m1 and the bar. i sure could hit with them.

[Texantothecore]

I attended a match last month and a guy was shooting a 40cal smoothbore rifle and doing quite well out to about 60 yds. It got me thinking about doing a smoothbore 32 cal. I only want to shoot out to about 35 yds anyway. would this work?

.32 is your basic squirrel rifle so I would think it would be perfect. Make it a rock lock and have some real fun with it.

[I'll Make Mine]

.32 is your basic squirrel rifle so I would think it would be perfect. Make it a rock lock and have some real fun with it.

If you're going to have the barrel custom made anyway (seems likely), it might make sense to bore to fit a #0 buckshot (.310 diameter) with a patch. That's probably .320 or so anyway, but worth doing a couple tests before boring the actual barrel to be sure. Shot with wads can be adapted to any bore within reason, but for "punkin ball" you need a good bore fit and there's something to be said for being able to buy your ball shot cheaply...

[rhbrink]

I don't know about a .310 "pumpkin Ball" how about a "pea rifle" actually I have read of reference to "Pea Rifles" sometime in the dim past.

RB

[Nobade]

Can't get #0 any more. Make it for #00. I have no idea why Hornady quit making it, probably because I like it for my 31 cal. revolvers and 32 cal Cherokee.

-Nobade

[I'll Make Mine]

Can't get #0 any more. Make it for #00. I have no idea why Hornady quit making it, probably because I like it for my 31 cal. revolvers and 32 cal Cherokee.

-Nobade

http://www.ballisticproducts.com/Super-Buck-Lead-Buckshot-0-8lb-320/productinfo/SBK10/
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/194248/hornady-lead-0-buckshot-5-lb-box
http://buckshotmold.com/

Sorry, I was wrong -- standard #0 is .320, but Sharpshooter makes a .310 mold (apparently that size stacks better in either 16 or 20 ga.).

Edit to add: Lee also makes a .311 round ball mold that would do fine when you don't want to put 12-20 balls in a single load.

[Multigunner]

Well, there are 9mm rimfire shotguns available so a muzzle loader that size should work for very short range shots. Come to think of it, a little 9mm flintlock fowler would be a great thing to build for the kids to play with. CVA used to sell cheap muzzle loading .410 shotguns and they bring stupid big prices these days on auction sites so somebody must think they work.

-Nobade
I'm glad you mentioned those .410 muzzle loaders. An inlaw bought one of these when they first came out as a decorator item to hang over his fireplace. He died several years ago. His son who inherited most of the estate was supposed to come by to visit this weekend. If he shows up i'll ask if the muzzle loader is still around. If its still there I'll have him bring it over and we'll do some testfiring. I have some .395 round ball I got for a .41 deringer many years ago, these should fit.

[Nobade]

That should be fun. Let us know how it works.

I have a rusted out Cherokee 45 cal. that I am contemplating making into a smoothbore just to see what that does. If it will cleanup at .470, I could shoot my .457 ROA revolver balls in it with a patch.

-Nobade

[Multigunner]

Some of the Kentucky rifles with rusted out bores were bored out as smoothbore buck and ball or small bore fowling pieces. Some were made as smoothbores from the start.

The Tennessee Po Boy rifles were usually less than .36 caliber with .32 and smaller more common. These were usually rifled, though quality of rifling was not always great. I've heard of bores of .28.
Some Wheel lock pistols had very small bores intended for launching all steel armor piercing darts rather than bullets.

[Nobade]

Hmmmm....fin stabilized discarding sabot steel darts. Wouldn't that be entertaining to play with? Sort of like my own little mini M1A tank gun.

It did work well in my old hairspray powered spud gun. Styrofoam sabots firing eggs. That was a laugh...

Seems we have strayed off topic a bit.

-Nobade

[John Taylor]

While we are all remembering things from the past, anyone remember using carbide to launch tin can. Using two tin cans, the larger one with a little water in the bottom, the smaller one turned upside down with a small fuse hole. A little carbide in the water, light the fuse and run. Not a big boom but the can would go up quite a ways. Then there was making firecrackers from a roll of caps for a capgun. Push a needle through the center of each cap and fold them back and forth as you go. Tape the whole thing up with masking tape and a match over the hole in one end after removing the needle very carefully. Light the wooden part of the match and when it got to the end it made a good boom. Do not, and I repeat, do not pull the needle out fast. There's this thing called friction......

[OverMax]

Use to make hydrogen gas in a Coke 2 liter glass bottle and fill a balloon with it. Then tie a piece of jet-X fuse on and let it go. Little flame but O my the concussion heard.

carbide in the water. Another loud one also That could rattle windows half way down the block. Use to put a roll of cap gun caps in my dad's vise. Tighten it down just~~so~~~far than hit the vice jaw with a hammer and laugh about it amongst friends. Still paying the toll today in my left ear for that stupidity.

[Multigunner]

Long ago a neighbor's kid had a carbide powered toy blaster. It fired ping pong balls and sent a ring of fire quite a distance. The ring of fire was visible in daylight but really showed up at night.
There were early experiments in using hydrogen gas as a propellent. One thing I remember from reading about those experiments was that the ball was patched with the "finest dog skin".

[Multigunner]

Hmmmm....fin stabilized discarding sabot steel darts. Wouldn't that be entertaining to play with? Sort of like my own little mini M1A tank gun.

It did work well in my old hairspray powered spud gun. Styrofoam sabots firing eggs. That was a laugh...

Seems we have strayed off topic a bit.

-Nobade


The Japanese Nambu smoothbore training rifle used a short cased 6.5 cartridge that held a fin stabilized lead pellet.

[Lonegun1894]

Since we're confessing things that should have, and very often did, get our hides tanned, how do y'all like this one? At 12-13 years old, I converted my pellet gun to fire .45 ACP. It worked fine, and I fired 3-400rds through it without injury (only God knows how) and then my parents figured out where all the ammo was disappearing to and my .177-turned-.45 was confiscated and disposed of. And no, I won't tell how I did it except to say that the old pellet guns had a lot more letal in them than the current ones do, so please don't try to duplicate the stupidy of my youth.

[John Taylor]

There's also the Ox/Acc gas in the trash bag for a big bang. Make sure you have enough fuse to get to a safe distance. Gallon milk jugs are better for the small bang.

[FL-Flinter]

There's also the Ox/Acc gas in the trash bag for a big bang. Make sure you have enough fuse to get to a safe distance. Gallon milk jugs are better for the small bang.

And don't try it in a motel parking lot ... that welding crew shelled out a ton of cash for all the windows (I wasn't involved)

[rhbrink]

There's also the Ox/Acc gas in the trash bag for a big bang. Make sure you have enough fuse to get to a safe distance. Gallon milk jugs are better for the small bang.

I saw a construction guy do that with too short of a fuse. He taped a cigrette to the bag and was fumbling around with a lighter trying to get the cigrette lit and touched the bag. They hauled him off in a ambulance. I was quite a ways away from the scene we were overhauling a Bridge over the Missouri River and I thought that the bridge was coming down. I didn't actually see him until the aftermath and it wasn't pretty. It blew his pants legs off to his waste and looked to have burns over his face and arms and legs and never saw that feller again. He was nominated for the Darwin award that year. Watched a guy welding once when a buddy bleed OX/ACC into the other end of the pipe when that went off it sounded like a cannon a big cannon, they were not friends after that one. Probably neither one of them could hear very well either.

RB

[Nobade]

The first time I was introduced to the power of OX/ACC was when i was still a teenager. Working at a hardware store, I got left in the shop by myself. I thought it would be fun to fill an inverted styrofoam coffee cup with it and touch it off with the lit torch. Whoo whee! The cup disappeared, the entire workbench got cleaned off, dust fell from the ceiling, and my ears were ringing. The shop was under the main store, and a bunch of guys came running to see if I was still alive. That was interesting to explain... Yes, that stuff is awesomely powerful.

-Nobade

[johnson1942]

well here i go again and rhbrink got me going in memory on this one as he is a building trades member to. doing a little pipeline work to fill voids between powerplants. come to work and their was a 20 foot of 6 inchch pipe sticking up out of the ditch at about a 45 degree angle. we saw a skunk slip into the back end of it. one of the welders had his truck and rig close by so he stretched his hose down their and stuck his ox/acc torch in the back side at the bottom of the ditch and turned it on. he let the pipe fill for quite a while, skunk was probably already dead or higher than a kite. well he took the torch out and lit it and from the side passed it near the base of the pipe. it went off like a cannon and that skunk shot way out in the field in a flameing ball of fire. everybody was falling out laughing like a bounch of kids. lucky their was no animal rights geenie weenies around then or we would have had the course. john taylor again if i would have hung out with you when i was a kid it would have been double trouble. those trash back bombs were bad news, try a beach ball, they really rock the country side and get the cops out of town looking for what caused that noise.

[rhbrink]

I've heard of pumkin chunkin but skunk chunkin? That may be the best one yet. Sure hope the OP isn't too mad about what we've done to his post.

RB

[GARD72977]

How can I be mad about a story of shooting a skunk out of a pipe. I just pissed off I was not there. Kind of like the Saturday I had to work and my redneck buddies shot a gator with a 22lr. They dragged it in the to flatbottom boat and then It came to life. No one stayed in the boat!!! By the time I cam home they had cooked it. I miss all the fun. Guess I missed the chance for jail time also!