black power in a modern 12 gauge shooting slugs.

[unclogum bill]

I was given a modern 12 gauge , single shot that has the barrel cut to 18 inches. I reload Lyman foster slugs and got to thinking it would be fun to see what smoke would occur if I loaded some black power in it. Gun is in good shape . Anybody have any ideas on what will work?.

[longbow]

I used to shoot 0.690" RB's over BP in a single shot many years ago. Accuracy was never great but then they were not in shotcups so bounced down the bore.

I used lubed wads under the balls and didn't find fouling to be a problem.

One thing I did have trouble with at first was plastic fouling if I used plastic gas seals. Some say yes and some say no but I got plastic fouling, whether from melting due to BP flame or whether stripped off by BP fouling I do not know. That I had to scrape plastic fouling from the bore I do know. Using nitro card wads solved that.

I can't recall exact loads but I used roughly BP dram equivalent for the weight of ball and IIRC up to 110 brs. of BP is what I used. That is about 4 drams. That was in a 3" chambered gun. The Lyman Black Powder Handbook shows charges up to 3 3/4 drams under up to 1 1/2 oz. shot for 12 ga. muzzleloading shotgun.

The Lyman Foster slug is a little over 1 oz. so starting with 3 drams (82 grs.) and working up should get you going. I suggest a couple of 1/8" nitro card wads over the powder then a lubed felt wad, then another nitro card wad under the slug to keep the felt wad from blowing into the hollow base.

With 18" barrel there will be a slight muzzle flash... wear dark glasses.

Should be fun.

Longbow