tiny success

[garbear]

I have been playing with my tc 56 smoothbore. I have tried pillow ticking and have to hammer my ball in. Today I went back out 60 grains fffg goex. So out of desparation I used a paper napkin as a wad dropped a ball pushed it on top of paper wad. Used some more paper napkin pushed down hard against ball. I shot a beer can at 25 yds three times. I upped my charge by 10 grains each shot.
Oh my patch from ticking was torn and chard from my first shot. So correct me I'm thinking a felt wad thinner patch since shooting paper could be fire danger out here.
Any of you smooth bore guys tell me why a bare ball worked?
Garbear

[Stonecrusher]

Smoothbores are like anything else, sometimes they like something different from the rest. I know guys who patch roundball and some that use a wad or two with bare ball. Both get accuracy their way. The gun will tell you what it likes. Most guys I know that shoot bare ball use a larger ball than would be used with a patch to keep the windage down, say a .735" ball vice a .715" for Brown Bess. I personally think that the ball obturates to pretty much fill the bore so the accuracy is there. If your guns likes it, do it. You don't have to make anyone else happy.
For historical accuracy, I think bare ball with wadding is probably closer to the truth as there are few mentions in historical writings of people patching balls in a smoothbore.
Your torn and charred patches are interesting though. What are you using for patch material and lube? 60grns of powder in that caliber shouldn't destroy a patch unless it is very thin or maybe a blended fabric with polyester in it. My patches come out with a brown ring but no burns whether I use spit or beeswax/olive oil.

[garbear]

The patch was pillow ticking lubed with bore butter. Going to get it on paper this weekend.
Garbear

[Nobade]

My .720" 12ga. shoots a .715" bare ball or a .690" patched ball equally well. Both will hold a palm sized group at 50 yards. But the patch cleans the bore so I can shoot a lot more and not have to wipe so often. Smoothbores are funny creatures - they also seem to work well with much stiffer charges than comparably sized rifles do if they are equally strongly constructed.

Oh, try moose milk or some other sort of liquid rather than bore butter and see if that doesn't help.

-Nobade

[Texantothecore]

A powder wad plus an over the ball wad was frequently used in colonial times. Which is why the british paper tax was so universally reviled in the colonies. It was a shooting tax. It also was a food tax (protein) and most colonials had little money.

[Texantothecore]

I have also read that leather patches were common and were reusable.