help needed 20 gauge roundball load development

[acsteve]

I am looking for a youth roundball load, something like a trap load of green dot of about 14 gr with a .575 lee roundball . It does burn clean and leaves no residue. It needs to be light enough for smaller person and good for 50yrds. I did start with the Lyman 3rd ed load and substitute my 7/8 oz trap powder load for the 5/8 oz ball with 28 gauge fiber wad. I also have International powder which should work well with 3/4 oz shot. the gun is a single shot smooth bore with no choke but good sights. The round ball load produces less recoil that my standard trap load and much less than Rem 5/8 oz slugs.

Would a .575 ball at +1000fps work well on deer. (I would think so since a very famous pistol guy claimed a 250gr 44 cal load over 1000fts will take any game animal -but big bears-in north america). I know my kids should toughen up and I must have the only 6yr olds who dont find a 7-mag or full power 45-70 to be just a bit unpleasant. I just have to believe that a light roundball load is as humane as a 223 with any bullet, with in 50yrds.
thanks

[pipehand]

Just started (as in yesterday) loading .562 roundballs in 20 gauge. I had been loading 18 #4 buckshot in a Remington 20SP wad with 14 grains of International. I switched to a Claybusters WAA20 clone with enough 1/2" diameter cardboard wads under the ball to bring it up to crimp height. Loaded in Remington STS style hulls, btw. The recoil was uneventful, and the wads looked to be in pretty good shape after passing through the modified Remchoke. Accuracy testing will commence this Holiday weekend. Happy Thanksgiving y'all.

[SuperBlazingSabots]

Greetings Acsteve, the .575 RB will do great and just order .125" 28 ga nitro cards from Circle Fly at a much cheaper rate and double the quantity !
Please remember we need a solid platform at launch and no felt or fiber wad, please ! !
You need two .125 nitro cards in wad below RB and a third .125 of 28 ga in the base cavity like shown in the picture.
https://i.imgur.com/gwDLnyN.jpg

I could not help you with loads of around 1000 fps for .575 RB as most of my loads are much faster and also heavier bullets too.

Ajay K. Madan
Super Blazing Sabots

[nitro-express]

Here's hoping that a few more posts pop up on this one. I recently bought my son a Lazer Arms 20 ga. and we've been trying a few combinations to see if a slug or ball load would work.

I'm here posting a reply, so it stands to reason that our attempts have not met with any encouraging results.

However, I have learned that a solid wad column is needed, no crushy stuff. To that end I bought a few arbor punches and have been re-purposing some of my 12 ga cards and such.

Also, as I'm using 2 3/4" hulls, (Winchester CF AA hulls from back in my skeet shooting days) (dial set to 1980 in the way back machine). That jump doesn't seem to be doing the wads any favour.

If i find anything that even remotely works, I'll post it.

One question: Are the round balls for shotgun cast from soft lead for best results or are hard cast balls better. I'm also using the LEE 562 mold.

Nitro

[megasupermagnum]

The alloy you cast them from is no concern at all. If you are loading them fast, soft alloys will expand, but at 1000 fps at the muzzle, I doubt you would see any difference between alloys. .562" seems a bit small to me, I would look for wads with relatively thick petals. One easy trick I've found is to use a scoop of buffer under the ball to take up the space. This allows the wads to push on the ball evenly without wrapping around it. I use PSB buffer, but other things will work. Even cream of wheat.

A 58 caliber ball with a 1000 fps muzzle velocity is a very good deer load.

[Petander]

I have made and fired thousands of "Converted Economy Slugs" using 20 gauge trap ammo.

I cut the crimp,replace shot with a fiber wad and 574 RB,roll crimp. In some guns there is accuracy, a friend just reported that his Browning BPS is shooting both barrels at the same POI (1" difference) @ 30 meters. POI is 3" to the right though.

Where I live,reloading ammo from components is at least twice as expensive compared to buying factory trap ammo. Plus you get the lead.

[missionary5155]

Good morning
For years I popped Corn crunchers with a 575 RB cast of 40 (pb)-1 (tin) pushed at 950 - 1000 fps. Always excited from every angle RB entered. Never lost any.
On one very foggy river bottom morning at about 30 yards fired on a doe standing broadside and busted her spine at the shoulders. RB exited and punched through the near ribs lungs / heart and far ribs of a doe about 10 feet behind doe #1. So do not be overly concerned about under penetration.

Down here in LLama Land I also use cheap 12 gauge ammo for RB shooting. Out to 30 yards they are minute of wild dog. Dump the shot, drop in a RB and have at it. Originally did this route for popping large crocks out on jungle rivers where ordinary slugs at 3 feet will not penetrate the neck armor of large crocks . RB has in my test 3x penetration of those Forster slugs in all sorts of medium.
Mike in LLama Land.

[centershot]

Good morning
For years I popped Corn crunchers with a 575 RB cast of 40 (pb)-1 (tin) pushed at 950 - 1000 fps. Always excited from every angle RB entered. Never lost any.
On one very foggy river bottom morning at about 30 yards fired on a doe standing broadside and busted her spine at the shoulders. RB exited and punched through the near ribs lungs / heart and far ribs of a doe about 10 feet behind doe #1. So do not be overly concerned about under penetration.

Down here in LLama Land I also use cheap 12 gauge ammo for RB shooting. Out to 30 yards they are minute of wild dog. Dump the shot, drop in a RB and have at it. Originally did this route for popping large crocks out on jungle rivers where ordinary slugs at 3 feet will not penetrate the neck armor of large crocks . RB has in my test 3x penetration of those Forster slugs in all sorts of medium.
Mike in LLama Land.

When one starts throwing lead around measured in ounces (or hefty factions thereof), you needn't overly concern yourself about having "Enough Penetration"! I've hunted with slugs since 1970, never needed "More". And, now that I'm loading round balls, Oh My!, it's amazing what these things will shoot through!

[W.R.Buchanan]

My standard round ball load was concocted as a result of getting the snot knocked out of me by firing 2 High Base Federal Slugs at a 3 gun shoot which resulted in 3 trips to my Chiropractor to get ribs put back in place. They were Federal Maximum 1 1/8 oz. slugs at 1610 fps!

My load for these is my Standard Trap Load with a .662 round ball with a 1/4' felt wad substituted for the shot and fold crimped closed. They shoot to the point of aim out to 50 or so yards. These are running @1250 fps.

I will defer to others as to the possible penetration as I have only shot steel targets with mine, but I'm sure they would be effective on game as well judging from the impact on the steel targets.

This is the only roundball load I have tried and since it did exactly what I needed, I didn't get into it farther. I wanted to check how my M500 was sighted in before I went to the 3 gun shoot so I went to our range and fired a round at one of the Hanging Chickens at 50 Meters. It hit dead center so I quit right there! Mission accomplished! POI=POA! done.

My .662 balls weigh 425 gr cast from wheel weights.

I would expect similar performance from a .575 round ball for the 20 ga.

Randy

[smokinfeathers]

My light kicking load is 70gr 3f goes with nitro card then cushion wad 575 ball then overshot wad n roll crimped. It will kill deer at close range easily as well as eatin hogs

I broke all my kids in at 4 n 5yo on marlin 357 n they killed train car loads of deer turkey hogs etc with it. Low recoil n report n 158gr FPS at 1900fps kills great