megasupermagnum
11-09-2020, 10:45 PM
I would like to share some tips I have learned over time about loading round balls in shotguns, both smooth bore and rifled. The sizing is not super important, as long as it is over bore or groove size. I've shot them from IC and modifed chokes with no problems whatsoever. I would steer away from trying them in tighter chokes. In tighter choked, or thin barreled guns, I've seen where some people have tried choosing a ball the size of the choke. I've tried this, and I have yet to get anything besides horrendous accuracy. It is pretty much a waste of time. Use buckshot instead. From a smooth bore, and a ball over bore diameter, you can expect around 4" groups at 50 yards. I've tried a number of loads, but I've not significantly improved or worsened this. In a rifled barrel, you have a lot more potential. 2" or even less at 50 yards is very possible. I've tried balls from .001" to as much as .012" OVER groove diameter, and they all seemed to work pretty well. I recommend .005" over as a do-all size with plenty of forgiveness both ways. There can be more variation in bore size than you would imagine, but .735" seems to work for most 12 gauges with plenty of forgiveness both ways.
In a recent test I was using an H&R Tracker II in 20 gauge which is rifled. For whatever reason, H&R used a 20 gauge BORE diameter, and the rifling groove brings it way out to around .6265" if I remember right. That gun is horrible with any factory slug I ever tried. I mean it, I've not been able to get all shots on paper with any sabot slug that I was able to purchase, many keyholes. It only does marginally better with the couple rifled slugs I tried. Usual 20 gauge slugs for reloading were poor, as I still didn't have the diameter I needed. Finally I bought a ball mold, and it normally drop around .630". That was immediately the ticket, most loads I've tried so far with that ball shoots under 2" at 50 yards with the open sights. One time I casted a bunch too hot, as the brass mold is easy to overheat. They came out closer to .626". I shot them, and to my surprise, accuracy was mostly unchanged. These aren't light loads either, I measured these at a smoking 1700 fps with this load of Bluedot. The thing to remember is that they need to be at least the groove diameter. A .620" ball again shoot horrendously poor. I did not do enough testing to confirm, but it seemed to me that the .630" balls were more consistently accurate.
I know some claim fantastic accuracy from shotguns, I have never managed to do so with anything, including rifled bolt action guns and the priciest sabot slugs I could find. It could be me, it could be how I measure groups. Either way, my very best 100 yard accuracy with good scoped rifled guns is only about 4", with occasional better groups, but never an average. From what I've seen over the years at the local shooting range, I'm doing better than average. I have yet to see anyone with a mythical 2MOA slug gun, and I have yet to have anyone take me up on my offer of a free shooting day in exchange for letting me shoot theirs. If you do better, good. Just keep this in context when you see that I'm getting 4"-5" 100 yard groups with round balls, know that is about the best accuracy as I have ever got out of any slug including $18 for 5 rounds factory sabot slugs.
For load data, I've used lead shot data for everything so far, and it has worked out quite well. the few I've tried with my Pressure Trace system has shown similar or lower pressures than if I had been using lead shot. I've also found similar velocity as lead shot. The thing to keep in mind though, is often I'll use hard nitro cards for wads. If you take away the cushion for a load that calls for a lead shot plastic wad, pressure will sometimes go up. You have to use your head, and keep things in perspective. In all gauges so far, I've found Bluedot to be the best powder for strong loads. It is a very forgiving powder, it burns dirty with light loads, but you shouldn't get any dangerous bloopers unless you are WAY under where you should be. It is also very forgiving on the top end. A bore size round ball turns out to be a standard field load in weight for each gauge. With clip on wheel weights, I'm getting about 360 grains for 20 gauge, 475 grains for 16 gauge, 580 grains for 12 gauge, and 700 grains for 10 gauge. I recommend using data for the following weights, in that same order 7/8 oz, 1 1/8 oz, 1 3/8 oz, and 1 5/8 oz.
Speaking of alloy, I've tried pure lead, range scrap, COWW, and water dropped COWW. It seems to me the pure lead did not shoot as well, but was perfectly serviceable. All of the harder alloys did as well, and the super hard water dropped balls did not shoot any better. I believe there are two factors in this. I feel the main one is the forcing cone. No matter what you do, in a shotgun you have a significant jump of free bore often 3/4" or longer, and a tapered forcing cone to center the ball into the rifling. It is a very poor setup for accuracy. I believe the harder balls hold their shape better to allow self-centering. The other factor is the twist rate. I've never seen a slow twist rifled slug gun. Everything I've ever seen has been 1:35" to as fast as I think 1:22". Most being 1:28" to 1:36". In muzzleloader (patched round ball) terms, these are extremely fast, and shouldn't shoot as good as they do. For example, a 12 gauge, or 73 caliber rifle, the supposed ideal twist for a round ball is something like 1:90" or even 1:110" twist depending on the (questionable) formula. It's thankful they shoot as good as they do.
For lube, I've only done two things. Either nothing at all, or a thin coat of alox. Both work, and I've found almost no leading with no lube. It seems you can get a very light wash at the entrance of the barrel sometimes with no lube. I find it very easy to give a thin coat of alox, and not worry about it. Powder coating could gain you some diameter if you need it, otherwise it is a waste of time. Unless you like to do it, then by all means, do it.
Wads is a subject that could last for days. I've got two setups that I know work. The first is to cut the petals off of a lead shot wad, add a few fillers, and put the ball on top of that. The other is to use a gas seal (technically optional, but they seal better), and then a stack of 1/8" thick hard nitro cards. In both cases, I like to use buffer under the ball. I've tried felt wads, they didn't work for me, but they seem to work for some people. I like to use PSB buffer, which is tiny plastic beads. This allows me to choose the scoop size I need to take up the space. I use the buffer for two reasons. The first is it allows me tiny adjustments in load height. The more important reason is it fully supports the ball. Without it, I often recover wads that are dish shaped, indicating they were partially wrapping around the ball. I've tried so called "doughnut wads" where I cut a hole in a card wad, or using a BPGS, or even an upsidedown powder cup to center it. They don't work well. The big problem is you are now adding a variable that doesn't allow the ball to center itself. Where thousandths mean inches downrange, there is no way you can punch a card wad perfectly enough. Buffer doesn't effect the ball, they can move independent of each other.
Here is the big caveat with buffer, or at least PSB buffer. You can't use too much. I've seen it enough times now to know exactly what is going on. Often times in testing, I would get torn up hulls, or even hulls that completely separated. Some were so bad the hull stayed on the ball all the way to the target, effectively making it an auto-cutshell. The problem in every case was the same, too much buffer. What happens with a lot of buffer, is during firing you have the wads pushing upwards, and the ball acting against them. This smashing the buffer between, and it has nowhere to go but outward, into the soft plastic hull. If you use too much, the buffer will grab the hull and tear it. If you recover the shreds of hull, you will notice a section of it, usually right where it broke, that is dimpled from the buffer. I only use just enough buffer to fill the empty space under the ball and then a little more. I can't put a number on it, but where I was having problems, I was having a section 1/2" or longer of nothing but buffer. Instead of using more buffer, add another nitro card.
Smooth bores have been a little less responsive than the rifled guns. They pretty much shoot 4" at 50 yards. I can't seem to do any better, but it seems you have to mess up to do worse too. One thing you will notice if you try and push a ball through a bore by hand, on a rifled barrel you really have to pound them. In a smooth bore, you can usually push them right on through by hand, even if .005" or more over bore size. If you then compare the engraved bands, the one from the rifled gun will have a significant amount engraved, while the one from the smooth bore will barely have a ring. Even though both are around .005" over bore diameter (groove diameter in the rifled barrel), the rifled gun has a lot more hold on the ball. The other thing with the smooth bore, is often the ring will not be even all the way around. I used to think it was because they didn't center correctly. I'm starting to think it has more to do with the ball itself not being perfectly round. I use the molds from JT ball moulds a lot, they make a good mold. The only issue is they are never perfectly round. .002"-.003" runout is normal for these molds. I'm not sure if this alone is the problem for accuracy, and I'm fairly sure it is not. I have not done nearly enough testing, but recovered balls also show they don't leave the barrel even close to round. Usually they are slightly flattened on the bottom, with a bunch of dimples from the buffer, while the top half remains relatively round. This is fine in a rifled barrel, which keeps them flying this way. In a smooth bore, that can't be helpful as they turn in flight.
So how do they actually perform? I don't have a lot of experience on that yet. I've only shot a single deer with a 12 gauge ball, and my brother shot a deer Saturday with a 20 gauge ball, both rifled barrels. In both cases, the deer dropped on the spot, no movement. I shot a doe with the 12 gauge, and with a bluedot load around 1250 fps. One shot through the lungs at about 30 yards put it down on the spot, feet kicked a couple times but that was it. It passed clean through, leaving a nice size hole of 3/4" to 1" all the way through. Little meat was damaged. My brother shot a 6 point buck at around 15 yards with a single frontal shot. His load was with bluedot, launching the ball about 1700 fps. I didn't see the shot, but he says it crumpled up, no movement at all. When I gutted it, I was surprised to find the guts intact, and it seemed no damage to the lungs and heart either. Once I got to the front, I realized it hit high. What happened was it hit at the base of the neck, and centered on the spinal cord. The ball traveled centered in about 6" of the spine, smashing the bones, came out above the bone, continued through the left side backstrap mangling it, and came out the skin somewhere above the rump. The entrance hole was impressive, at least 1 1/2" in diameter, the spine was intact, but smashed (held loosely by tissue, bones were not thrown outward), the backstrap mangled, and the exit was not visible until skinned. All in all it traveled through about 8" of neck meat first, 6" of spine, then 20" of backstrap. That is a LOT of penetration. You won't get that with any factory sabot slug, and not a rifled slug. The Brenneke slug might do it, but I've never tried one in 20 gauge. That was an air cooled, range scrap alloy of around 12 BHN. I've tried firing into things like water jugs, with no success. I tried a 10 gauge ball into all the milk jugs I had, 15 of them one time. It went through all of them. I suspect you would need a minimum of 40" of ballistics gel to catch these.
In a recent test I was using an H&R Tracker II in 20 gauge which is rifled. For whatever reason, H&R used a 20 gauge BORE diameter, and the rifling groove brings it way out to around .6265" if I remember right. That gun is horrible with any factory slug I ever tried. I mean it, I've not been able to get all shots on paper with any sabot slug that I was able to purchase, many keyholes. It only does marginally better with the couple rifled slugs I tried. Usual 20 gauge slugs for reloading were poor, as I still didn't have the diameter I needed. Finally I bought a ball mold, and it normally drop around .630". That was immediately the ticket, most loads I've tried so far with that ball shoots under 2" at 50 yards with the open sights. One time I casted a bunch too hot, as the brass mold is easy to overheat. They came out closer to .626". I shot them, and to my surprise, accuracy was mostly unchanged. These aren't light loads either, I measured these at a smoking 1700 fps with this load of Bluedot. The thing to remember is that they need to be at least the groove diameter. A .620" ball again shoot horrendously poor. I did not do enough testing to confirm, but it seemed to me that the .630" balls were more consistently accurate.
I know some claim fantastic accuracy from shotguns, I have never managed to do so with anything, including rifled bolt action guns and the priciest sabot slugs I could find. It could be me, it could be how I measure groups. Either way, my very best 100 yard accuracy with good scoped rifled guns is only about 4", with occasional better groups, but never an average. From what I've seen over the years at the local shooting range, I'm doing better than average. I have yet to see anyone with a mythical 2MOA slug gun, and I have yet to have anyone take me up on my offer of a free shooting day in exchange for letting me shoot theirs. If you do better, good. Just keep this in context when you see that I'm getting 4"-5" 100 yard groups with round balls, know that is about the best accuracy as I have ever got out of any slug including $18 for 5 rounds factory sabot slugs.
For load data, I've used lead shot data for everything so far, and it has worked out quite well. the few I've tried with my Pressure Trace system has shown similar or lower pressures than if I had been using lead shot. I've also found similar velocity as lead shot. The thing to keep in mind though, is often I'll use hard nitro cards for wads. If you take away the cushion for a load that calls for a lead shot plastic wad, pressure will sometimes go up. You have to use your head, and keep things in perspective. In all gauges so far, I've found Bluedot to be the best powder for strong loads. It is a very forgiving powder, it burns dirty with light loads, but you shouldn't get any dangerous bloopers unless you are WAY under where you should be. It is also very forgiving on the top end. A bore size round ball turns out to be a standard field load in weight for each gauge. With clip on wheel weights, I'm getting about 360 grains for 20 gauge, 475 grains for 16 gauge, 580 grains for 12 gauge, and 700 grains for 10 gauge. I recommend using data for the following weights, in that same order 7/8 oz, 1 1/8 oz, 1 3/8 oz, and 1 5/8 oz.
Speaking of alloy, I've tried pure lead, range scrap, COWW, and water dropped COWW. It seems to me the pure lead did not shoot as well, but was perfectly serviceable. All of the harder alloys did as well, and the super hard water dropped balls did not shoot any better. I believe there are two factors in this. I feel the main one is the forcing cone. No matter what you do, in a shotgun you have a significant jump of free bore often 3/4" or longer, and a tapered forcing cone to center the ball into the rifling. It is a very poor setup for accuracy. I believe the harder balls hold their shape better to allow self-centering. The other factor is the twist rate. I've never seen a slow twist rifled slug gun. Everything I've ever seen has been 1:35" to as fast as I think 1:22". Most being 1:28" to 1:36". In muzzleloader (patched round ball) terms, these are extremely fast, and shouldn't shoot as good as they do. For example, a 12 gauge, or 73 caliber rifle, the supposed ideal twist for a round ball is something like 1:90" or even 1:110" twist depending on the (questionable) formula. It's thankful they shoot as good as they do.
For lube, I've only done two things. Either nothing at all, or a thin coat of alox. Both work, and I've found almost no leading with no lube. It seems you can get a very light wash at the entrance of the barrel sometimes with no lube. I find it very easy to give a thin coat of alox, and not worry about it. Powder coating could gain you some diameter if you need it, otherwise it is a waste of time. Unless you like to do it, then by all means, do it.
Wads is a subject that could last for days. I've got two setups that I know work. The first is to cut the petals off of a lead shot wad, add a few fillers, and put the ball on top of that. The other is to use a gas seal (technically optional, but they seal better), and then a stack of 1/8" thick hard nitro cards. In both cases, I like to use buffer under the ball. I've tried felt wads, they didn't work for me, but they seem to work for some people. I like to use PSB buffer, which is tiny plastic beads. This allows me to choose the scoop size I need to take up the space. I use the buffer for two reasons. The first is it allows me tiny adjustments in load height. The more important reason is it fully supports the ball. Without it, I often recover wads that are dish shaped, indicating they were partially wrapping around the ball. I've tried so called "doughnut wads" where I cut a hole in a card wad, or using a BPGS, or even an upsidedown powder cup to center it. They don't work well. The big problem is you are now adding a variable that doesn't allow the ball to center itself. Where thousandths mean inches downrange, there is no way you can punch a card wad perfectly enough. Buffer doesn't effect the ball, they can move independent of each other.
Here is the big caveat with buffer, or at least PSB buffer. You can't use too much. I've seen it enough times now to know exactly what is going on. Often times in testing, I would get torn up hulls, or even hulls that completely separated. Some were so bad the hull stayed on the ball all the way to the target, effectively making it an auto-cutshell. The problem in every case was the same, too much buffer. What happens with a lot of buffer, is during firing you have the wads pushing upwards, and the ball acting against them. This smashing the buffer between, and it has nowhere to go but outward, into the soft plastic hull. If you use too much, the buffer will grab the hull and tear it. If you recover the shreds of hull, you will notice a section of it, usually right where it broke, that is dimpled from the buffer. I only use just enough buffer to fill the empty space under the ball and then a little more. I can't put a number on it, but where I was having problems, I was having a section 1/2" or longer of nothing but buffer. Instead of using more buffer, add another nitro card.
Smooth bores have been a little less responsive than the rifled guns. They pretty much shoot 4" at 50 yards. I can't seem to do any better, but it seems you have to mess up to do worse too. One thing you will notice if you try and push a ball through a bore by hand, on a rifled barrel you really have to pound them. In a smooth bore, you can usually push them right on through by hand, even if .005" or more over bore size. If you then compare the engraved bands, the one from the rifled gun will have a significant amount engraved, while the one from the smooth bore will barely have a ring. Even though both are around .005" over bore diameter (groove diameter in the rifled barrel), the rifled gun has a lot more hold on the ball. The other thing with the smooth bore, is often the ring will not be even all the way around. I used to think it was because they didn't center correctly. I'm starting to think it has more to do with the ball itself not being perfectly round. I use the molds from JT ball moulds a lot, they make a good mold. The only issue is they are never perfectly round. .002"-.003" runout is normal for these molds. I'm not sure if this alone is the problem for accuracy, and I'm fairly sure it is not. I have not done nearly enough testing, but recovered balls also show they don't leave the barrel even close to round. Usually they are slightly flattened on the bottom, with a bunch of dimples from the buffer, while the top half remains relatively round. This is fine in a rifled barrel, which keeps them flying this way. In a smooth bore, that can't be helpful as they turn in flight.
So how do they actually perform? I don't have a lot of experience on that yet. I've only shot a single deer with a 12 gauge ball, and my brother shot a deer Saturday with a 20 gauge ball, both rifled barrels. In both cases, the deer dropped on the spot, no movement. I shot a doe with the 12 gauge, and with a bluedot load around 1250 fps. One shot through the lungs at about 30 yards put it down on the spot, feet kicked a couple times but that was it. It passed clean through, leaving a nice size hole of 3/4" to 1" all the way through. Little meat was damaged. My brother shot a 6 point buck at around 15 yards with a single frontal shot. His load was with bluedot, launching the ball about 1700 fps. I didn't see the shot, but he says it crumpled up, no movement at all. When I gutted it, I was surprised to find the guts intact, and it seemed no damage to the lungs and heart either. Once I got to the front, I realized it hit high. What happened was it hit at the base of the neck, and centered on the spinal cord. The ball traveled centered in about 6" of the spine, smashing the bones, came out above the bone, continued through the left side backstrap mangling it, and came out the skin somewhere above the rump. The entrance hole was impressive, at least 1 1/2" in diameter, the spine was intact, but smashed (held loosely by tissue, bones were not thrown outward), the backstrap mangled, and the exit was not visible until skinned. All in all it traveled through about 8" of neck meat first, 6" of spine, then 20" of backstrap. That is a LOT of penetration. You won't get that with any factory sabot slug, and not a rifled slug. The Brenneke slug might do it, but I've never tried one in 20 gauge. That was an air cooled, range scrap alloy of around 12 BHN. I've tried firing into things like water jugs, with no success. I tried a 10 gauge ball into all the milk jugs I had, 15 of them one time. It went through all of them. I suspect you would need a minimum of 40" of ballistics gel to catch these.