Conicals in monster smoothbore?

[floridaheat]

Well I've searched and can't find any definitive answers... Can I shoot this minie ball in a smoothie? Here is he projectile in question: a .905 1600gr conical with a hollow base about "one knuckle" deep. Fits the barrel nearly perfect. Why you ask? Because I'm a glutton for punishment. And now pics of said insanity in question.

Next to a 45acp and 50 bmg

[floridaheat]

I forgot to add, would there be ANY reasonable accuracy out of this?

[swamp]

I would think that you could expect decent accuracy. Depends on you, and if the conical will stabilize. A patched round ball might be better. Smooth bores are capable of better accuracy than people think.

Large bore guns took a lot of game in Africa before cartridges came along. A lot of 4 and 8 bores were used.
swamp

[bubba.50]

no answers to yer questions, just an observation : Man! you must really hate your shootin' shoulder.

[mooman76]

Only one way to find out for sure.

[longbow]

Sure you can shoot it if it fits but I'm going to go with no accuracy beyond the muzzle. Those conicals are meant for rifled guns. You need a Foster style weight forward projectile for a smoothbore.

Also, I have to ask what gun you are planning on shooting these out of. Most smoothbore muskets have fairly thin barrels so shooting a slug of that weight with any sort of heavy charge may well be dangerous. If barrel walls are thick then likely okay. I am thinking the barrel wall differences between shotgun and typical octagon barrel.

My thoughts anyway. That and I am glad you are pulling the trigger and not me! What Bubba said "Man! you must really hate your shootin' shoulder."

Longbow

[El Bango]

Should be a very effective close range game stopper,

[floridaheat]

The gun I plan on using is a .910 African trade gun. The barrel is pretty beefy but I don't plan on putting a ton of powder behind it. It measures 1.358 at the breech which gives it a wall thickness of 0.224. I was a little hopeful about accuracy since the skirt of the bullet makes up about half of its length and the balance is really forward, thought it might act like a foster slug.

Ahhh... And yes I do hate my shoulder, I'm a bit of a recoil junkie

[waksupi]

I think the biggest concern may be breaking the wrist of the stock from the recoil.

[bubba.50]

I can't help but feel like that bullet will be extremely nose-heavy & if ya don't use a shoulder-wreckin' amount of powder behind it, that it will start turnin' somersaults about 3 feet from the muzzle.

[Plastikosmd]

For comparison purposes, this is my .69 slug gun. It shoots a .69 slug, 1755 grains. Gun weight is about 80lbs. Charge is 300-350 g ffg


Slugs. 22,38,45 then a .485 slug for different slug gun, 600 gr or so, (2 part slug hammer swaged)
Then, two n end are .69 1 part slugs, two different profiles

[floridaheat]

Now that is a sexy bit of gun (gotta love them big girls).

[Fishman]

That 80 lb gun is something. What kind of velocity and energy figures?

[Plastikosmd]

Never chrono'ed it. Still working on load and slug design. Built by Bresien based on tooling from a Resnor slug gun

[bedbugbilly]

I think I would pull that barrel and tie it to a tire with a load in it first and set it off with a piece of firecracker/cannon fuse. You don't mention who made the gun - only that it is an African trade gun. Trade guns were not always the best quality regardless of what they might look like. That's a pretty hefty slug of lead to be sending out and as has already been mentioned, I think I'd be a little concerned on the effect the recoil is going to have on the wrist of that long gun.

Can it be done? Sure. Is it the wisest thing to try? Only you can determine that. Just because a breech may be "thick" or have heavy wall thickness . . . doesn't insure it's strong. A breech is only as strong as the breech plug threads. Before I was putting that breech in line with my head, I'd be checking the barrel strength first by "proofing" it first tied to a tire. IMHO

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I imagine Plastikosmd's gun, with that scope and I think a false muzzle, is smoothbored. Rifled benchrest guns of just that description were made for elongated bullets in the nineteenth century, although of course it was very much a minority thing, and were capable of good long range accuracy. They didn't have to be that weight for due to recoil. 20lb. should have made them quite comfortable.

But "African trade gun" could mean anything, original or reproduction. The Boers of South Africa used 4ga smoothbores on elephant with round ball of much the same weight as your bullet. They were generally successful, although the elephant were more naïve in those days, and they generally had horses with an interest in getting them away if things went wrong.

"African trade gun" though, more often means guns made in Birmingham or Liége for the West African trade, and these were often of very poor quality, often welded iron rather than steel, and usually of smaller bore, as powder and lead were in short supply. Even good gunmakers didn't bore shotguns as well as they had to when the customer got to look down the bore, and trade guns were often quite atrocious. I would be very wary of firing one of those today. I am sure it is possible to make a gun with that bore and breech thickness safe, but a lot of these were not the way to do it.
The weight of your bullet isn't very different from a round ball. It conforms to the usual shotgun rule, of a shot charge a hundredth the weight of the gun being comfortably acceptable, with black powder making recoil a bit worse than smokeless, and it is unlikely to weigh 22.86lb. I also think the bullet is too elongated to remain stable like a Forster slug. The relation of diameter to bore is also important, If it is a loose fit, using some sort of mandrel to expand the cavity should help.

[floridaheat]

It's a "tight loose" fit if you know what I mean... And it is he later trade gun you described, though going over it it looks in great condition, even the barrel. I don't plan on putting African sized Charges in it though, probably around 150 ish grains of FF

[Plastikosmd]

False muzzle as pictured, Tis the larger of the 3. Set up for crossed paper. Barrel is rifled


for reference, next to a 1" bull barrel, sans false muzzle


it may not need to be that thick to be "safe." This is sort of a specialized gun, like mr Mitchell's here in link. As an aside my scope was made by Mitchell
http://www.blackpowdermag.com/blackp...-mitchell-gun/

more reading on these slug guns
http://www.blackpowdermag.com/blackp...ing-machinery/

[Ballistics in Scotland]

That is most impressive, and pretty much what I though it was. It is a pity that the articles don't say anything about groups, but I wsould guess them to be better than breech-loaders reached for quite a while. Somebody has to do it! It is perhaps important, though, that the name produces confusion with a smoothbore used for deer hunting.

[floridaheat]

Actually it was Belgian made and has proof stamps, I just don't know what the proof load was