Shooting a 54 cal smooth bore

[Lonewolfe20]

My wife bought me a smoothbore 54 cal rifle

I haven't shot a smoothbore before

1. Do I load it similar to a rifled barrel when I am shooting a round ball

2. How would the loading procedure be to use shot
     (Please be as specific as possible )

Thanks everyone

[prairie dog]

You will get different answers from different perspectives.  Some load smooth bores in attempt to be as Historically correct as possible.  Others are only concerned with performance.

I am relativity new to the smooth bore.  Mine is a 62 cal.  I patch my round ball just the same as my rifles.  It means I have to wipe the bore after every shot but I am shooting in competition against muskets and I am only concerned with my groups on the target.  And I am still tweaking that load looking for improvement.    

My shot loads are performing to my total satisfaction.   Here I load powder, over powder card, lubed wad torn into 4 or 5 layers, shot, over shot card.  That load patterns well, breaks clays, and kills critters.  I don't see any reason to change it.  

IMO you need to experiment some to find out what your gun is going to shoot best.

[mario]

I am more historically minded, even when shooting in (informal) matches.

Powder, ball, wadding.

Powder, wadding, shot, wadding.

Wadding can be anything from paper to wasp's nesting to tow or even grass in a pinch.

Mario

[Stormrider51]

Prairie Dog and Mario have given you both ends of the spectrum in smoothbores.  I originally loaded mine the way I had loaded rifles, with powder and tightly patched ball.  Then I experimented with other things and discovered that I got almost as much accuracy with powder, tow wadding, ball, tow wadding.  That one had the advantage in that I could shoot either ball or shot without needing to carry both patches and wads.  Being something of an accuracy nut I've now settled on using an over powder card wad, lubed cushion wad, either bare ball or shot, and an over shot wad to hold things in place.  This gives me accuracy equal to what I got with a PRB while allowing me to shoot shot whenever needed.  The bottom line is that  each gun is a universe unto itself.  Experiment to find what load it likes and how it likes to be loaded.  It's all part of the fun of muzzleloading.

Storm

[Hanshi]

Generally, patched ball in a smoothbore requires a ball .020" under bore size rather than the standard .010" of rifles.  This is because there are no grooves for the patch to compress into.  For bare ball I use WW metal and seat it on top of a cushion wad over the powder with a card wad on top of the ball.  both shoot very well for me.


Here's a bare ball, 50 yard target shot with my .62 smoothbore.  Three different powder charges were used and seated as described above.




Here's 8 shots with patched .600" ball at 50 yards.  These are typical groups with smoothbores.  Not shooter; just capabilities of a smoothbore.  Green holes are two fliers.



Here's a deer I killed with a patched ball in my smoothbore.

[TallTexan]

My wife bought me a smoothbore 54 cal rifle

Nice to be married to someone like that for sure!

Feel free to ask questions as to any of the terms thrown about herein.  Have you shot only muzzle loading rifles before this?