Buckshot?

[Morgan]

Do any of you shoot buckshot in your fowlers?

I've got 5lbs of 000 buck that I am thinking about using during this coming deer season.  Any suggestions or comments?

Morgan

[Kermit]

What are you shooting it with, and how do you like to hunt?

[Morgan]

20ga/.62 Tulle fusil....still hunt (usually in a natural blind) hill country no long shots.

Morgan

[Sir Michael]

Use it in a .36 Squirrel Gun.

[Morgan]

LOL...that's how I ended up with 5lbs of it in anticipation of buying a .36 squirrel rifle...but it has not matierialized yet!


Morgan

[Two Steps]

20ga/.62 Tulle fusil.

IIRC (which isn't often   ) OOO buck measures about .35 in diam.  I don't believe that you can chamber even two of them in a 20/62.  By chamber two or more, I mean having at least two of the shot sitting side by side and stacked however high (usually about nine pellets or so total).  I don't know what kind of pattern you could work up with your triple ought...but ya can sure try it.  The largest I've tried in a 20 was number 4 shot...with mixed results.  Let us know how it works for ya.
Al

[Longhunter]

I'm not a big fan of buckshot for deer. Too much wounding and unfound dead deer with buckshot.   If you've gotta use it for somethin, use it on varmints... coyotes and such..

For deer, load that 20 with a patched round ball and you'll be better armed.

[Kermit]

Used to use buck on farm-raidin' coyotes and feral dogs. Never deer.

I think that's right, it's .350. Two of 'em side-by-side would be .700.
Need a Bess or similar in order to stack two together in first layer, then two at 180 degrees to the first two, then rotate again...

I think you have in your posession the perfect reason to get yourself a .36!

[Uncle Russ]

Morgan, FWIW, I have had a bit of experience with "Buckshot" in a smoothie, and just between you me, the performance was less than sterling, to say the least.
I have tried loading them in a 12 bore, a .69 cal, and a .62 cal... none of them performed like we expect, and many times witnessed,  buckshot perform from a loaded shell.

I can't offer any explanation as to why this is so as regular shot can pattern from a smoothie just as well as from a modern loaded shotshell.

Anyway, long story short, I think Ron (Longhunter) gave you some excellent advise on being better armed with a roundball and patch...now that is some sure fire medicine!

Uncle Russ...

[Morgan]

Thanks guys, those responses pretty much answer my question.  I just hate to think of all those .350 roundballs I've got going to waste.  

I don't suppose any of you would like to write a letter to my wife telling her that I REALLY, REALLY need a .36 squirrel rifle would you?

Morgan

[Lastmohecken]

I used to play around with a multible ball load, where I would take usually three fifty cal balls and drill a hole through them, and tie them together with heavy fishing line. I would tie them about 6 inches apart.

I shot these in a 12ga muzzleloading shotgun, using newspaper for wadding, top and bottom. And I also used it in a 54 cal double rifle. In the rifle I would load one barrel with a plain old 54 cal patched roundball. The other barrel I first pushed down a plastic roundball patch, ( I don't know if they even make these anymore, as they wern't much good for anything anyway), then loaded my three ball load, along with a little bore butter to keep everthing nice and slick, then I pushed another plastic patch down on top.

I never killed anything with it, as it's not legal in my state, but it made some pretty deadly looking, but sometimes sorta odd patterns on the targets.

[Riley/MN]

Thanks guys, those responses pretty much answer my question.  I just hate to think of all those .350 roundballs I've got going to waste.  

I don't suppose any of you would like to write a letter to my wife telling her that I REALLY, REALLY need a .36 squirrel rifle would you?

Morgan

Let me know if that works. If it does I will buy a bag of 00 and post my wife's address here...

[Minnesota Mike]

Out here in VA, in some places you can only use buckshot.

But having crawled and scraped my way through the underbrush that grows thick and untamed I can understand why . . .

r/
MM

[Longhunter]

Thanks guys, those responses pretty much answer my question. I just hate to think of all those .350 roundballs I've got going to waste

You could melt em down and cast some .600 or .610 roundballs....

[Three Hawks]

Out here in VA, in some places you can only use buckshot.

But having crawled and scraped my way through the underbrush that grows thick and untamed I can understand why . . .

r/
MM

In my short career in this vale of tears I have learned that regulatory bodies seldom ever take actual conditions into consideration when formulating regulations and laws.  

I will bet a dollar against the hole in a donut that the buckshot regulation has the same reasoning behind it that the "Slug or buckshot only West of State Route 9" rule in Western Washington has, population density.  Simply too many people in too small an area to allow rifles for deer hunting.  And with the number of lackwits in our various State regulatory bodies it's a wonder that game laws make what little sense they do.

Three Hawks