Single Ball - Patch vs Wads

[Hanshi]

I know the forum Stormrider51 was referring to and he's right on target.  They tend to be mean, especially to new posters.

Anyway, I got good results using a lubed 1/2" fiber wad over the powder, bare ball centered and pushed down with os card wad on top.  At 50 yards it was easy to keep all shots on a paper plate (4"-6").  By that I mean MORE than just 5 shots.  For woods deer that, IMHO, is satisfactory.

I have to say, though, that using the same fiber wad op and seating a ball patched with something like .010" lubed cotton does even better.  Using this load I shot 8 balls into 2.5" at 50 yards using a WW .605" ball rather than a .600" lead ball.  The lead ball might do as well or better but I want to use WW as I have a large supply.  Patched .605" WW ball loads tight in my gun but is quite doable in the woods and even easier with wiping between shots.  I need to do more work but my present load works just fine on deer.

[Stormrider51]

Rick,
For some reason when I try to PM you I get an error message.  Email me at jhansen1951@gmail.com.

[Captchee]

good point about wadding vs wads .
 what i use is  old horse hair carpet pad . which is nothing but a thick wool made  from horse hair .
 i call these wads becouse i pre cut and lube them . but in fact they really are nothing like fiber shotgun wads

[mario]

“MOD HAT ON “
Mario
SIR . I tip my hat to your knowledge .
   But you seriously need to step back and think about how you word  some of your  comments .
  Let me be clear . The problem isint with your information , it’s the way you  present it  that’s becoming un acceptable and belittling .  IMO there was no call  for  the first part of your post .
Simply put .there is no need to treat people  that way .
If  you were being tongue and cheek with humor . Fine , please say so , use the dreaded emotion cons  or  use the LOL , so we know .
Without  doing that  your information , which again is often spot on , is all to often being discarded as arrogance .

Firstly, that was not my intention. If anyone took it that way, I apologize.

Secondly, the OP stated:

I encourage anyone who has thoughts on this subject to speak up.

So I did. And tried to show that my perspective is a little different than his (and others') on the subject.

If my effective range is reduced with a HC load, so be it. If I can be quite sure of a killing shot at 35yds but not 50yds, then I wait for a 35yd shot. If I wanted the most efficient firearm for hunting, I'd be carrying a scoped bolt-action. I work within the limitations.

BTW- In the hunting field around here, I've never seen a deer past 50yds. Heck, I haven't seen one past 35yds. The rolling terrain and the vegetation prevent it.


The "A smoothbore is not a rifle" comment was made in fun and to remind folks that are new to the smoothbore gun that if you have the same expectations with it as you do a rifle, you will be sorely disappointed. If you are the type of person that gets a 3" group and spends 3lbs of powder trying to get a load that groups 2.87", you may also be disappointed.

If my explaining of my perspective on a subject becomes "mud-slinging" to folks simply because I mention an HC way of doing something, then I don't know what to tell you.

I wasn't trying to "force feed" anyone anything. I gave my perspective/experience on a subject because, after all, SR51 said:

I encourage anyone who has thoughts on this subject to speak up.

But I guess some folks sensitivities take precedence.

Stormrider51, I am sorry your thread has taken such a turn.

Mario

PS-

...every dummy alive knows it was done just a little bit differently back in the day...

Actually, no. Most people (smart folks included) don't know that.

[Adam Wetherington]

Captchee,

When 1 guy agrees with Mario you jump his case and say no more comments are needed (or something to that effect)....yet when guys who agree with you jump his case you say nothing to them?

Fair and balanced moderating right there.

Did I word that right so I didn't upset you???

     :happy  :happy  :happy  :roll eyes  :roll eyes  :evil:  :evil:  

[Stormrider51]

Folks, please...let's stop this.  I took no offense at Mario's post in the first place.  I simply posted back that muzzleloading is a many-faceted sport with room for all.  The fact is that what Mario said is true.  Smoothbores are not rifles and it is not reasonable to expect rifle accuracy from them.  That's why they invented rifling in the first place.  Mario and Rick have chosen to load their smoothbores in a HC manner and hunt within whatever limitations they find with the loads they use.  I have nothing against that because they are acting in an ethical manner.  As we said back in the day, that's their thing.  I, on the other hand, used to build custom scope-sighted bolt actions rifles for customers.  Part of my service was that I would work up the most accurate hand load for each rifle and supply a box of that ammo on delivery along with load data and sight-in target.  The customer could choose to buy factory ammo instead but they darned well knew what the rifle they spent their hard earned money on was capable of.  Accuracy is my thing.  Any firearm I get my hands on gets worked with and tested until I find the best load.  As silly as it may sound smoothbores are something new to me.  For years I mentally wrote them off as inaccurate and therefore not really interesting.  Now that I've taken an interest I will find out what they can do in terms of accuracy.  It's not a big step to post my findings on our forum.

I'm going to add one last observation.  I see the TMA as an organization of great potential.  I'm also wondering if it is dying.  I go to the forum and see the same posts day after day.  What will it take to make this association into a valuable resource for those interested in traditional muzzleloading?  Not much.  Just some participation.  Mario, you are obviously a storehouse of information about how things were done historically.  Why not share some of that knowledge?  Post your journey on the forum.  Tell us how you started and what you learned on the way.  Captchee, where I built mostly modern rifles, you build muzzleloaders and therefore have my admiration and respect.  Tell us how all that came about.  Tips and tricks about building or repair appreciated too.  The same goes for the rest of you.  If you have areas of expertise or even just observations tell the rest of us about it.  Let's make the TMA forum into what I'd like it to be, namely that other forum without all the meanness and fighting.  And please remember that bandwidth costs money.  Please spend the $15 and join!

Storm

[Uncle Russ]

Captchee,

When 1 guy agrees with Mario you jump his case and say no more comments are needed (or something to that effect)....yet when guys who agree with you jump his case you say nothing to them?

Fair and balanced moderating right there.

Did I word that right so I didn't upset you???

     :happy  :happy  :happy  :roll eyes  :roll eyes  :evil:  :evil:  

I'll tell you why that happened!

I can't speak for Captchee, but I can speak for myself.
When I opened the post notification in my browser it went straight to Mario's post,  it was quite obvious that both SR51 and my own post had been hi-jacked by Mario with a bunch the PC stuff.
 
And, as a moderator myself, it is my job to point out how wrong Mario is consistently in doing this.
It is not his first time, there has been complaints for years about him taking on the role of PC Police.

There are many members on this forum who welcome HC / PC speak, and often ask for that advise.
There are just as many who don't, and don't really care for it being interjected into threads without first being asked for.

If I had read Captchee' post first, I would have realized he had the situation covered and there would have been no need for me post anything.
Per established protocol, I would have simply kept my eye on that thread the rest of the day, and locked it down and removed it if things became too rough.

But that ain't what happened.

Now, did I word that just right for you?
I don't want no hard feelings over what has happened, but to hi-jack a thread and turn it around 360 because you believe only one way, which is the PC way, is the only right way of doing anything.
This borders on harassment for those who don't want to hear it day in and day out, and it  simply can not be allowed to continue.

Russ

[Captchee]

Captchee,

When 1 guy agrees with Mario you jump his case and say no more comments are needed (or something to that effect)....yet when guys who agree with you jump his case you say nothing to them?

Fair and balanced moderating right there.

Did I word that right so I didn't upset you???

     :happy  :happy  :happy  :roll eyes  :roll eyes  :evil:  :evil:  

[Stormrider51]

I had an interesting and somewhat surprising morning.  I set out to re-test the ball and wads experiment and then wanted to try tow wadding with a bare ball.  As before, the range was 35 yards and I was shooting from a rest.  This go round I decided to solve the vertical stringing by getting a good cheek weld for consistency.  All the groups are consequently low but they at least reflect what the gun will do and not what Ol' Storm causes as he fights the absence of a rear sight.

First group was wads with bare ball sandwiched between them.  I had noted last time the horizontal stringing.  That didn't repeat this time.  Here' the target.  Ignore the rightmost hole.  It was a called flyer.

Not great but not that bad either.

Next I tried tow.  I ran a wad of it down on the powder charge, dropped in the bare ball, and followed with another small wad of tow to keep things in place.  The result surprised me and is no small amount of vindication for our HC bretheren.  Take a look.

While we were back to the darned horizontal stringing, that group is no larger than the one fired with wads and in truth is better because elevation is very consistent.  I have to confess that I didn't expect this.  I was thinking gas blow-by was going to lead to erratic velocities and all the problems that causes.  I do hereby eat humble pie.  I'd need to repeat the test and get consistent results before being sure but from here it looks as if buying wads for shooting round balls is a waste of money.

Next I'll try a larger (closer to bore size) ball.  Rick Evans volunteered to send me a few for testing purposes.  Thank you Rick!     I really didn't want to buy a mold that I'd end up selling in short order.  That test will be done after the balls arrive.

Storm

[greyhunter]

Hey Storm, whilst yer slingin lead, how bout punching some of yer paper with buck n ball! I may just try that myself.  I can imagine hearing that over the sound of battle. "Give em buck n ball boys!" Now that would git my attention!

[Gambia]

Please enlighten me on this subject and the use of tow in a smoothbore, because I'm having a hard time visualizing how it is loaded and keeps the RB from rolling out the muzzle.  Is there enough fiber in the wad of tow to get around the ball and grip it slightly, at least enough to keep it in the bore?  Or do you have to sandwich the ball in between wads of tow?  I've shot Stormrider's smoothbore and the lock it lightening fast but I didn't watch him close enough to tell you how he loaded it before handing it to me.  One other comment on smoothies is that there was one being used on the one and only woods walk I have participated in and at least for the distances to the targets, 50 yards being the farthest shot, it seemed that he could more than hold his own against the rifles that the rest of us sported.

[greyhunter]

The tow acts much like a paper cartridge as used by many military. It simply jams on top of the ball and friction against the bore holds the ball in place. I use paper wasp nest to the same effect. It will not go around a ball in the bore that only has less .010 clearance or less between ball and bore. A cork, if you will, over the ball.

[Stormrider51]

I loaded one wad of tow over the powder, dropped in the ball, and used a second small wad to keep the ball from rolling back out if the muzzle was lowered.  I'll note here that while the tow appears to have won out over the wads, the patched ball was by far the most accurate of the three methods.

Storm

[mario]

Please enlighten me on this subject and the use of tow in a smoothbore, because I'm having a hard time visualizing how it is loaded and keeps the RB from rolling out the muzzle.  Is there enough fiber in the wad of tow to get around the ball and grip it slightly, at least enough to keep it in the bore?  Or do you have to sandwich the ball in between wads of tow?  

At the risk of offending someone:

"It is the General's orders, that none of the men load with cartridges upon their regimental
parades but from these powder horns; and to have wadding above and below the ball, to keep both powder and ball firm in their pieces."

John Knox, 1759 (Knox, pg 259)

With tow, specifically, you wad it up into a ball, push it downbore and it expands slightly once it "relaxes". That and a bit of fouling helps keep everything in place. Unless you swinging your firelock around your head, it doesn't take much. When at a stationary range, I only wad over the ball. If doing a woodswalk/hunting, I wad over powder and over ball just to make sure.

I'll tell you why that happened!

I can't speak for Captchee, but I can speak for myself.
When I opened the post notification in my browser it went straight to Mario's post,  it was quite obvious that both SR51 and my own post had been hi-jacked by Mario with a bunch the PC stuff.
 
And, as a moderator myself, it is my job to point out how wrong Mario is consistently in doing this.
It is not his first time, there has been complaints for years about him taking on the role of PC Police.

There are many members on this forum who welcome HC / PC speak, and often ask for that advise.
There are just as many who don't, and don't really care for it being interjected into threads without first being asked for.

If I had read Captchee' post first, I would have realized he had the situation covered and there would have been no need for me post anything.
Per established protocol, I would have simply kept my eye on that thread the rest of the day, and locked it down and removed it if things became too rough.

But that ain't what happened.

Now, did I word that just right for you?
I don't want no hard feelings over what has happened, but to hi-jack a thread and turn it around 360 because you believe only one way, which is the PC way, is the only right way of doing anything.
This borders on harassment for those who don't want to hear it day in and day out, and it  simply can not be allowed to continue.

Please point out where I said anyone HAS to do it my way and I will gladly leave the board. People ask for opinions, I give mine. When needed, I back it up with primary documentation. Quite simple, really.

Mario, you are obviously a storehouse of information about how things were done historically.  Why not share some of that knowledge?  

Because, apparently, it offends people when I start "slinging mud" when I try and "force feed" them information. I do have 2 blogs for anyone interested. They are in my sig line.

Mario

[rickevans]

I am going to try some paper cartridges and two wadding as stated above. If I ever get out of the danged office and into the woods!!!