Smoothbore Questions

[BLakatos]

l?m wanting to start shooting smoothbore. I?ve been thinking about an H & P conversation or even possibly a ?42.
How much is undersized should the ball be? Type of powder and grains? Also, I?ve heard about rasping the ball.
Any suggestions will be helpful. (At least after I find a smoothbore)
Thanks, Brian

[bobanderson]

Search for a post from 2012 called "Smoothbore theory."

This will give you every different opinion on what to try and how to approach them.

Good luck. It will be fun.

[John Westenberger]

I can second Bob's suggestion. That thread is a dozen pages long and packed full of every tip and trick out there. Smoothbores are a different ballgame than rifles. I tried many of the suggestions on that page, and still have a few more to do, but I'm blowing one ragged hole at 25 yards, so I may not do much more to it. I will say if there is one thing everybody on that thread uses, it's liquid alox lube. That seems to be just about the only standard for most smoothie shooters.

[Maillemaker]

Some people shoot very undersized balls. Others shoot tight-fitting balls.

The way I was taught to shoot my .690" bore Armisport M1842 by Chuck Garvey, one of our team's best shooters, was this:

Take an RCBS .678 round ball, and rough it up between two files. Then double-dip it in Lee Alox. I use 70 grains 3F Goex to launch it.

This results in about a perfect fit in the .690 bore of my Armisport M1842. But, it will still load fairly easily throughout a 3-minute competition.

My very first Nationals with this combination I went to 10th place Expert class.

What the rasping does is it grows bumps all over the surface of the ball. This increases it's effective diameter by about .01"-.015". Imagine squeezing a ball of clay in your hand with your fingers not tightly together. The amount of clay doesn't change, but some of the clay squeezes between your fingers, resulting in a larger size of clay than before you squeezed it.

But - importantly - the bumps all over the ball are lead. Which means they will deform and wipe away easily when you shove it down the bore. Unlike if you just used a solid ball .01"-.015" larger.

The same effect is obtained when some people use aluminum foil to wrap the ball as a patch (the only kind of patch allowed for smoothbores in N-SSA competition). The foil develops wrinkles all over it, which eat windage in the bore. But the wrinkles will bend/scrape away on loading even as the bore fouls.

I don't lend any credit to the idea that the rasping creates dimples like on a golf ball and provides some kind of aerodynamic benefit. First, after you double-dip them in Alox, the bumps are all hidden and the ball looks and feels essentially smooth and round again.

I think the whiskers just eat windage an it's for certain sure that a tight-fitting ball will shoot very well in a good barrel. I think if you don't end up with a tight-fitting ball after rasping, rasping isn't doing anything for you.

Now, I have a teammate that shoots them .012" undersize, and I've seen that guy never miss in a smoothbore match at least 3 times. Some people theorize that the blast from the charge creates a wall of gas around the ball so that it floats down the barrel. I don't know.

I'm sold on the rasping and tight-fitting ball. However, I found using files to be too tedious, slow, and it hurt my hands. So I made a machine to do it:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYLakgQTXVs

[BLakatos]

I?ve seen that video before. After I find a smoothbore, I will definitely get that!

[Jim_Burgess_2078V]

The army used a .65 diameter ball wadded by the cartridge paper in their .69 caliber muskets. They were content to use line formations and volume fire to compensate for the inherent inaccuracy of smoothbores. We can't use paper for wadding per N-SSA rules although aluminum foil can be used. Most skirmishers are using a much larger ball with a wax (Liquid Alox) or heavy layer of lube to take up the windage in the bore. I still see skirmishers struggling to ram their tight-fitting balls after the fouling from many shots restricts the bore. Liquid Alox does little to soften the powder fouling. It is designed more to reduce leading with modern cast bullets. There is no question, however, that a .678 or .680 diameter ball with some form of grease/wax has proven effective. Having a rear sight on your smoothbore also seems to help accuracy.

I'm somewhat of a non-conformist and resigned to never reaching expert class with my unsighted M1842. I shoot a .672 diameter ball wrapped with aluminum foil over 70 grains of FFg (currently using 70 grains of Swiss 1.5g for lack of GOEX). The foil is cut larger so there is enough to wad over the ball when loaded. I can shoot an entire smoothbore team match (15-20 rounds) without having to brush the bore. Brushing between relays is almost a must for those using larger balls. My method may not be the best, but I still hold up my end of the line most of the time.

Jim Burgess, 15th CVI

[Robert Murphy]

I shot a 46-1X at the Early Bird. 1842 with a bent Witacher barrel. .678 round ball chewed by a Vortex Ball Roller. Alox lube. 47 grains of Swiss XXX. No rear sight. I shot the relay without cleaning the gun. It got a little tight the last foot but never failed to seat on the powder. Next time out I'll do some bore brush and scraper.

[Hal]

You gotta find what yours likes. I'm relatively new to smoothbore. I've had one for a while, but it needed work and I never made time to do any load work up. Once I did those things, I found it hit pretty consistently. However, I guess I'm breaking all the 'rules' that the majority seem to follow. I use an undersized ball (.675). I do not rough it up in any way, but I do roll them around between two pieces of granite countertop to flatten the parting line and what tiny bit of sprue my mold leaves (which ain't much). I use a soft lube on half the ball by dip lubing the exposed end after inserting into a quick load tube. I'm using 68 grains of 3F Swiss and load the ball lube side toward the powder. The 6th or 8th round loads as easily as the first. I clean with a wet patch wrapped around a brush between relays. My brush does not stick in the bore. The soft fouling, which I attribute to soft lube and Swiss powder, does not plug up the breech.

I've only skirmished with it twice. Once when I first got it. I was using a larger ball, was roughing them up, was using liquid alox. Could barely get the ball down the bore after a couple of shots, and accuracy was less than stellar, to say the least. I took 2-3 years off from smoothbore before doing the necessary work (helicoil the nipple that was looser than I cared for it to be) and did some more in-depth load development resulting in the ammo described above. I then skirmished with it again this February. The teams all agreed to shoot the 50 yard event first since the target frames were already there. I don't think I hit a single target. When we went to 25 and shot the Pigeon board, I immediately knew I was aiming too high. I made the necessary corrections to my sight picture and started breaking clays like never before. I didn't think I could miss. 'course that cockiness came back to bite me, as it should have. But, I found if I took my time, I could hit targets at 25 with an unsighted 1816 conversion better than at 50 with a P-53.

Oh, and by the way....I had forgotten to lube those rounds. Even so, the last round of a relay loaded as easily as the first. Undersized ball and Swiss powder, I guess. Certainly wasn't the lube. I'm hooked. I just hope I have as good luck next time as this past one.

[Maillemaker]

Liquid Alox does little to soften the powder fouling.

I agree. In our use, I think it is just another windage eater.

I tried using Alox (I actually use a knock-off called Xlox that is a lot cheaper) on non-roughed-up balls and found it had a tendency to flake off the balls. The "tooth" from the rasp enables it to stick much better.

[bobanderson]

Liquid Alox does little to soften the powder fouling.

I stopped using any lube years ago. I rasp my balls a specific number of times and then pass each ball through a 6" section of Hoyt liner to verify fit.

The fouling buildup seemed dependent on which powder I used. 3f Goex would develop a fouling ring about 6" from the muzzle after about 6-8 shots that made loading a bear. When I tried Swiss 1 1/2 & 3f, that fouling ring was about 4-6" above the chamber. The magic happened when I tried a new powder at the time, Goex Express. In my first experiment, I loaded and fired 20 times with no fouling buildup. Again, that's using bare balls, no lube and rasped a specific number of times to ensure a consistent fit.

Goex replaced Express with Old Eynsford and I was told they are identical. I've got a fair amount of Express so I haven't really compared the two.

[Harry Gaul]

I shoot an H and P with 50 grains of Goex 2f with a rasp 678 ball dipped in Alox with lube on the bottom half. First is powder and then the lubed end of the round ball. I shoot 50 grains of 2f because I do not like recoil. I will shoot just about anything once; it is the second shot that gets me to pause.

Good luck,
Harry in Pa.
Forney's
03626v

[Lou Lou Lou]

FWIW with respect to undersized balls. Myself and others shoot Lee .562 in our cadet Smoothbores. Nominal .57 caliber

[PoorJack]

l?m wanting to start shooting smoothbore. I?ve been thinking about an H & P conversation or even possibly a ?42.
How much is undersized should the ball be? Type of powder and grains? Also, I?ve heard about rasping the ball.
Any suggestions will be helpful. (At least after I find a smoothbore)
Thanks, Brian

Ask 10 skirmishers, get 14 different answers.

That said, many who are "roughing" up the ball to bump up the diameter to reduce windage are shooting a ball far undersize to the bore. With that bit of information, would it not be in your best interest to reduce the windage as much as possible and not molest the ball? I lucked into a mold that drops at .685 and my 42 Macon measures .690 so that's windage of .0025. I tried all the aforementioned techniques without much success so I'm pretty much convinced all the gyrations of roughing and Alox are simply to take up windage. Past that, the bore must be straight. Then out of frustration decided to shoot a plain, unmolested ball. I guess it works.

5 shots offhand at 25yd. It gets better from a bench. Load is 65g 3f Swiss, Scheutzen caps, plain ball (sprue still on) put into the black tubes (sprue up) and exposed part dipped in musket lube.
13285

[Maillemaker]

That said, many who are "roughing" up the ball to bump up the diameter to reduce windage are shooting a ball far undersize to the bore. With that bit of information, would it not be in your best interest to reduce the windage as much as possible and not molest the ball?

The problem is that a tight-fitting unknurled ball may reach it's loading limit due to fouling before the same effective diameter knurled ball will.

The knurls will rub away. A solid ball just jams.

I believe this is why aluminum foil patches work also. All the wrinkles do the same thing as the knurled bumps. Eat windage, but get bent down when the bore cokes up.

[PoorJack]

The problem is that a tight-fitting unknurled ball may reach it's loading limit due to fouling before the same effective diameter knurled ball will.

The knurls will rub away. A solid ball just jams.

I believe this is why aluminum foil patches work also. All the wrinkles do the same thing as the knurled bumps. Eat windage, but get bent down when the bore cokes up.

Steve
I've never had this problem but I shoot Swiss

[Hal]

Poor Jack,

That is similar to what I do, but I actually use a somewhat smaller ball. I believe that most smoothbore shooters' loading problems stem from a combination of dirty powder and lack of soft lube. My opinion (worth exactly what you paid for it) is that soft lube makes for soft fouling and soft fouling gives way to the ball on loading. Some will say that soft fouling will be pushed down the bore and form a blockage of the fire channel, but until it does........

[BLakatos]

Ask 10 skirmishers, get 14 different answers.

That said, many who are "roughing" up the ball to bump up the diameter to reduce windage are shooting a ball far undersize to the bore. With that bit of information, would it not be in your best interest to reduce the windage as much as possible and not molest the ball? I lucked into a mold that drops at .685 and my 42 Macon measures .690 so that's windage of .0025. I tried all the aforementioned techniques without much success so I'm pretty much convinced all the gyrations of roughing and Alox are simply to take up windage. Past that, the bore must be straight. Then out of frustration decided to shoot a plain, unmolested ball. I guess it works.

5 shots offhand at 25yd. It gets better from a bench. Load is 65g 3f Swiss, Scheutzen caps, plain ball (sprue still on) put into the black tubes (sprue up) and exposed part dipped in musket lube.
13285

what kind of target are you using?

[PoorJack]

what kind of target are you using?

It's a basic handgun target I printed out from the internet. It supposedly helps diagnose issues in handgun technique. That day, it was all I had left in the target folder so it got the smoothie treatment.

But back to the issue of fouling. First off, I've found Swiss 3f in my Macon doesn't foul nearly as much as Goex. Next, I shoot the ball as cast and only dip the part that loads to the powder (the sprue) in Lens Lube. In a smoothbore match, I have yet to foul out or experience problems in loading. In experiments, I have run the gun for 20+ rounds straight and it does start to get a tad "crunchy" at about the 15th and subsequent shots. If you've gone that many in a 3 minute smoothbore relay, you're shooting extremely fast and might as well not shoot cuz you ain't hitting anything and like we've said before- you can't miss fast enough to hit anything. When I'm competing in smoothbore, I'll just dry brush the bore at the end of the relay with the musket pointed down so whatever the brush dislodges falls out. The load will work if I do my part besides, it's way easier than molesting the ball, dipping in Alox, wrapping in foil, sacrificing chickens at a full moon or dervish dancing during a full moon.

[Will Ganz]

Search for a post from 2012 called "Smoothbore theory."

This will give you every different opinion on what to try and how to approach them.

Good luck. It will be fun.

Linkage to above referenced topic:

https://www.n-ssa.net/vbforum/showthread.php/5645-Smoothbore-Theory?highlight=Smoothbore+theory

[gemmer]

My first try with an unpatched ball out of my original flint 1816 relined by Bobby Hoyt. Still working on consistent eye position for elevation.13294

[BLakatos]

Thanks for all the replies. Definitely a lot of information to take in to account. I guess now, I just need to find a smoothbore!
Thanks, Brian