smoothbore loads

[spadegrip]

I have been away from skirmishing for around 20 years, and have recently returned. It seems the new thing is smoothbore. I have an original '42 Harpers Ferry smoothbore that I have been trying to get to shoot consistently. My new load is a .678 ball with the sprue filed off, lubed and covered with tin foil and a charge of 58 gr of FF. This new load seems to work very well as I have been able (as of yesterday) to keep all shots in the black, and I have loaded 10 rounds without cleaning. Do shooters use tin foil as a patch? In the past with a bare ball I was lucking to hit the paper at 25 yards, and it would take some effort to get the ball down the barrel after six or so shots. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[kowdok]

Sounds to me like what you're doing works pretty well, especially if they are in the black at 50yds. Tinfoil is allowed by the rules. From what I have learned, most SB shooters use the .678 cal. ball, but rasp it between 2 farrier files. Then they coat the ball with Alox lubricant. As I understand it, rasping the balls raises little lead fingers over the ball and tends to center the ball in the barrel so that the blast will encircle the ball as it exits the barrel and helps with with accuracy. An awful lot of skirmishers use 45grs. of 3F Swiss powder, and this seems to work better than any other load I have tried in a half dozen SBs. Hope this helps.

[iron brigade]

3 1842 springfield smoothbores: .69 cal. .690 ball from Lee mould. 47 grains of KIK 3fff. balls are rolled on a file to roughen then dip lubed. consistent tack drivers at 25 yards.

[Rebel Dave]

Spade grip
I use .678 RB with the spru on, and 65 grn 2F blk. I roll the ball on a sheet of 120grit dry wall sanding screen sheets (Not sand paper) it is made by Norton., this gives the ball a rough finnish, and helps hold the lube. I dip them twice in my own RB lube. I'm shooting an original 42 springfield with the Macon conversion. It works for me.

What is your location, ??, you can probably find am outfit (team) near you, that would like a new member. I did the same as you I took an18 yr Hiatus from skirmishing. I'm glad I kept all my stuff.

Rebel Dave

[Rich Foster]

Seems to me the Tin foil is cleaning your barrel than a plain ball. If this works stay with it. The 1st reply post is a very common well rounded load that most people have success with. The fff Swiss is a hot clean burning powder and leaves little fouling. As far as rasping the amount of rasp will make your ball its shooting size. If you have a .687 bore after rasping you want your ball between .006-.009 smaller than bore. I have a .687 bore and I have a .672,.675,.678 moulds. I can take the .672 mould mould with hard lead ball comes out .674 I heavy farrier file rasp it to .679 shootsfine. I can take the .675 regular file rasp it to .680 and it shoots fine. I can take the .678 Elka mould (the roundest ball mould) very lightly rasp it to .680-.681 and it shoots fine. All using liquid alox (still have not figured what a lubricant does to blackpowder was told do use it and it works) and all having same impact point with 3 different moulds. So the amount of rasping allows you to make the ball the size your bore likes. Now with Alox some guns like very little some like it a little more. You have to tweak your smoothie for how much to use. all this info conforms on using 45grns fff Swiss powder and Liquid Alox. If you use Swiss and the ball is tight going down the bore (it should fall down the barrel with a slight push or wieght of ramrod) your ball size is to large or not right amount of lube. Be very consistant with your loads or your smoothy will shoot like a Mortor. Sounds like your '42 likes what your doing stay with it. Rich

[jonk]

Every gun is different of course. Personally I use a .678" round ball, no filing (found it didn't make any difference) with the sprue oriented down. Lightly coated in alox. I worked up starting with 40 gr of 3FG Schutzen (personally I like the stuff, but start with whatever powder you'd like), and found the groups tightened up at 60 gr, so that's what I shoot. One of my teammates shoots the tinfoil/lube setup like you suggest.

Keeping them in the black on an individual target is not going to hit you a pigeon every time, but it's a good place to start. It's a great start in fact, and you'd certainly not be bad off with that accuracy, but you won't be among the top shooters either if that's where the load peters out (not that I am either, this is my first season with SB).

So I'd try some of both, with foil and w/o, with 3F and 2F. Probably within 100 rounds you'll work out what she likes.

[hp gregory]

a friend once said that smoothbores are the devils gun. i have found that this is true only if you dont spend some time working up a decent load. all the info that has been posted will work in certain guns. you just need to find out what yours likes. i like the simple approach in mine. roll an undersize ball on files until you get the dia correct for you barrel. from my experiance the fit of the ball needs to be pretty loose. 3f swiss seems to burn the cleanest when allox is used for lube. when cleaning the barrel with this combo you dont realy have much fouling. pretty much just dust that a cleaning patch with murphys, alcohol, and peroxide will quickly suck up leaving the bore clean and dry. the only thing you have going for you with a smoothy is the keeping the bore the same each shot along with your good ammo. the one thing i have found most important with the ammo is having a round ball. balls i have used that had a flat spot when the sprue is removed have been prone to giving me flyers. with all guns the very last thing that influences the flight of the projectile is the crown on the muzzle. as the projectile clears the muzzle if the crown is crooked or damaged the gas pressure will not push evenly and can cause a bullet base to tilt or the ball to corkscrew. some would say that it would do the same thing each time no matter what. however i know from years of shooting that a crown on a gun is one of the most important things when it comes to good shooting. the same is true for good ammo. any imperfection in a ball such as a flat spot or leaving a sprue CAN cause a problem. you may not see it at 25 yds but it will certainly make itself clear to you at 50 yds.

hp

[macvcallsign]

SpadeGrip,

I have a '42 Nixon gun with a Whitacare bbl. Bore mics at .690. Use a Pedersoli mold that drops a .682 ball with hard lead. I rasp the balls between two large Bastard files and use Gorx 3F 68 grs. The Pedersoli mold has almost NO spruge and the files take what little is there off. I dip the balls after loading them in the tubes with a mixture of Crisco(50%), Bees wax(25%), and Alox(25%). Percentages, of course, are approximate and would depend on the weather temperature: Adding more Crisco to soften or Bees wax to harden.

Works very well at 25 and 50 yds and has had the same sight picture in all the 7 yrs I have been shooting it. A miss is only caused by the nut behind the butt!:) As stated in the other posts, I have found that Smoothies do seem to need more work when it comes to developing a good load. Good Luck.

Dennis Schuler
4th Kentucky Cavalry, CSA
1561V

[hp gregory]

i wanted to mention patching with smoothys. i dont realy trust aluminum foil patching. spent some time with it a while back and found it to be very fragile and unreliable. i have never realy understood the rule against cloth patching on smoothys. i have heard some mention there is a fire hazard from burning patches. i can promise you if that were the case friendship would have burned down many years ago. i spent 22 years out there and never once did i see the grass catch on fire from a patch during those 8 day matches. however they do look bad laying around in the grass and they take a long while to rot. but they do some mighty good shooting at friendship with smoothbores all the way out to 100 yds and i would bet that most of them use a cloth patched round ball. just proves there are multiple ways to skin a cat.

hp

[spadegrip]

Many Thanks for the input. I have now been vibrating the bullets to remove the sprue. Let's see how this works once the temps go below 95. The bore on my musket is .689 and with the tin foil on the .678 bullet it seems to fit. I can see how the tin foil is fragile, but it does work. My goal is not the set the world on fire with my scores, but to have fun and hit some targets. Thanks again. I'm glad I didn't sell my Sharps carbine! The uniform is a different story. It seems to have shrunk over the last 20 years, I also have a Barnett P-53 I hung on to. Does anyone know who sells the wooden cleaning rods with the round knob on top and the brass jag for .58. I have the rod, but the jag fell off after 30+ years. I think Mike Yeck or sutler John sold them.