I've posted this information before, but here goes.
I shoot a ball that is about .015" under bore size, cast from a hard lead alloy of 3 parts pure lead to one part wheel weights, roughed between two Farrier's (blacksmith) files until they fit correctly down a 4-6" piece of barrel that is the same size, .687", as my Hoyt barrels, then load them with NO LUBE over 45 grains of Goex Old Eynsford. I got the section of barrel from Bobby. You can also score the cutoffs from Armi Sport barrels (.690 bore) if you're lucky.
That's right, I said NO LUBE. I found that the foul outs I experienced with liquid alox decreased with less lube. As an experiment, I took a box of 25 rounds loaded dry to the range. I shot 24 rounds with no foul out. The last shot loaded about the same as the second one and the accuracy was as good as I can hold.
I've decided that to shoot smoothbore you need the right size ball, a way to keep them consistently sized and a powder that doesn't produce fouling. I control the ball size with the section of barrel. It takes 8 passes around the surface of my files to make the ball just fit a length of barrel. Every shot I fire gets gauged in this way.
The Old Eynsford was designed to produce high velocity and soft fouling. If you shoot plain Goex 3f you will develop a fouling ring about 6" from the muzzle that you have to drive your ball through. That happens after about 6-7 shots. It gets so tight you need to brush or scrape to finish a 10 shot target. If you shoot Swiss, the same thing happens down just above the breech on a full length barrel. Both conditions happened to me at the Fort when trying to shoot a 10 shot target, plus a sighter or two.
That's what drove me toward experimentation.
I tried different lubes but wasn't happy. I got great results by heating the filed balls in boiling water and then dipping them in my musket lube preheated in the microwave. Problem was the group was 6" to the right at 25 yards, and I didn't care for transporting and handling fully lubed round balls - too messy. I never tried excessive amount of alox, but that was mostly because I'm a cheap so and so and didn't like paying 6 bucks for that small bottle. (BTW - I have 3 or 4 unopened bottles to sell.) I discovered that less Alox meant less hard fouling and longer strings IF YOU USE THE RIGHT POWDER.
I've shot my smoothbore with no lube for two seasons now. Last week, I saw I had 11 rounds left over from the Fall Nationals, so I loaded up some fresh ammo and headed to the range with my H&P. Shooting only at 50 yards, the first shot was a 10 and I had 11 shots in the black out of 15 shots total. Every shot but one went where I was looking when the trigger broke. The fifteenth shot went down the same as the rest of them. There was no difference in accuracy between the old and new loads.
Your results may vary.
Bob Anderson
Company C, 1st Michigan Volunteer Infantry
Small Arms Committee
"I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a hand on.
I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them."
- John Wayne in "The Shootist", 1976
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