Anybody have any experience with shooting single ball loads in doubles? (I got interested in this thru reading old Ithaca double ads on the http://www.diamondgunsmithing.com site.).

Apparently this was a common loading back in the day (before even my time--never saw a factory shell loaded this way, except in collections). Assuming that this requires a nearly chokeless bore, I have two candidates; a 60s-vintage 12 bore Valmet O/U with the bottom barrel cylinder bore, and my great grandfather's Rem 1889 "short 10" which has the left barrel marked "CHOKE" (about improved modified) and the right marked "BALL" (no choke at all). These don't appear to be factory markings. Barrels are 32" fluid steel and there is a tiny dovetail/notch sight neatly let into the rib, and a little Sheard bead up front.

I know that one can buy roundball molds in various diameters and that the ball should probably be nearly pure lead. Anybody tried these? On what? What results? Load/Wad?

Always thinking retrowards!

Mike,

I have never used a round ball in a shotgun. I used to shoot a .50 cal hawkins using a patched ball. I would hazard a guess that with out rifling, you will loose accuracy rather quickly, but I could be wrong. Wasn't that known as a smooth bore musket?

BP has these:
.715 ball
http://shop2.mailordercentral.com/bpicart/prodinfo.asp?
number=0377150
.690 ball
http://shop2.mailordercentral.com/bpicart/prodinfo.asp?number=0376900
.690 mold
http://shop2.mailordercentral.com/bpicart/prodinfo.asp?number=1245690
AQ round ball
http://shop2.mailordercentral.com/bpicart/prodinfo.asp?number=0151000
Round ball slug brochure
http://shop2.mailordercentral.com/bpicart/prodinfo.asp?number=00BROUND


Pete

Thanks, Pete! I'll take a look.

I recall that at one time there were ML guns popular in some aprts of rural America that were known as "ball and shot" guns. They apparently were rifle-like but smoothbore and could be used for large game (with balls) and small (with shot). Knowing a little about country people (used to be one), I suspect that the shot usage was mainly potting stuff on the ground and flock shooting at pigeons, ducks, etc. so the rifle sights weren't much of a handicap in using shot.

But the "punkin balls" I'm talking about were once factory loaded in modern (paper) shotshells. Looks like the BP brochure will tell all!

Mike,
I just bought a couple packages of them last week. .715 and .735 for use in a couple choked tens. Stout modern guns. Was looking to nestle them in a bit of cotton ball to semi patch them and try to keep them from rattlin down the bore.....we'll see what happens.

No particular objective in mind, just "because".

Best,
Mark

Geez! you guys must be a bunch of youngsters! We used "Punkin Balls"for deer in Pa. and upstate NY when I was growing up, in 12 and 20 bore doubles. I think rifled slugs were available but "Punkin Balls" were a lot cheaper. They were wildly inaccurate past about the muzzle, as I remember. I was shooting them out of a Parker , F/M chokes. I remember buying a box of 25, shooting them all and coming home meatless....

I have a .690 and a .715 round ball mold for 12ga. I used to shoot my 12ga tradegun with out a patch- just used a nitro card between the powder and ball and a overshot card to hold the ball in. A tradegun is a smoothbore flintlock without a rear sight. It would shoot about a 3" group at 25 yards. Now I shoot it with a patch and get better groups- but in answer to your question I would think each gun would be different and played with to get the best group. I have never tried it with my SxS , but now that it's been brought up maybe I will. Paul

Punkin balls can work but there is great variation gun to gun. Most you could expect of them was to get a hit on a deer at 50yds or less. Part of the problem was lack of sights on the shotguns. I killed one deer with them as a kid out of my single shot "Ivory Johnson" 16ga. Range was about 20 yds. The projectile is quite effective if it makes contact. I would think accuracy might marginally improve using a plastic wad which tightened up the load in the bore but still pass on shots longer than 50yds.

I have shot .715 round balls in my double barrel twelve gauge cyl cyl bore shotgun at 50 yards (yes) I got grapefruit accuracy which is not that bad. Handload. Fiochi hulls, I will have to look up the powder but it was about 36-38 grains. I simply cut the legs off a spent shot cup and put in in upside down so it "held" the ball and it follows it, keeping it centered as it shoots up the barrel. So, from the bottom the arrangement was--- primer, powder, reversed shot cup, punkin ball and plastic overshot card.

Since then I took the advice of a round ball shooter from canada and had a high quality round ball mold made up for me from a guy named Tanner. (England) .724 to match my cyl cyl measurements. He said get a quality round punkin ball MOLD made up to match your bores and you will get an accurate and extremely deadly load. He said wheel weights are better than pure lead... I think he has a good point. I would want them a bit harder than soft lead for better penetration.

I haven't shot any yet but intend to get even better accuracy from these .724 compared to the .715's... and yes with experimenting I am told and I believe I will get great groups with punkin balls from my double barrel smooth bore 12 gauge shotgun...(afterall the .715's weren't bad)

Punkin Balls can be very deadly accurate even at 50-60 yards with iron sites out of a smoothie.

In reading about smooth bore muzzle loader performance, I learned that a patched round ball has a corkscrew trajectory. The pumpkin ball, I would think, would also have this corkscrew trajectory.

Mine didn't corkscrew. And I would sure hate to be on the receiving end.

Most iron site shooting should be done at 50 yards anyway so I am all good with using my double with punkin balls at 50 yards or less. The deer I got the other day in NY was about 42 yards. One shot, and it was a bit further than most of the deer I have seen while hunting. Punkin Balls from doubles can be ddddd-double deadly!

Can they be used in breech loaders by making up a shotshell with the ball in lieu of regular shot?

If so is it possible to load these into a standard wad with the petals between the walls of the barrel and the ball when fired?
would this increase its accuracy?

Is the .690 size possibly designed to be inside a standard wad?

I use them in my 20GA SxS rifle
Casey

Your post brought up some vivid memories of my first deer hunt. Dad didn't hunt himself but he cooperated by driving me to the "deer woods" up in some nearby mountains. That meant so much to me, more than anyone ever knew. It was my first time out with a high powered weapon and I was actually deer hunting, but later came to realize it was more because I had transitioned from BB guns and slingshots and that my Dad trusted this 12 year old solo hunter. We had freezing rain the day before and the trees and branches along the woods road were covered with ice. It was like a crystal wonderland. Afterwards Dad let me shoot the old single barrel loaded with a punkin ball at an upturned rocking chair bottom, and I hit it dead center (lucky shot). I still have two of those Winchester Repeater punkin balls from the box that sat in a dresser in my parent's bedroom, the two yellow colored ones on the left.

A strange coincidence? It was a bitter cold day in January, 49 years later when we buried Dad in a cemetery not too far from those deer woods. I looked over at the mountain where he parked those many years before and it was covered in fog. After the ceremony my wife and I drove over to the place and the trees on the sides of the old woods road were all covered in ice. Think what you will but I knew then that Dad was okay. Silvers

Where I hunted in upstate NY and northern Vermont 50 yards was a LONG shot. Most of the deer I killed were with a Ruger .45. I think that some form of rudimentary sights like the ones fitted long ago on my 10 bore Rem. would still be in order. Since my Valmet "Lion" has a rib, I might attach some clamp-on slug sights to it and use those.

Yogi, thanks for the info and load data. I have no doubt that a solid round ball from any shotgun guage would be effective on a blacktail at the feasible ranges. For piggies, I'd use the harder ball as you suggest (and keep a deer slug or buckshot in the other barrel for follow-up....).

Yogi, pure lead roundballs perform better than wheel weights in muzzleloaders. And there will not be a penetration problem as pure lead projectiles despite being a little softer, retain their weight better than wheel weight lead too. They might change shape a bit bending but not breaking. The alloys seem to fracture more. Harder alloys help a bit if you are trying to put them through a faster twist barrel so the bullet doesn't strip in the rifling but we are talking smoothbore here.

Silvers, Thank you for the post, I enjoyed it. Happy Holidays to all. Bruce

The one thing to remember about ball in choke bore guns is the ball must fit the choke, not the bore. The "Not for Ball" marking on early guns simply meant they were not to be fired with a "Bore-Fiting" ball. This mark was changed to one of simply "Choke" as there was confusion & many took it to mean No ball at all could be fired. Best accuracy is "Apt" to come from a cyl bore with a well fitted ball, but for a choked gun just make sure the ball/wad combo will pass through & try it. Just might be surprised. As I understand it the biggest problem with a smoothbore firing ball is somewhat akin to a baseballer's "Spit Ball" IE it sometimes can "Break" at an unpredictable angle to it's flight line. The round ball from a smooth bore gained much of it's bad press from the old military muskets which for rapid loading (Assualt Rifles) were loaded with much undersized balls which rattled down the bore in a hap-hazard manner, leaving the muzzle with different spin directions depending upon last contact.

Miller,

Well stated. This definition should be engraved in stone for the next time some asks about a gun that is marked "Non Pour Balle". It would avoid the confusion that was raised in the past.

A variation that is not seen much today was the smoothbore with a rifled choke that was meant for shooting ball. Everyone seems to assume a rifled choke was only meant for a slug.

Pete

For me this has been a very interesting post.I own a J & W Tolley, 12 bore, damascus hammer gun. It is marked " UBIQUE " and " For Spherical Ball". The Bores measure .715 end to end. The gun has a folding rear sight marked for 60 Yards. It has been nitro proofed for 2 3/4 inch shells.

I assume the right diameter balls to use would be exactlly bore size. You have shown me where to get them.Thanks.

djwest
You can get it from the Track of the Wolf,Inc.
The phone is 612-424-2500
http://www.trackofthewolf.com/(S(tck0tg4...e=25&Page=3
Casey

I highly recommend using Foster type slugs. If you keep the powder load moderate they are MUCH more accurate than round balls. The only problems I've experienced with them are the "maximum" or high speed loads which, I believe, are erratic due to the base skirt being blown out by high pressure when the slug leaves the muzzle. I've shot them from improved cylinder and modified chokes in a couple of pump guns with no problem and with excellent accuracy out to 75 yards or so. The "rifling" doesn't really spin the slug but lets it squeeze through a choke, while the hollow base stabilzes it.

I bought my round ball mold from---

http://www.jt-bullet-moulds.co.uk/

Excellent quality.

Also, it seems to me that this therad was all about round balls in smooth bore "shotguns", not muzzle loaders or rifled barrels.

The philosophy to accurately shoot round balls from smooth bore, as far as I have been schooled, basically breaks down into TWO approaches.

One---Size the roundball to the internal bore diameter and yes this would mean the choke, or in my case cylinder/cylinder bores.

Two---Use a smaller diameter ball WITH a carrier to keep the round ball centered (aswaged) through the bore---a favored method is a shot cup with the petals cut off and placed upside down in the hull to HOLD the round ball in the laoded 12 gauge hull. The shot cup is what rides on the internal walls of the bore during its flight up the barrel.

I use a combination. In part because I think the inverted shotcup eliminates potential for blow-by since no molded round ball is as perfect as the bore diameter. However the round ball mold I had Tanner make for me produces round balls that essentially match my .724 bores.

Wheel weights or a trace of a % of alloy to harden the lead should not damage the bores. I also bake the round balls and cool to harden them. No damage to the bores. But definitely harder and in my opinion stronger than pure lead... Sure, if you put too much alloy then the round balls are very hard and they could damage the bores, but if you add too much alloy they will also be very light in weight... so you can measure if you added too much alloy if you weigh the round balls and they are much lighter in weight than the same sized round ball made from pure lead. I do not like pure lead because it is too soft and breaks up too much in my humble opinion, and even against deer I prefer harder than pure lead... although 99% of the deer you shoot where you should be aiming for with a pure lead round ball is a dead deer. But since I plan to hunt hogs and big cats then a hardened lead ball is superior to soft lead for all seasons, so to speak. ...I learned first hand about the too light problem when a friend said he had perfect lead for round balls but I weighed them after we cast up a few. They should have weighed in the 700 grain range instead they weighed an astonishing 560 grains.... needless to say I did not shoot them.... but they were very, very hard. WE also stopped molding any more of those ultra hard, ultra light "marbles".

I would think the off-the-shelf .690 round ball or my preference a .715 round ball would work very well in most 12 gauges that are anything bigger than a full choke IF you use the carrier approach. Bear in mind: the off-the-shelf round balls are pure lead, hence soft, so they should pass through a choked shotgun without any issues.

I think there is something aesthetically appealing about the round ball especially in a double. And since most shots in the East for deer or hogs or cats is under 50 yards, then the round ball---when made to shoot accurately and tested for performance--- can be lethal as well as a thing of beauty.