doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 3 dr. x 3F

Love the sound of 3 drams of 3F (no "equivalent" drams here) driving 1 1/8 oz of shot.

photo by Mr. Jeb Burchick

I took my Husky to the skeet range this afternoon. What fun ! I shoot smokeless in mine, it is tightly choked and really smokes the clays.
Thanks for the picture
Mike

Monsieur Lefauxcheux - The press are hounding for details on the firearm!

Krakow Kid, thanks for asking. The gun is a Husqvarna model 20B, built 1947. The 20B was made between 1944-1956. From a slight distance it is indistinguishable from the original model 20 (�older model�) which was made from 1897-1944. This particular gun retains 98% of its original finish, it is extremely tight, and with its 19th century heritage it is the perfect black powder gun.

It is a field gun with tight, fixed chokes so you have to be pretty accurate on the clays. It is very good for practicing the skills, but it is sometimes difficult to pick up the second report bird in the smoke.

Mine's a 43, Damascus, 16ga, in excellent shape. Choked skeet and I'm not sure how tight because my bore and choke gauge won't fit in the left barrel--but at least full. I feed mine 7/8 oz RST's, and I only use the L barrel on doubles--unless maybe I'm feeling cocky and want to let low 7 single get way out there. So far, I've only fired two shots through it at wild birds, and the result was a right and a left on sharptails. My hunting partner says I should retire it on game and just shoot targets with it!

Mark Beasland (www.mbabllc.com) almost always has several Huskys in inventory, and he goes over them thoroughly before they leave his shop.

Excellent pic thanks for sharing. Sounds like a near pristine Husky. I've got 2 Model 20's, 1 Model 17 and 1 Model 51 all 16 ga.'s and all are blast to shoot. I really need to learn how to load some black powder loads.

Rick

Allegheny Mountain Wanderings

Rick, I am happy if I can inspire someone else to come over to the dark side:

Here is my recipe for a BP shot shell:

12 ga. Magtech brass shell (work in old, short-chambered (65 mm) guns)
Large pistol primer
3 dram of 3F Goex (tried 2F and didn�t see much difference)
Nitrocard
Solid lube added in liquid form (see below)
Cushion wad
1 1/8 oz shot (#8 or 9)
over shot card
seal with Duco cement

Most of this information can be found at various sites on the web. In my experience the most critical part for making this work is the lube. I am relatively new to BP shot shell loading, but I have a fair amount of experience with black powder bullet shooting where the lube is an essential ingredient. In old texts the lube is sometimes referred to as �fouling softener�, which is its essential role in a BP shot shell. At first I shot a few shells without any lube and ended up with barrels with a horrible amount of fouling that, I am sure, affected the pattern and definitely made the clean-up very difficult. I then decided to add my regular bullet lube to the shells, which made all the difference. The burning powder melts and coats the inside of the barrel with lube and the powder residues mix with this. Unlike pure black powder residues, the mix remains soft which is the critical property you need. This allows the cushion wad of the second shell to easily scour out the old layer of fouling/lube mix after which a new layer of the same mix is deposited. Now you have reached a steady state and after the first shot the inside of the barrel looks the same, no matter how many shells you fire. As for amount of lube, I use an empty 45 ACP case as a dipper and pour melted lube down the shell. It solidifies right away. I tried soaking the cushion wads in melted lube, but I couldn�t get consistent results.

Finally a word of caution on the brass. The primer pockets of the first batch I bought were too shallow � they did not meet SAAMI specs. This caused the primers to stick out over the head face, which can be very dangerous. Unlike the internet merchant, who did not want to acknowledge a problem, Magtech was very generous and sent me a new batch of shells, no questions asked, and didn�t even request me to send back the defective ones.

May I ask what you use to seat your wads and to what compression poundage?

Steve, this is a picture of the simple loading tools that I made. The Delrin rod is used for decapping, together with the anvil seen on the right. I modified my Lee Load-All to accept large pistol primers so I can use it for seating. I pour the powder in the shell and press a nitro-card down with the blunt end of the Delrin rod. The appropriate force is �in the wrist�; I never measured it. It is similar to what I use for tamping espresso.