doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Found my Charles Daly black powder turkey load!

I loaded up a few light loads with DuPont FG and worked my way up in powder charge weights/loads today. My left barrel definitely has a tighter choke than my right. I started with 1 3/8 oz loads of #6 and worked my way up to a square load of 4.5 drams (116 grains of FG) and 1 5/8 oz load of #6 listed on track of the wolf. The best patterns came from a powder charge of 100 grains of FG along with 1 5/8oz of nickel plated #6’s. The recoil with the 100 grain, 1 5/8 oz load was pretty comparable, if not just a hair more recoil, to the RST 1 1/4oz loads. It was the funnest time I’ve had in a long time with my pants on.lol

Here are my best two targets out of the 10 rounds I tried today. They were patterned at 25 yards. I had 40 hits using one single 1/4” nitro card over 100 grains of DuPont FG and 1 5/8 oz of BPI nickel plated #6’s. I glued a shot card over the top. The second best load was exactly the same accept I split one of the nitro cards in half and seated it on top of the first nitro card.








A few other targets with left a d right barrel comparison patterns. The right kept blowing the pattern.







Here were my loads...

Nice, what is the velocity?


Serbus,

Raimey
rse

That’s a good question. I never ran any loads through my chronograph. I saw a listing of 1200 FPS using 130 grains of fffg with. 1 5/8oz load. The recoil rocks me a little more than the 1150 FPS, RST 1 and a 1/4 oz 5 and 6 loads I’ve tried. I will have to run a load through my chronograph some day but it might be after I drop a turkey with it first.

I’m gonna roll the dice and guess around 1050 FPS or a hair faster???

Remember, black powder will kick the snot out of you compared to nitro.

I tried to video shooting my shotgun reloads the other day by setting my smart phone on the shooting table next to me and hitting record. I paused the video on my camera and then zoomed in on the fire clouds. Figure if my spring turkey gets to close I won’t have to cook it this year.

The guy who recommended the load shoots it out of his 10 gauge black powder muzzle loader. He told me that he will be running the same load through his chronograph this weekend and will let me know his velocity. I will be curious to see how my velocities will compare out of a loaded shell. He was guessing around a 1,000 FPS muzzle velocity. He assured me he harvested many turkeys with the load. The top two fireballs were using 116 grain powder charges of FG. The 100 grain load I didn’t get photos of.

I went out today and tried 40 yards and 50 yards with my same RST hulls using 692 grains of BPI #6’s and 100 grains of Fg. The only difference was I roll crimped them this time VS just gluing in an over shot card.

I had 12 hits in my turkey head target at 40 yards and only 5 hits at 50 yards. I then tried the same load but in a federal hull. I had 13 hits at 40 yards. I put a pop can behind my 50 yard target. Thd #6 BPI nickel plated pellets passed through the cardboard box my target was stapled to and then completely through the pop can I placed in the box to test for penetration. I don’t plan on taking a 50 a yard shot but if for some reason my bird hands up at 40 yards I won’t hesitate to shoot it. I can tell you if that was a real bird at 50 yards today it would have been dead as a door nail IMO. One pellet to the brain and one in the neck vertebrae. Same with the RST hull 40 yard shot. I guess I just get lucky a lot with a pellet to the brain.


My first target i shot with a roll crimp RST hull at 40 yards...




My second shot with the same load at 50 yards...





And here was my last test at 40 yards with the same load but with a federal hull...



I must have had a “hot” pellet or piece of powder melt part of one of my RST cases. Here is picture of the fired hulls after I slid them onto my dowel and heated the crimps with a heat gun to straighten them out...





When I inspected it the hole did not burn all the way through but I took the shell out of service just to be safe. The other two cases look great yet. I might order some brass case in the near future.

So in the future if I didn’t burn a hole completely through a case I would assume I can still load it again?

That is great information! I love these kind of posts where a loading novice like myself and learn something. Thanks for making the effort.

This is my first go at loading shotgun ammo myself. I really couldn’t find much for pattern testing so I figured I’d post some results.

Here is the second try using a quad pin roller...



The first try was the hull on the left. I pushed down to hard when the roller was still cold. I even rolled the ones I hot glued in place. It made a mess in my roller but was easy enough to clean out. The above groups at 40 and 50 yards were shot with roll crimps.




Once I get the correct powder I’ll be rolling some 3.5” for my browning gold.

Yes, I have some Remington hull on their 5 or 6th loading. As long as powder or shot isn't failing out you should be fine.

As for trimming the hulls down, I found there is some copper pipe for household plumbing that is just the right size for a 10 gauge hull (Lowes, Home Depot or any decent hardware store). Just use a pipe cutter to get the length you want.

Right now new brass 10 gauge hulls are running between $9 and up PER hull, if you can find them.

I’ll have to try a pipe cutter. I use a wood dowel with a razor blade tapped into it to trim. They still don’t cone out perfectly even. I found BP brass hulls for $7.99 just haven’t pulled the trigger on them yet.I still have a couple weeks before my season.

Oops, I was unclear, I used to the pipe cutter to get the copper tubing to the length I wanted, stick the 10 gauge hull in the tubing and used a folding razor knife to the trim the hulls to the length I want, not perfect, but comes pretty close.

Or you can buy the hull trimmer from Ballistic Products which works quite well and is much faster: https://www.ballisticproducts.com/Trim-Doctor-II-Shotshell-Case-Tool/productinfo/TRIM2/

My load is now proven. I dropped a doubled bearded gobbler today around 25 yards, give or take, like Thor’s hammer hit it.

Great pic!

Here’s where you can get good 10 gauge brass hulls. However, the diamond at the base of the hull was too thick to allow my gun to close so I chucked them in my lathe and removed it. They will last forever.

https://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categories/PartDetail.aspx/139/1/SHOT-SHELL-10-2-58

Sweet!

What a gorgeous spot to hunt too man

dbl

I bought the property about 10 years ago. Worked my butt off and paid it off in four. I use the land exclusively for hunting. Our spring weather came about a good month or so early this year so my woods is already greening up. It prevents long shots as the woods is already filling in with green foliage. It’s gonna be tough for long shots come fourth, fifth, and sixth season. I purchased left over tags to hunt.

I still haven’t ran my load through a chronograph. The person who recommended the load also uses the same powder charge in his muzzle loader. He had a chance to run his load through a chrony. His load velocity is approx 900 FPS. I still will run mine through one of these days to see if the load packed in a plastic shell picked up any more velocity compared to his. I also need to find some #5 and #4 shot to see how they pattern with the same load. Any one here have a few ounces of either to spare?

Finally finished mounting it today. I never noticed till I mounted the beard today that the main beard was starting to separate into two separate beards. I’m guessing by next year it would have had tripplebeards.