BP Shot Loads and Charly Gullett

[Dutchy Rodell]

Recently I purchased "Cowboy Action Shooting" by Charly Gullett.  The 12 guage shotgun loads he lists call for "one ounce shot over one dram FFG" (pg 107).  This load is repeated again on pages 110, 112 and 113.  Is this 27 grain load powerful enough to knock down CAS targets?  I, a novice to CAS, assume this is a light load.  What makes a load light - the amount of shot or amount of powder, or a combination of the two?  Dutchy

[Sunwapta Haze]

Well now Dutchy - 27 grains of FFg under 1 oz of shot does sound like a real light load.  I run about 50 grains under 1 oz of #6 shot and it sure enough does handle any of the knock downs I have faced. 

I wonder if you have mis-interrupted the dram to gram conversion.  Afterall it depends on which Dram one is using .  Indeed 1 plain ordinary Dram is  just a tad more than 27 grains - but 1 Apothecaries Dram is equal to 60 grains.  Now I don't know which is right but someone out there does know the answer and will enlighten us both.

[Cuts Crooked]

No "one Dram" in not the apothecary measurement...it's about 27 grains. (Think about it... ever see a box of shells marked "three dram equivilant"? )

[Montana Slim]

One Dram of Powder & one OZ pf shot ??
hehehe....must be jokin'....won't raise a more than a breeze against the knockdowns around here 

I use three drams BP & 1 1/8+ on the shot. Use my long barreled shotguns at some clubs, cause they are usually set fast & hard.

Good luck!
Slim

[Dick Dastardly]

I think the great Charly Gullett has fallen pray to a typo.  Why not contact him and ask about the load?  He may not be aware that his credibility suffers from this data.

The old dogma, and a good starting point, is the "square load".  If you take equal volumes of black powder and shot your load will have about all the oomph you can put under it and still maintain an even pattern.  Many bp shooters find that a bit less powder works better in their individual guns.  Some put in more and have good results.  The thing is, start with a known and proven load and run some tests in your gun.  Shoot some paper, count some pellets and kill some KDs.  You will find a safe load that performs well in your gun.  Take notes and mark the boxes.  You want to repeat your successes and delete your  failures.

Please note that I was speaking of genuine Black Powder here.  The above suggestions won't work with some subs or any heathen fad smokeyless powders.  In fact, the above suggestions are just what blew up a good number of guns before it was understood that loading  Holy Black and loading heathen fad smokeyless required entirely different powder charges.  Thus "dram equivalents".

DD-DLoS

DD-DLoS

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

Ballistic units of weight are always given in the Avoirdupois system, the common system of weights we use every day. In the Avoirdupois system a dram is a 1/16 of an ounce. There are 7000 grains in a pound, 437.5 grains in an ounce, and 27.34375 grains in a dram. I don't know what is with that author's use of 1 dram in a shotshell. I dunno if he is using Apothecary's weights or if it is a bunch of typos. I do know that 27 grains of powder will not be much of a load in a 12 gauge.

My own load is actually rather light, with more shot than powder in the sense of not being a square load. I put in 4.3CC of FFg and 1 1/8 ounces of #8 shot. 4.3CC is only around 58 grains, or around 2 1/3 drams. I put in 1 1/8 ounces of shot because that is what the charge bar on my MEC Jr throws and I'm too lazy to buy an adjustable charge bar. This load clobbers anything that I point it at.

[Noz]

I used 57 grs and an ounce of reclaimed shot in my 20 ga.  Knocks down knockdowns and blackbirds with great goodness.

[Pappy Myles]

I'm thinking about going over to the darkside myself.   Watching the folks that have, seam to really have a lot of fun with it.  /Can anyone help me out with a load using pyrodex and 20 gage?   What about brass shotshells?   Magtech with large pistol primers or double hammer with win 209 primers?    I have a 20 gage stoger  (3 inch chambers).

[Wills Point Pete]

Well, Pappy, I've never used the Double Hammer hulls, just the Mag Techs.  They are inexpensive and one really doesn't need specialized tools to load them  You will need a plastic or brass hammer and a nail long enough to tap out the spent primer. If you buy the new hulls you will be able to file down the nail to go through the flash hole. If you don't have a file go outside and use the sidewalk. Take a 3/4 inch socket and set it on something soliid, put the case over that 3/8 hole and tap the old primer out. Don't lift the socket until you've tapped out the primers from a box or so of shells.

Hold the case over a large pistol primer that is sitting on a piece of flat scrap steel or iron. Take a six inch 3/8 socket extension with the empty 3/8s hole over the inside of the primer pocket ant tap the case down over the primer. WEAR YOUR SAFETY GLASSES! I usually used Winchester LP Primers for this, I got a bargain on PMC Primers and several of them popped while I was doing this. No harm, just a slight pucker, I did go back to Winchester Primers. Now no pops until I put 'em in the gun.

You will have to write or call Circle Fly for the wads for the Mag Techs, my 12 gauge Mag Techs take eleven gauge overpowder wads, eleven gauge cushion wads and ten gauge overshot wads. The folks at Circle Fly will get you the right wads. Depending on the shotgun you might be better off using plastic shotcup wads. I use 12 gauge and they work fine I just put them over the eleven gauge overpowder wads. www.circlefly.com

Now lots of Pards say to use the same dipper for your powder and your shot, I use an adjustable dipper and load more shot than powder. Still you can't go too far wrong starting off with that same dipper. Measure in a dipper full of powder, tap the case on the bench a couple of times to level it out, then take your overpowder wad and start it in the case. Now, take that same six inch socket extension with a socket on the end to pretty much fill the inside diameter of the case and push the overpowder wad down until it is firmly against the powder. Now, real black likes compression, if I remember right Pyrodex doesn't , check that with a Pyro expert.  Just no airspace.

Now the cushion wad or the plastic shotcup wad, I'd load some of each and see which your gun likes better. They just go down until they are firmly against the overpowder wad. The plastic shotcup wads can be pushed in with a finger, the fiber cusion wads get the handy dandy socket extension. Now, pour the shot in, tap the shell a couple of times to level off the shot and push the overshot wad down firmly against the shot. I like to write the particulars of the load on the overshot wad.

Go buy a tube of DUCO Cement, 99 cents at Wally World, it dries clear so you can read the label. Now, my first loads were okay but the overshot wad was way below the casemouth.  That was fine, it gave me lots of room to experiment. I finally ended up with the adhustable measure set at two and a half drams of powder, Goex or Schuetzen ffg and an ounce and a quarter of shot. My scattergun is supposed to be IC/Mod. By fooling with my powder shot measures and switching from fiber cusion wads I can change the patterns to Cyl/Cyl to Mod/ImpMod.

You can get your shotgun to do the same, just be ready to spend a lot of time at the patterning board. Or not. You can probably get good enough for CAS within two or three tries. Just don't believe all these Pards who like to convince everyone how hard it is. It ain't rocket surgery or brain science. It took me three tries, I used two wrong kinds of glue before settling on Duco. It's embarrassing to step up, load the scattergun and have the shot dribble out the barrel before I got the action closed.

I keep reading how hard it is to load black powder. Half or more of the old Buffalo hunters were illiterate. Yet they damned near sent the Bison into extinction, loading their Buffler Catridges by campfire light, casting their bullets over those campfires. With no more tools than a mold, a hammer, a decapping pin and a barrel of powder. For that matter, half the market hunters that sent the Passenger Pigeon into extinction were illiterate. And they did it with black powder.

[Steel Horse Bailey]

And there ya have it, folks!  Good words, WP Pete!

" ... great goodness." 

That's a 'great goodness" phrase, Nozzle Rag! 

[Abilene]

Howdy Dutchy,
I missed this post the first time around.  I have Charly Gullet's book and have found the "1 dram" references you mentioned.  Like Dick Dastardly, I think these may have been typos.  If you look at the top of page 102, in the "Dram Nuisance" section, he says, "12-Gauge shotgun cartridges for the purposes described here will then be based upon a 3 dram charge of black powder and a 1 ounce lead shot column.  This would have been considered a light to medium load in the cowboy era and is perfectly adequate to drop steel on a match stage.  This load can be expected to produce velocity at a level slightlty higher than 1000 foot seconds."

[Pappy Myles]

Thank you kindly Pete

I'll hafta give it a try.    In my box of surplus reloading junk, I got bits and pieces of an old Lee single loader.  I think the de priming rod is still there.  Looking at the double hammer shells, they are sure proud of the things, about 2.10 apiece.  So I'll go with the mag tech.

[Dick Dastardly]

Mag Tech will do ya proud.  Made in America, only southern. . . .

DD-DLoS

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Hammerdouble uses Magtechs altered to 209 primers.  Then a plastic reinforcement has to be added.

[Sespe Badger]

As of the beginning of this month, Hammer Double was temporarily out of the shell business.  Has some broken tooling.  I went with the Magtech instead.  No problems so far.

[Dick Dastardly]

MEC makes a Magtech brass shell adapter for their 600 Jr. Mk-V units.  I bought one for my 20ga and it works great.  It includes decaping and priming tools to install Large Pistol primers in Magtech brass shells.  I do everything on the MEC but the crimp.  That I glue in.

MEC turned one down from a 12ga unit and didn't charge any extra.

DD-DLoS