Warthog Buckshot Results (Patterning Added)

[Mossyrock]

The goody box from Buffalo Arms arrived Friday containing 25 Mag-Tech 12ga shells, a bag of 11ga over-powder wads, a bag of 11ga cushion wads, and a bag of 10ga over-shot cards.  I happened to have a small box of Hornady 00 buckshot on hand and a pound or two  of Goex, so I was in business!  I primed the cases with WW large pistol primers, added 85gr of ffg Goex, a nitro card and compressed it to 45 pounds.  I added a cushion wad and dropped in 9 pellets of 00 buck.  I didn't have any shot buffer, so I added some corn meal.  Did it help?  Dunno.  I read about it somewhere, so I gave it a try.  Anyway, I added what was supposed to me a 10ga over shot card.  I say supposed to be, because it seems pretty small.  I can drop the card on top of the buckshot, and it doesn't touch the side of the case....no tension at all.  That just doesn't seems quite right.  If anyone has any of these on hand, I would love to know their diameter.  Anyway, I glued the over shot card in place using my wife's hot glue gun.  Maybe not the optimal solution, but it is what I had.

Being very curious, I couldn't wait for my next range session, so I stepped out in the back yard and loaded 'er up!  I cranked the first round off into a dirt pile.  It went BOOM and held together.  I have to admit that I was surprised at the LACK of recoil.  I was expecting much worse.  After shooting the first round, I pulled the second load to see of anything had shifted under recoil.  Nope.  All was well.  I dropped the hammer on the left barrel and was met with a deafening CLICK!  It took three tries to get the left barrel to fire.  It looks like I need to find a heavier hammer spring.   

Overall, for my first effort, I would call it a success!  After I get the over shot card figured out, I will load up a bunch and take them out for a more detailed test, and MAYBE even pattern them.

[Wills Point Pete]

 I just measured one ten gauge overshot wad at .784 inch. They're hard to measure with calipers, though, they bend. I took three together and measured them at .786. Call it .785.

[litl rooster]

As far as your overshot card problem goes, I know I use the same overshot card and so do many here, in the Brass hulls. They don't give but a very tiny edge maybe a less than 1/16 th of an inch around the inside of the shell.  Now that's with a shot load that is recessed a 1/4 inch or so.  Using 00 maybe filling the shell too much and not allowing the card to seat properly. I haven't tried 00 in brass shells yet.

Here is a link to 00 and Buck loads we had going this time last year.

http://www.cascity.com/forumhall/index.php/topic,17077.0.html   
...Must be the cool fall air that brings these Topics up, I'd been thinking of going back to the Lab again

[Mossyrock]

I just measured one ten gauge overshot wad at .784 inch. They're hard to measure with calipers, though, they bend. I took three together and measured them at .786. Call it .785.

Well, I measured mine, and they clock in at .720".  In other words, EXACTLY 12ga.  Methinks my bag is miss-marked......

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Any pattern yet?

I made a similar load in a 12 ga. Navy S x S muzzleloader.  I used .31 cal roundball from a LEE mould for the "buckshot".  Over 80 gr. FF, all nine of them hit in a one foot pattern at 25 yards.  

Quite effective IMO.

BTW;  3/4 inch punches can vary as well.  Mine, from a cheap Tandy set come out at .777".  Others have reported much closer to .75

[Steel Horse Bailey]

Well, I measured mine, and they clock in at .720".  In other words, EXACTLY 12ga.  Methinks my bag is miss-marked......

Yep!  Mismarked.

At 10 ga. they should be bigger than what you have, (the 11s) not smaller.

Give them (Circle Fly) a call:  I bet they'll fix it for ya.  Just have the measurements handy when you call.  They're nice folks to deal with.

[Mossyrock]

Yep!  Mismarked.

At 10 ga. they should be bigger than what you have, (the 11s) not smaller.

Give them (Circle Fly) a call:  I bet they'll fix it for ya.  Just have the measurements handy when you call.  They're nice folks to deal with.

I shot them an e-mail.  I would call, but i have a cold and am REALLY froggy.....

[Mossyrock]

Got an e-mule back from the folks at Circle Fly, and they confirmed that a batch of over-shot wads DID go out miss-marked, and they are sending me another bag free of charge.  Can't complain about that! 

[Steel Horse Bailey]

Give them (Circle Fly) a call:  I bet they'll fix it for ya.  Just have the measurements handy when you call.  They're nice folks to deal with.

Got an e-mule back from the folks at Circle Fly, and they confirmed that a batch of over-shot wads DID go out miss-marked, and they are sending me another bag free of charge.  Can't complain about that! 

I rest my case, Yer Honor!

[Wills Point Pete]

 By the way, your charge is right at three drams, hardly a heavy load. That's why your recoil is light.
Try loading three and a half or four drams and 12 buckshot. That's warthog!  Your load is much like those Winchester low recoil buck loads, not that there is anything wrong with them.  The three dram, nine pellet load would be just about perfect for a close range defense load if we still used homemade ammo for such things.

[Mossyrock]

By the way, your charge is right at three drams, hardly a heavy load. That's why your recoil is light.
Try loading three and a half or four drams and 12 buckshot. That's warthog!  Your load is much like those Winchester low recoil buck loads, not that there is anything wrong with them.  The three dram, nine pellet load would be just about perfect for a close range defense load if we still used homemade ammo for such things.

I suspected it was kind of light.  I need to get a dram measure.  As it was, I used a standard 85gr BP measure.  How many grains is 3.5 or 4 drams?  have a conversion?

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

This is an extract from a link I found on this forum.  I've saved it , but deleted the link YESTERDAY!  Here is the dram/ grain conversion chart;

Chart 4 Drams to Gr. Of BP
CHART 4
Drams to Gr. BP
Dram    
Gr. BP
1    27.34
2    54.68
2.25    61.52
2.5    68.35
2.75    75.19
3    82.02
3.25    88.86
3.5    88.86 * error in original table?
3.75    102.53

[Mossyrock]

My replacement over-shot cards came in yesterday (GREAT customer service from Circle Fly!!!) as did my bottle of "Water Glass", so I decided to put a few more loads together for testing.  This time I dipped the fiber cushion wad in some home-made bear tallow/bees wax lube, let it cool and wiped the lube from both ends of the wad.  The idea there is to provide enough lube to keep fouling soft, but not make the wad sticky.  Before adding any shot, I carefully wiped the mouth of the shell with acetone so as to not cause any problems with the Water Glass.  I also upped the charge of ffg Goex to 90gr, and the 00 buckshot pellet count up to 11.  I wanted to go to an even dozen, but there wasn't enough room in the case. I had a real problem seating the over-shot card evenly and level due to the uneven surface of the buckshot.  It there a secret to this that I am missing?  Anyway, I leveled the overshot card off as best I could, then gave it a coat of Water Glass, making sure to seal the edges well.  It dried pretty quickly and gave me some downright MEAN looking shot shells!  I made up half a dozen rounds, using up the balance of the 00 buckshot I had on hand.  I ordered an eight pound jar of it from BPI, along with some shot buffer.  Now all I need is some spare time to take these out and see how they shoot!  Spare time...now THERE is a precious commodity!!   

[Mossyrock]

By the way, your charge is right at three drams, hardly a heavy load. That's why your recoil is light.
Try loading three and a half or four drams and 12 buckshot. That's warthog!  Your load is much like those Winchester low recoil buck loads, not that there is anything wrong with them.  The three dram, nine pellet load would be just about perfect for a close range defense load if we still used homemade ammo for such things.

Can you imagine lighting that off in a dim hallway at two in the morning?  YIKES!   If it didn't do the job, it would at least set the bad guy on fire!!   

[Wills Point Pete]

 Mossyrock, try compressing your powder a bit more to give you more room for buckshot.
As far as the overshot wad being level, as long as you have it flat enough to glue in, it's level enough.
If you have the powder compressed enough you can add Grex to the shot and bring the filler up to where you can level it off and then glue your overshot wad in.

By the way, those 12 gauge wads that you have will be useful, too. Eventually you will want to go the other way, lighter loads. Several extra card wads will take up the space for those. A two and a half dram-7/8 ounce shot load will take most knockdowns just lickity split and won't tire you out on a six stage day.

If I am able to keep loading until I'm 97 years old I'll probably still be finding new things to so with these brass shells.

[Mossyrock]

If I am able to keep loading until I'm 97 years old I'll probably still be finding new things to so with these brass shells.

How's THIS for a twist?  A friend of mine has an old, Damascus 10ga Remington that needs some work...so, he is going to have a gunsmith friend reline the 10ga barrels with 12ga RIFLED tubes!  He plans on using Magtech brass to work up a BP 12 bore rifle load.    He plans on using it on all those rhinos wandering around Western Washington.....

[litl rooster]

Are you going to paper the loads and see how they pattern?

[Mossyrock]

Are you going to paper the loads and see how they pattern?

That's the plan.....once I find some of that...ummmm....what the heck was that stuff called again?   Oh yeah...I remember what it's called...FREE TIME!!!     Once I get these things on paper, I will report the results.  I have to admit that I am more than a bit curious myself.....

[Mossyrock]

Are you going to paper the loads and see how they pattern?

I actually made it out to the range this morning to see how this load looked on paper.  To recap, the load consists of 90gr ffg with an 11ga nitro card, compressed to 50 pounds, with a lightly-lubed 11 ga cushion fiber wad under 10 pellets of 00 buck.  The whole mess is put up in a Magtech brass shell with a 10ga over-shot card sealed with Water Glass.  The load was fired in a TTN double 12ga with open chokes; no constriction at all. 

To start off, before patterning, I popped a few rounds off at a couple of un-broken clays set up on the berm.  The results were most gratifying.  It went BOOM (mostly; more on that later) and shot where it looked.  At ten yards, the clays just vaporized! 

OK, enough fun and games; time to get serious.  My first patterning effort was also at ten yards.  The first shot resulted in a nice round pattern, right to point of aim, about the size of a basketball.  At twenty yards, the pattern, still nice and round to point of aim, opened up to about two feet.  While that will no doubt take care of business, I was hoping for a tighter spread.  By way of comparison, I patterned a couple rounds of Federal Tactical 12ga buckshot loads.  At ten yards, you could cover the pattern with your fist!  At twenty, the pattern (hole, really) was eight inches across.  Big difference!!  Of the two loads, the BP loads had just a little bit more recoil, but not much.  When not in "play" mode, this hammer double will be loaded with the Federal Buck.

Now, if I wanted to stick with the traditional components as listed above and tighten up the pattern, what are my options?  My gut tells me to drop the charge from 90 to 85 gr, and up the shot loads by a couple of pellets.  Does that sound about right?

Since I got this shotgun, I have had missfires with the left barrel.  In most cases, it takes three or four hammer strikes to fire the left barrel.  Up to this point, the ONLY thing I had fired were the Magtech brass shells with home-brewed loads, primed with Winchester large pistol primers.  For function testing, I used primed Magtech empties.  Today, I fired the above-mentioned Federal commercial loads along with twenty or so Remington light target loads.  guess what?  NOT A SINGLE MISSFIRE!  Are pistol primers REALLY that much harder to ignite than shotgun primers?  The traditional take is that CCI primers are usually the hardest, Federal the softest, with Winchesters being somewhere in the middle.  I guess I will have to dig up some Federal large pistol primers to see if they are any more reliable than the Winchesters.  Kind of a pain in the butt given that I use Winchester LP primers for all of my BP revolver loads....

On a side note, when I fired my first BP load at the berm, one of the rifle shooters off to the side said, "HOLY SH!T, I think that guy's gun just blew up!"  Something tells me that he isn't used to the Holy Black....   

[litl rooster]

Good chance one of the firing pin hits lighter than the other.  Try changing your primers before you give up on the pistol primers.   I personally would back the powder off to 70 grains and go up from there. I imagine there is a lot of unburnt powder coming out of the muzzle.  You might also try settling some grits or cornmeal in the load of 00 much like a "grapeshot" load. To help pack them in.
  I truely love a "warthog" load and don't back off on my rifle or pistol loads any. You only get about a 100 rounds per pound when loading shotgun. 70 grains is enough to send the load down range and gag the RO and anyone up wind. This might make a nice Turkey or deer load (legal in this area)