shotgun shells and the whole dram equiv spec...

[litl rooster]

?27.34 grains per dram, according to Driftwood's formula, or did I do this wrong?

Arcey what in the H#@*& is a Cajun Injector? What you flavor meat with before sticking it on the smoker?

Hope to have all the stuff here this week, to give my feeble brain a try at the Holy Black....Thanks for the input here.

[Arcey]

>>Arcey what in the H#@*& is a Cajun Injector? What you flavor meat with before sticking it on the smoker?<<

Yup.  Oldest daughter bought the derned thing 'n shot a dead turkey up with it.  Fried thit bird 'n when I ate sum, thit stuff she shot in it lit up my life.  I don't let 'er shoot my dead birds for fryin' up no more.

Took the needle off the thing 'n it werks real good for squirtin' Crisco.........

..

[Delmonico]

Learn't a trick many years ago from a friend who was as anal on shotgun patterns as I am.  It might help you guys with them sillydneder bores, wont cost more than a dollar or so to do and you'll have enough material to do several guns. 

Go down to the hardward store and buy a sheet of 220 grit wet and dry sandin' paper, the stuff with the black grit.  Take a bit of it and roll it round yer finger a time or two and insert it in the barrel.  (If I have to tell you to unload the durn thing yer just plain dumb. )  Now roll that round and round a couple of times about 1/2 to 3/4 inches back and get a good scratch ring in there.  That keeps the wad from ramming the back of the shot column because the wad slows down just a hair.  The usable pattern will not change, but the worthless ones that fly way to the side will be decressed some.  I wouldn't own a shotgun with out this. 

Not a CAS gun, but my beloved and well worn 870 28 ga with the 0.005 restriction in the barrel started making patterns worth sendin' home for ma to hang on the icebox.  With 7/8 oz hard #7 shot , (no I did not forget the 1/2) it will drop a Chinese Chicken stone cold dead at 35 yards if you do your part.  There is no denser center, it is even clear to the edge and seldom even one flyer.

Never tried it, but that pop gun would most likey take any yer knockdowns down cold. 

Myself if I owned a sillydender gun I'd take it to a shotgun plumber and ask for 0.005 to 0.0010 jug choking.  If he asked what is jug chocking I'd say sorry, I was lookin' fer the gunsmith and go elsewhere.  The cost should be far less than them screw in devices invented by the devil and much harder to foul up.  Fact is I've known folks with access to a barrel mike doing it with a brake cyinder hone in their garage,  The Ruskie use an impoved version on thier Olymic guns.

I have some ideas on getting tighter patterns out of a straight cylinder gun.  I don't own one right now and with my recent medial problems I won't be buying one for a while, but if anyone in the area has a old 12 gauge single shot with out a choke or one they would be willing to whack to choke off of for science and would loan to me for a while I would be glad to conduct some spearments.  I think it would be possible for one to get close to a modified pattern out of one with black, it is possible with nitro powder.  Just some food for thought.  I'll be at the NCOWS Conv. but only on Sunday.  There are many ways to tighten patterns with load development.  I have 25 years of notes on it, but they use nitro powder.

One thought, since plastic wads have problems, what would happen if one made up some semi-heavy shot containers out of heavy rag paper, the English did it in the muzzle-loading era, plus some that were even more complex.  They bedded shot with bone meal, today the plastic sawdust is used with nitro.  Perhaps grits or cornmeal, bedded loads shoot so much better, I have used them in hunting loads since the late 70's. Also high antimony shot does not distort going down the bore and most is rounder out of the bag.  Round shot flies truer and less goes to the side where it is worthless.

If anyone is interest let me know.  I'm just anal enough about patterns to give it a good try. 

With nitro powder, patterns are improved by using the slowest powder possible to get the job done, the slower push upon ignition does not damage the back of the shot column as much, most flyers, given round shot and less barrel scrubbing come out of the back.  Would Fg powder do better?

[Cuts Crooked]

Del,

Thanx fer the reminder! I've used that paper shot cup trick when loading a frontstuffing scatter gun fer turkey hunting. My old CVA Trapper has screw in chokes but I wanted something tighter than "full" fer turkey and got nearly soft ball sized patterns at twenty yards using that trick, along with the full choke tube! Jist never thought of using it in conjunction with ca'tridge scatter gunz!

I shoot a full/modified scattergun fer CAS but iffin I ever pick up a "coach gun" I'll keep that trick in mind!

[Lars]

Del,

I have an old Russian-language book for hunters that has a chapter about loading shotshells and making the many, many variations possible with card and fiber wads. Just about everything you find today in plastic wads can be and has been made using card and fibre wads, including the heavy paper shotcups, the inverted cupwads for use over powder, cushin wads, etc., etc. Many of the cited sources are German-language books from the late 1800s-early 1900s.

"Jug choking" and its more modern variants apparently have been with us since sometime in the late 1800s. When done to a cheap old double with thick-walled barrels, just about any amount of choke can be attained. With nicely balanced, light-weight old doubles the much thinner barrel walls limit the amount of choke that can be acheived.

I have heard of, but never seen, soldered-in choke tubes. Basically, one solders-in a carefully machined tube into the end of the barrel(s) and then reams a forcing cone and perhaps thins the machined tube. In principle, this is a permanent version of the screw-in chokes. I have heard it touted for thin-walled barrels, ones too thin for cutting threads.  Like with screw-in chokes, I would be greatly concerned with ability to maintain coincidence of POA with POI.

Lars

[TAkaho kid]

Lars,

You hit the nail right on the head. With a bit if research, trial you can create any pattern you need with paper and fiber wad and card. They did it then we can certainly do it know. The only thing I wish I could get are some of the Swedish Cup wads as shown in Greener's book. Then again with a bit of work at a lath and a some homemade paper pulp I suppose I could even do that!

Cheers!

[Lars]

Takaho Kid,

I think I recall seeing a tool for making those over-powder cup wads. IF I am recalling at all correctly, the tool concisted of a cylindrical part the size of the cupped part and a hollow rod that fit over it. The hollow rod had a wide mouth that tapered down to a smaller hole. Presume that the large end of the taper was to allow starting forming of a round peice of "thin" pulpboard, followed by sizing down the pulpboard till it fit snugly around the cylindrical, inner part.

That tool may be pictured in that old Russian-language book, maybe somewhere else. Unfortunately, that book is somewhere in a stack of boxes never opened since my last move.

FYI, my experience with old doubles intended for use with card and fiber wads is that they shoot pretty much to the chokes, given really good loads. Good loads seems to largely mean having card and fiber wads large enough in OD to seal the bore really nicely.

Lars

[Delmonico]

Modern Shotguns, bassically those made after the early 1960's have less choke.  As an example to old standard for full in the fiber wad era was 0.040 constriction.  Today it is 0.030. 

Back in the late 1970's we used these old guns a lot when turkey hunting first took off.  This was in the days befor extra full chokes and special turkey loads.  An example was a Tobin my cousin inherated from his grandfather, stamped full/full.  With modern shot cups with a low pressure SR4756 load, 1 1/4 oz copper plated  # 7 1/2, 6% antimony shot  and bedding we were able to produce about 85% at 40 yards.  Most of the turkeys he shot were almost decapitated.

Some of the modern guns also have a wider bore than the old ones.  These to me look like a natural for brass cases and their 11 gauge wads.  Gas leaking past wads raises heck with patterns.

[Driftwood Johnson]

ltl rooster:

Yes. 7000 grains (1 pound) divided by 16 is 437.5 grains per ounce. Divide by 16 again and you get 27.34375 grains per dram on my calculator. My powder scale isn't that sensitive.

Delmonico: thanks for all that great information. Somebody desecrated my beautiful Stevens hammer gun by chopping the barrels back to 24" so it is a cylinider bore now. I think I'll try your sandpaper trick.

[Cuts Crooked]

Yo! Driftwood! Those little yellow "Post It" papers are fantastic fer making paper shot cups! Plenty heavy and really did tighten patterns in my frontstuffer. Ya might wanna try em when loading fer yer ca'tridge scattergun!

I'd love to hear how it turns out fer ya!

[Delmonico]

You might also try and add bedding to the shot, either plastic or maybe cornmeal or grits, the old timers did from time to time.  This will raise presures a tiny bit as well as addin small amount of recoil.

The pressures should not be a problem with this type load in any gun in good shape. 

Also the Stevens 311 should have plenty of wall thickness if one wanted to jug choke it. 

Lets us know how it works, I'm only passing theroy on the paper wads, the roughing the muzzle does help in it's own way, that is a fact.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Also the Stevens 311 should have plenty of wall thickness if one wanted to jug choke it.

Nope, she ain't a 311.

[litl rooster]

I'm jealous twice  it's a sweet shotgun and you know how to use the image link here...Love the Hammers on it.