I am very bad at estimating how long gun tests are going to take me to complete. I took the Red Jacket Muzzleloading 20 ga. fusil out to the range today fully planning to test it with both round balls and with shot, but I after seven hours, I was only done with the round ball test. I shot it with patched .570 round balls and I shot it with bare balls in both .600 and .610 diameters. All the ball sizes were shot with two powder charges, 90 grains and 110 grains of 2Fg. The bare balls were wadded with cut paper in both powder charges, and another series of groups were shot with tow for wadding in both powder charges. All the shooting was done from a bench rest at 50 yards. Anybody who thinks you cant shoot accurately with a smoothbore, needs to look at these results. Loaded right, they will shoot very well. I shot a two and a quarter-inch group with the patched balls, and thats without a rear sight! I wish I did that every time with my rifles. Patched balls are the least period correct loading method, though Im convinced that people did load that way, despite the lack of documentation. But the RJM fusil was no slouch with bare balls. It shot .600 balls reasonably well, but, Like every 20 Ga. Ive shot, it really came alive with .610 balls and 110-grain powder charges. Now I still have to test shot loads...
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 22:21:54 +0000
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