Double round ball loads?

Brutus

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Has anyone done this with thier reproduction single barrel muzzleloading rifle of sufficient breech strength?

Advice for or against it for purely hunting purposes?? Accuracy or lack thereof in a proper PRB shooter???

curious
 
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There was a long and detailed discussion of this topic a few months ago in this forum - do a search then let us know what kind of accuracy you can get at 50 yd.
 
I tried it at the range and 50-60 yards I think it would be effective. This seemed to be the max yardage if I recall, after that some really weird sh1t happens where placement is concerned. Fun and all but not very practical I'm afraid to report. Just my opinion, i don't hunt. If I did I wouldn't go this route.
 
I have fired a few at paper at around 30 - 40 yards. I shot a standard load of powder and two patched balls. It is extremely important that the second ball is seated on top of the first one. Hold the ball down until the air slips past. I don't feel that there is any advantage to shooting a double ball. Unless you are using a heavy charge of powder, the gun will shoot low and in my gun the two balls were in a vertical line but separated by 2 or 3 inches as best I recall. I think you are far better to rely on a single ball and accurate shooting

cheers mooncoon
 
Brutus Here is the little story of my experience copied from that other post. It is a true story from about twenty some years ago.

I am smiling a lot when I read this post :) :) :) yes it is a crazy idea but fact is in my younger days, well a few years ago anyways, I wasn't near as smart and a little crazy. I read somewhere that some famous old mountain man used 120 grains of FFFG and two patched balls in old Nellie, I mean it's no big deal I thought- a couple lead balls weigh about 360 grains so just like shooting my conical's, SO of course I had to try this in my 50 cal. TC , I had a mule deer tag and had been watching a really good buck in late summer, knew where he bedded every day, on the side of a coulee. But back to the load testing. What I determined was: that there was very little loss of accuracy on one ball (presumably the last one down the pipe?) The other one was about an inch or sometimes two low and could be left or right as I remember This was at 50 yards, at 100 things got silly.So decided 50 was max I would shoot. The recoil was horrendous but once lined up it would pretty much always put one ball right in the ring. Very hard to seat the second ball especially about the third shot, so I kept it clean, the third loading would go a little erratic too but no problem I wasn't going to be blazing away at this deer. First morning of season, no deer on the side of coulee :confused:, second morning no deer :rolleyes: deer vanished, third morning there he was so I crawled and crawled and crawled wind was right, finally took a peek through the sage brush, there he was so close all I could see was his huge horns, he was facing away lying on his side, I could hear him chewing his cud, I poked ole Betsey through the sage and held on the center of the biggest hump of grey. There was a terrible explosion a lot of smoke and a horrible pain in my shoulder from shooting prone. That old buck never twitched, kicked or moved one bit--- dead as a post, two holes in his back just like a pair of eyes. When I finally stopped hurting I stepped it off -- seven long paces! Well would I recommend this load for hunting , well I don't know about that, would I do it again if I could --You betcha, in a minute. just about the biggest thrill of my life. :cheers:
As I said above, no I don,t think it is an acturate recomended load for hunting or otherwise and others confirmed that. As mooncoon said critical that the second ball be seated tight against the first one and probabley very dangerous if not. I say not recomended, but fun that one time:) Merry Christmas everyone.
 
I've played around with double balling and introduced my buddy to to it. He goes cariboo hunting every year and is interested in trying it, so far he's impressed with the times he's tried it. I would recommend only patching the top ball and keeping your loads down to around 70 grns.
Cheers nessy.
 
I've shot a bunch of double ball loads in a .38 spl revolver that my dad loaded up. I know it's not the same, but if you wanted an idea of how accurate they can be, I tried shooting them at 15 and 25 yards, and out of a 6 inch barrel going about 1000FPS, they stack both balls in the same hole.
 
Make darn sure that the two balls are in contact. If one patched ball is loaded, and then another started down, air compressed between them just might result in a gap - and that can burst a barrel.
 
Make darn sure that the two balls are in contact. If one patched ball is loaded, and then another started down, air compressed between them just might result in a gap - and that can burst a barrel.

Just for clarification on my previous post, I recommend patching only the 2nd (top ball) , it's the safest and will give less recoil.
Cheers nessy
 
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