10 Bore Shotgun and Test Firing

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tiriaq

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Not too long ago I bought an English 10ga double, made prior to 1892. Decent condition, clear, smooth bores. Have gone through the process to make ammunition for it. Obtained a bag of 3 1/2" hulls. Bought a roll crimper from BPI. Made a wad cutter to use in my drill press. Adjusted the diameter until the wads are a smooth push fit in the cases. The hulls needed to be shortened to fit the chambers. I bored a piece of steel tube until shells would just push in, then shortened the tube to 2 7/8ths. Push a shell in, run around the mouth with a sharp knife. Clean, smooth uniform trim. 2 7/8ths was too long. Kept shortening the jig and cases until the trimmed cases chambered freely. Final length is just over 2 5/8ths.
Cut wads from some firm cardboard, and from sheet cork, just under 1/4th thick. Put the cork wads in a plastic bag along with a squirt of Bore Butter, then microwaved them. BB melted, wads soaked it up. Notwithstanding the 10ga, I didn't want to start too heavy. Using an antique measure, I started with 1 1/8th oz. shot and an equal volume of 2FFg. Adjusted the wad column to suit, leaving enough case for roll crimping. Also loaded some with 1 1/4oz shot, equal volume of powder, and appropriate wads. Wrote the load on the top wad. The PBI crimper worked smoothly, made neat roll crimps. I was using shot salvaged from shells which had got wet, and had corroded heads.
Tried the gun this afternoon on cardboard sheets. At only 25y. Forget upland game at that range, it would be shredded. Choked left barrel in particular throws really tight patterns. Should make a good turkey/waterfowl gun. Enough heft that it is very comfortable to shoot with the 1 1/4oz loads.
Going to load up some 1 3/8oz loads and pattern them seriously at longer range.
The recovered wads, both card and cork, were in excellent condition.
 
Cards from today went in the burn barrel.
This was an auction gun. Top rib is engraved "Richard Redman London and Birmingham Made Expressly for Wm. McDonald Toronto". Wm. McDonald ran a store on King St. E., Toronto until 1892. I'm assuming that the gun was made for the business, not the individual. Decent quality, medium grade gun.
The guns at the auction were cabled closely together, made inspection difficult. I knew the bores were good, had my little light with me. There was a chip missing from the front of the left lock, that I didn't see. I inletted a repair, using a little piece of 100+ year old English walnut. Got a satisfying colour match.
I have a cache of bismuth shot. Could be used for waterfowl. This is the only non-toxic shot I would put through Damascus barrels.
 
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Had to do something similar with my 1901 since 2 7/8 10g wasnt available. Luckily for me I don't have to go blackpowder as the 1901 fires smokeless. My burgess in 12 will need to be bp though and shortened also. I fired 2 rounds from it so far since my extractors need to be replaced. Can't wait to get them fixed so I can fire a whole tube.
Sounds like you have a nice little project going. Good luck and gave fun.
 
Just by chance, I shortened some 10 guage shells to 2 3/4" a few days ago, for my American Arms Side Swing gun. To shorten the shells I turned a piece of scrap wood to a snug fit inside the shells then slid an empty shell over the wood and cut to length using a thread cutting tool . There was enough friction from shell to wood that I could cut the shell with gentle pressure from the lathe bit. I have cut shells before with a knife but this was much easier. In the past I have tried cutting wads in the drill press, from Donnaconna board ceiling tiles but they tore into layers before I could cut all the way through. I may try making a punch in the distant future and hopefully that will work or perhaps a different design of drill press cutter. Prelubed muzzle loading wads are in short supply locally, but I use them in 12 and 20 guage shells with black powder
Gun sounds like a good find

cheers mooncoon
 
The cork sheet that I am cutting is bulletin board cork from Michaels. Cuts easily on the drill press, soaks up lubricant nicely. Recovered wads are intact; when I first started using this material in ml guns, I was concerned that it might crumble. I'd like to get some medium hard felt, try that. Years ago, I would cut felt wads for my 14 bore ml from boot liners.
I use card wads over the powder, then the corks, and a card on top. The cork wads are fairly thin, makes it easy to adjust the length of the wad column. Lots of internal volume in 10 bore shells.
 
Sounds like you have it down pretty well. I have a 10 gauge JP Clabrough that I have yet to try. It also has damascus barrels with very nice bores but the toe of the stock needs a repair so I'm waiting until I get the stock repaired and refinished before I shoot it.
 
tiriaq said:
I'd like to get some medium hard felt, try that. Years ago, I would cut felt wads for my 14 bore ml from boot liners.
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I think if you are using boot liners and similar, you would want to have them more or less saturated with a lube of some sort. I tried breach seating bullets in a couple of my rifles (32-40 and 38-56) using a shoe inner sole as a wad between the slug and the powder. That was a mistake. The innersole felt was too compressible and I got case separations about 1/2 way along the length of the shell. I think the reason was that the felt was too compressible and functioned almost like an air space between powder and bullet. The powder was already compressed in the shell and I think that during a normal load, the bullet holds the powder back long enough for the flames to start most of the powder burning and it does not drag the shell with it. With a soft wad between powder and slug, I think the powder at the base of the shell starts burning first and pushes the front half of the powder forward while that powder is gripping the shell.
I am not sure how significant that is in the case of a shotgun shell partly because the powder column is a lot shorter than in a rifle shell. Even so, I think it would be wise to saturate felt type materials with a lube of some form to make them less compressible.

cheers mooncoon
 
When I was using the boot liner felt wads, I was saturating them with Crisco. I don't think that they are all or even mostly wool now; suspect synthetics in the blend.
Only ever used them in shotguns, not in BPCRs.
 
If there was a "like" button I would be pressing it.
I get the old style aspect of shooting guns as they were originally shot back in the late 19th century, but if you wanted same chamber pressures and velocity how would you go about it (what powder and wad combination) using smokeless? Shooting black is a hoot, cleaning up not so much.
 
There was a series in Double Gun Journal with a lot of information on smokeless loads to replace black powder. The author had access to a pressure gun plus a strain gauge transducer system. Observed pressures were certainly very reasonable. It is possible to get higher pressures with some black powder loads than with some smokeless loads.
When I came home from the range yesterday, I detached the barrels, placed the muzzles in a plastic cup of water in the laundry tub, and pumped water through the barrels with a rod and cloth patches. Two pumping sessions each, total two patches. Wiped them dry, and wiped out with WD-40 (water displacer). Wiped dry again, wiped out with lubricant/preservative. Bores came up shiny, no lead fouling. Wiped down the exterior of the barrel, and the breech of the gun. Didn't take 10 minutes all in. Checked the gun today, shiny and clean.

Loaded up a shell with 1 3/8ths of 4s this pm, to see what the wad column would be like. Two cards, three lubricated corks, and a card over the shot. Nice crimp.
 
In my meager experiments with antique 10 bore, I personally found that for some reason this gauge really patterns very nicely with especially bird shot sizes lead #3-4-5. I notice on line this seems to be a very common theme with older choked tens.
With full and extra full, only so-so barely acceptable #4 buckshot at 15 yards.

I had no success at all with 0-00-000 buckshot. But superb luck with buck & ball 1x.50, single large RB, sitting onto top of one layer of 3x.375 at 10-20 yards.

info
 
Thick felt for making saddles works well as a Crisco soaked buffer behind a .54 conical.........would work for a shotgun as well.Harold
 
Myself with a smoothbore barrel that has fairly smooth interior without much pitting, I never lubricate the shotshell wad anymore. When you own any kind of open breech BP shotgun that accepts cartridges, it cleans up super fast anyways. I found a lubricated wad just added to the clean up mess a little too early, than an un-lubed wad. (8-15 shots per session) Even just 4 shots with lubed wads, looked like 15-20 shots without a lubed wad. But you need a decent bore from the get go.
This is the total reverse of my BP revolver, muzzleloading cap lock rifle experiences.

my 2 bits
 
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