i am looking at getting a shotgun barrel for my optmia. does anyone have a bp shotgun or the optmia ?? how hard is it to load ?? how is the load set up ??? like powder/wad/shot/wad.....

Since no one wants to try to answer this I can only tell you what I know...

In my smoothbore .62 caliber to load and fire you drop powder first (80 grains in my case) and then an over the powder card. On top of that comes a fiber wad made of cork. You then dump the shot down the barrel (in my case 100 grains of #6 shot) on top of the shot comes an over the shot card. All of this is of course driven down to the bottom of the breech. Cap and fire.

On the modern black powder shotguns like you are talking about, you drop the powder or pellets. On top of that you push a 12 gauge plastic wad down onto the powder charge. This takes the place of the over the powder card and the cork fiber wad in my smoothbore. After dumping your shot into the plastic wad, you then put an over the shot card. This holds all of that in the barrel. With a 209 primer on the back, your all ready to shoot.

From talking to people with the Knight TK2000 shotgun, these things loaded properly will kill turkey out to 45-50 yards, so they do have range. Even more so then some of the modern turkey guns. My smoothbore I limit to 30 yards....

Hope this helped..

thanks for the reply.....now the plastic wad, there are sooooo many kinds, is there a standard i should start with???? keep in mind they come in like bags of 500. i will be shooting #6 shot for turkey. and i heard somewhere that you should equell the amount of shot to powder. BP powder is measured by volume, what about the shot???

Sorry I can not help you on the plastic wad part. As I said I shoot a smoothbore rifle. I don't use any plastic anything. I have been thinking of a Knight TK2000 for spring turkey hunting, but I guess my stuborn streak makes me want to take one with the smoothbore first. Here is some information that might help you when you want to measure your shot by volume.

BLACK POWDER DRAM TO GRAIN CONVERSION
DRAM MEASURE-------GRAIN EQUIVALENT
2½ --------------------68.0
2¾ --------------------75.0
3 ----------------------82.0
3¼ --------------------89.0
3½ --------------------96.0
3¾ --------------------102.0




For instance, in my .62 caliber smoothbore I shoot 80 grains of 2f powder and 100 grains of #6 shot. I am thinking of changing that to 90/90 but I need to do more testing with it first. The other charge works so well I hate to mess with something that works..

Good luck in your shotgun persuit.

Oz. Shot Dr. Powder Gr. Powder
3/4 2 55
7/8 2 1/4 62
1 2 1/2 68
1 1/8 2 3/4 75
1 1/4 3 82
1 3/8 3 1/4 89
1 1/2 3 1/2 96
1 5/8 3 3/4 102
1 3/4 4 109
1 7/8 4 1/4 116
2 4 1/2 123
2 1/8 4 3/4 130
2 1/4 5 137

this might also help a little.

Here's a link in which I tested a Knight TK 2000 and just love the thing. It has info on what I used and where I got it.

http://www.modernmuzzleloader.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1492&highlight=2000

One helluva shotgun. I was using #6 shot for the results. You can't go wrong with this one.

thanks for the info. i went out and bought a bag of #5 shot and a bag of remington 12 ga. target load wads. i am having a problem finding the over shot cards and i really don't want to order them right now. i read of guys making their own, any tips???

I use the nitro cards and all they are is compressed cardboard, so I guess you could cut out out cardboard and stuff it in. I would try tracing a quarter and see if it fits the bore. If it is a little larger that should be ok since all the card does is hold the shot in the barrel in case you lower your barrel when you don't have the shot. Try to use thin cardboard, like the backside of a spiral notebook. If you tie your own fishing flies like myself, there is a neat product out that is a flat piece of foam I use to tie bug flies. You could also trace and cut that to fit. If you have any foam liner I'm sure that would work too. Just be certain you give your gun a good cleaning after shooting and you'll be fine.

www.ballisticproducts.com

While were on this subject I'm thinking of a ML shotgun barrel for my Encore to do some turkeyhunting with. What kind of range can I realistically get? I know basically nothing aboutshotgun Muzzleloading what should I be looking for? I think Iread somewhere on here that I could get a screw in choke on the TC barrels for it as well. Anyone have any suggestions. Thanks.