roundball

A couple years ago GM made a special run of 48 Flint smoothbore barrels...1" x 33" .62cal drop-ins for the TC Hawken & Renegade.

They are down to their last 10...say there are no plans to make any more, and my Wife "somehow" got it in her head that one of these barrels would make a great Father's Day gift!

They now have 9 left so if you even think you might want one, you "better git while the gittin's good !"

sabotloader

roundball

Well, dag-gone - HAPPY FATHERS DAY...

How long will it take you to get it sat in the stock and git out and shoot it?

roundball

Just finished cleaning it and marrying it to a stock...probably shoot it next weekend

sabotloader

I'm intrigued and interested in your results...

If you could place that barrel in history, what year(s) might it have been and what would it have been used for? by whom?

thanks - mike

roundball

Not much on specifics of history, butit seems that the .62cal(.20ga) is the single most commonly produced / used smoothboresize of yesteryear in general...a very versatile firearm.

They're as accurate as a rifle with patched balls to 50yds and almost as accurateat75yds...ranges that encompass 99.99% of all big game you'd want to use a 325grn lead ball for.
My Deer hunting loads:
80grns Goex 3F
.018" Oxyoke lubed pillow ticking
.600grn cast lead balls (from Eddie May in Georgia)


Shot loads are whatever you want/need them to be...just adjust the amount of powder and shot accordingly...for example, my Turkey Load is:
80grns Goex 3F
Two Oxyoke wonderwads
1+5/8oz #6s
Circle Fly OS card

A trap target loadfor the 16yd line is:
70grns Goex 3F
Two Oxyoke wonderwads
1oz #8s
Circle Fly OS card

You get the idea...smoothbores area wholedifferent area of muzzleloading to experiment with, learn about, hunt with, etc.

sabotloader

I did not think about the versitility of the barrel.

cayugad

I have a real love hate relationship with the .62 caliber smoothbore. I have the same GMB that Roundball has in percussion. I have tried countless different loads, manner of loads, wads and no wads, just about any way you could think of shooting it. The best day I had on the range was the day I shot that group there. That was at 43 steps that I later shot/measured with a range finder to find it was 39 yards. After that distance I do not trust the rifle for accuracy. I did try shooting it once at 75 yards and actually missed the paper the target was on. Where it hit, I have no idea. The second shot I managed to get on paper in a corner. And also managed to fling one ball downrange and actually make a good hit. But that was because it was spraying all over the place.

For a shotgun, I load 80 grains of Goex and then push a Winchester AA plastic wad and then load 100 grains of #5 shot. It will really shoot with that and would be more then enough for 25-30yard shots on about anything I wanted to hunt. I was rolling a paint can around the yard one day and was surprised it would penetrate that paint can. I figured a bird had no chance at all.

The top picture was some penetration tests I was shooting. I shot all the way through that chunk of Balsam length wise. Also I recovered a ball that had hit the steel bullet trap. The splatter effect was really impressive. I think that would have been an excellent short range deer load. I just never would trust the rifle past 40 yards.

Like Roundball said, the versatility of the rifle was a reason it was so popular with early settlers. They could big game/small game hunt, bird hunt, basically hunt anything they could get close to, all with the same gun. Early settlers were not gun rich from what I read. They were lucky to own anything. Actually a lot of old military muskets were popular with early settlers because of their cost. Rifles were expensive actually, probably since most were individually made.

RobertSubnet

Cayugad:

Is there a gun you don't have

~Robert

Sharp Shooter

You can shoot that accurately at 75yds? That is amazing!

cayugad

Robert - there are lots of rifles I do not own. I am working on it though.

Actually I like traditional rifles a lot. I own far too many of them but only have about six inline rifles. Some of the new rifles out, while I find them interesting, and get an urge to buy one, I have rifles in my collection that can shoot as good as they will. So now I am at a point where I am trying to control the size of the collection. I even gave a couple away to family members this year.

Today was was shooting the first inline rifle I ever bought at my range. It was a lot of fun. I just enjoy shooting all kinds of rifles.