Multi-Ball in the 20 gauge

[Catshooter45]

We have finished our development work and have settled on a load for my brother's bear mediceine shotgun.  Here's the data.

I bought a H&R heavy 20 gauge rifled barrel here.  It fell right into one of my shotgun actions, no fitting needed.  24 inches long, .626 bore, no choke of course.

Mag-Tec full length brass with large rifle primer.  Blue Dot powder, (Circle Fly wads) one 19 gauge .125 nitro wad, 19 19 gauge .050 over-powder wads, three (yes, three!) .626 balls that we cast from an older Lyman mould out of wheel weights that are water dropped.  Each ball is rolled in Lee Liquid Alox. The case is crimped on the equator of the top ball.  Each ball weighs 350 grains.

We're getting an average of 1030 fps with Blue Dot.  At 25 yards each shot groups into a perfect 2" triangle almost every time.

We filled the butt stock bolt hole with #9 shot, and between that and the heavy barrell the shotgun weighs in at 10.5 pounds.  Recoil isn't bad at all.  My brother can't stop smiling with each shot.

For reloading dies, I took a Lee 20 gauge loader (wack 'em) crimp die.  Bored out a 7/8 x 1.25 bushing from an RCBS Rockcucker press until the die would slip in and then welded it into the bushing.  Then drilled out the top of the die and threaded it for 5/8 x 20.  Bought a 5/8 fine threaded bolt and faced the end to use as a seating stem.  Drilled & tapped a hole in the side of the Rockcucker so I could adjust the crimp by turning the die in or out.  Works well and was cheap.

We have been keeping an eye on the barrel fit as we are in completely un-charted seas with this load.  So far at about 110 rounds fired we have no change in barrel/action fit, so far so good.  If the action starts to stretch I'll pick up an SB 2 for more strength.  Neither the primer nor the case are showing pressure signs, of course.  We worked up the powder charge very slowly, trust me.


Cat

[MSP Ret]

I like it!!!!....<><....

[Markus]

This sounds like a marketable idea.

[gcrank1]

Well done!
Of course there really is 'nothing new under the sun', I bet you could find trials of just (minus the smokeless) such well back in the British sporting journals, but after the advent of conical rifles the old round ball fell out of favor. It still does the job it has done for hundreds of years.

[Catshooter45]

Thanks MSP, we do too.

Markus,

I would shudder to think of what would happen to a standard shotgun barrel with one of these babies.

gcrank,

I imagine you're correct, I'm sure it's been done before.  The hardest part was finding the proper size mould.f

Now we're going to work up a single ball load for plinking/practice.


Cat

[Markus]

Was this inspired by the Dixie tri ball loads?

[Catshooter45]

Nope, by me.  When researching this I found some posts by Dixie.  They were very helpful, gave me some starting points.  I was having a hard time deceiding what powder to use and what charge level to start with.  Totally new territory for me.


Cat