12-gauge BP shotgun

by RayLee, Tuesday, May 06, 2025, 10:52 (5 days ago) @ AaronB

Once upon a time there was a michigan firm that imported sheet metal and spot-welded muzzleloading 12 bores from pakistan and advertised them as "no f.f.l. required" without bothering to inform that they were indeed muzzleloaders. A coworker bought one and did not quite understand how to make it work.

Using a .44 special case for a charger,two throws of coarse black looked about right. Straight from the William Hovey Smith book on the subject, a .45 colt case full of hominy grits went on top of the powder for a buffer. Then a cotton ball wad followed by two .45 colt cases of fine shot followed by an overshot wad of another cotton ball fattened by a cleaning patch. The pattern on a medium pizza box was surprisingly sufficiently adequate at 15 paces.

Then the coworker confessed that he was a plumbophobe.....that is to say, irrationally afraid of lead. The instructions that came from pakistan forbad the use of steel shot. The coworker balked at the cost of non-ferrous, lead-free alternatives.

So I was given custody of the beast for several years. According to the instructions, I never did try fine steel shot but a 11/16" steel ball was easily fattened-up to bore size with cloth patching. The steel balls gave no evidences of contacting the bore after firing.