Loading for my 8-bore

[matt85]

Here are two targets from a shoot a few weeks ago. They were done with a ball over 67gr of bluedot and four 1/2" wads. The POI was strangely low that day... I suspect in previous cartridges i had an additional 1/8" wad on top of the four 1/2" wads, which might have made the difference.

First two shots:

Second two shots:

 

[BayouRobert]

Fantastic regulation and shooting. Gotta love that!

 

[Sarg]

@Sarg A google search didn't show any for sale. I also checked gunbroker and gunsinternational.

Id consider them if I could find some

It seems most are out of stock, I’ll PM/DM a couple of ideas to you on this.

You certainly have that dialed in, we have had a few guys using 8bore & even 4bore on Buffalo & cull hunts, I wish now I had taken note of their loads but the big 8 wasn’t as tremendous as I thought it was going to be, the 4 was & shit near shot out both ends on impact.

Haven’t used mine on DG as logistics & expense has been a factor.

Shot plenty of birds with the couple of 8ga shotguns I have.

My buddy just sleeved one of his singles to .577 3in LN & I was thinking of doing a rifle on one as a single is easier but I have two .835 barrels !

Looks like Winchester & Remington are still doing them, they used to sell primed hulls, the modern ones are much easier, just need to swag the belt down, the old ones had a extra belt.

One silly old F#%ker modified HIS chambers in his lovely old bore rifle, now that was a disaster on two points, one wrecked fine old rifle & some idiot (or another idiot) May chamber & fire one of the mega loaded Kiln Gun cartridges !!

 

[BayouRobert]

If you can find the Remington, or other USA-made, industrial plastic cases, then I have a quick method to remove the “belt” at the base, though you’ll need your machinist to spin up a simple little tool for your drill press.

As to 8 bore effectiveness, I took a smooth bore double hunting in ‘95. My PH wasn’t keen on my shooting a buffalo with a smooth bore round ball. I suggested we go Eland hunting.

We jumped an Eland running near straight away at a slight angle. As I threw my smoothbore up, he reached over to push my muzzles toward the ground. He thought better of that, and I shot the Eland running away at ~65 yards (920 grain round ball, 1650 fps muzzle velocity) in the left butt.

The round ball penetrated the Eland end to end, breaking the offside humerus. It tumbled end over end and was dead by the time I could run to it.

He said, “Young Robert, you can shoot anything you want with that smoothbore”.

It worked fine on buffalo and driven guinea fowl with little 2.5” shells loaded with 7 1/2’s.

The full length plastic cases holding (22) OO or OOO (I can’t remember…don’t wanna lie, but I think OOO) buffered buckshot were very impressive on a paper target. I never used them, otherwise.
In a hallway they would have caused some serious devastation.

 

[BayouRobert]