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Choke in a smoothbore?

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Hawkdancer:
I forgot mention the barrel is a Sharon Rifle barrel, marked 20 ga., not a TC.  I am not sure of the jug choking as I have not heard of it before.  Gunsmiths in general are a bit scare around here, one that is familiar with muzzleloading are even more rare, which is why I thought of the threaded type insert.  Thanks for the information so far!
Hawkdancer

Eric Krewson:
There is a dedicated smoothbore crowd out there that shoots nothing else, all are familiar with jug chokes although there is some miss information about shooting a round ball out of a jug choked barrel. Some say a round ball won't shoot well out of jug choked barrel, those of us that do find no difference in shooting a ball in a jug choked barrel, it is all about working up a load.

Here is one of my round ball targets, I shot .690s and they were all over the place. I switched to .700s and they shot mighty well. I think this is at 25 yards, I was shooting 100 gr of 1F with a .023 patch. And yes, the recoil was significant. I have a rear sight on my fowler.

Eric Krewson:
Jug choking is not something an average gunsmith can do properly, you would have to send your barrel off to have it done. I used Danny Caywood, a guy named Lowell Tennison is also very experienced at jug choking.

Before you do anything google a Skychief load, the shot pattern in my picture above is a jug choke with a Skychief load. The wad column is contrary to everything you ever read about loading a shotgun but it works and will really tighten your pattern.

I tried in my cylinder bore 20ga that I couldn't get more than just a few pellets in a piece of notebook paper and got a squirrel killing pattern at 20 yards with this crazy load.

I don't have a before but it was pitiful. This is an after picture of loading the Skychief load. This gun shoots to the left.

 

Eric Krewson:
Here is link to a Skychief load.

https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/skychiefs-shot-load-link.127394/

JW_Halverson:
The "Sky Chief" load flies in the face of what is oft called common sense, conventional wisdom saying that a heavy wad ON TOP of the shot charge will cause you to have a doughnut pattern on paper.

That being said, I fully intend to try this combo soon with my short cannon barreled smoothbore because it will not pattern ANY combination tried to date. I would hesitate to use this gun on a turkey at even 5 yards with an ounce and a quarter load with as crappy a pattern as it throws for shot. However, it does excel with roundball and I had one great day hitting three half gallon milk jugs in a row at 50 yds offhand!

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