On the 8 ga reloading bandwagon

[Eldon Goddard]

All the talk about 8 ga made me decide to load some shells again. My load is 125grs(by volume) of 777 and 1 1/2oz of 7 1/2. I have made this before and dont have anything to carry them in so I just decided to recreate my vintage box from Eley. It turned out ok, the lid is a little tight and it is a little larger overall as the cardboard is thicker than the original material.

[charlie cleveland]

looks good to me...I have never tried making a shotgun shell box....I have a few eley 8 ga boxes of shells and a few Remington....collecting old shotgun shell boxes gets in your blood like old side by sides....charlie

[CraigThompson]

Hmmmm shell boxes :cool: I usually load two to six of whatever and put them in plastic sandwich bags . I like the idea of using 777 over that other smoking stuff .

[Bill Murphy]

I've only been reloading shotshells for sixty years so I guess I should ask___What is 777?

[Jerry Harlow]

I've only been reloading shotshells for sixty years so I guess I should ask___What is 777?

When you forget how much you have consumed.

[Eldon Goddard]

I've only been reloading shotshells for sixty years so I guess I should ask___What is 777?
A black powder substitute. I use goex ffg when I can get it but it is hard to get in town. Last time I bought it it was randomly at bass pro shops. They have told me they will not carry it again.

[Bill Murphy]

Thanks, I used some old Goex for ten gauge blanks for my Winchester cannon. Fired them on the fourth.

[Rick Losey]

A black powder substitute. I use goex ffg when I can get it but it is hard to get in town. Last time I bought it it was randomly at bass pro shops. They have told me they will not carry it again.

Have you tried the Maine Powder House?

https://mainepowderhouse.com/

[edgarspencer]

Thanks, I used some old Goex for ten gauge blanks for my Winchester cannon. Fired them on the fourth.

Bill, what granulation, and how many grains?

I loaded some 8 ga blanks, but only used 250 grains. Seems it needs 350-400gr.

[Harry Collins]

Wasn't F recommended for 10 gauge and above? I know black powder has changed over the last 130 years or so and that some have insisted that latter years FFF is todays FFFF and so on.

[charlie cleveland]

bet you rattled a few window panes with that cannon....I have a picture of an 8 gauge shell box marked blanks I believe it is marked 400 grains forget the drams...it says for the Winchester cannon....charlie

[Bill Murphy]

In a Winchester cannon, the F doesn't make any difference. You fill the shell with all it will hold with whatever black you have. Factory blanks are 8 drams, a bit light in my opinion.

[edgarspencer]

May be light, but 220 grains is all the 10ga. hull will hold.
Commercially loaded 8ga. blanks are 300gr. of 1f.

The National Civil War Artillery Assoc. website (www.ncwaa.com/Powder.htm) is very explicit in not using anything finer than 2f (ffg)

They state that a proper blank load is 1312.f grs per inch of bore, so assuming an 8 ga. at 3/4", their suggested load is 985 grains. A 3 1/4" 8ga. hull only holds 300 grains, so they obviously must be referring to muzzle loaded cannons. (unless the illusive 9 3/4" 8ga hull is out there somewhere)
I can say that a 300gr. 8ga is a LOT louder than a 220gr. 10ga.

[charlie cleveland]

wish I lived closer to you we would rattle a lot of window paines and send some golf balls to the moon...charlie

[edgarspencer]

Charlie, I think we'd be trouble with a capitol T.

[Bill Murphy]

OK, here's my Winchester cannon story from my younger days. Restricted to 2 7/8" shells, I was not satisfied. I loaded a shell full, uncrimped, and chambered it in the cannon. I selected a flat spot on a woodpile in my driveway and put another four or six drams of powder ahead of the uncrimped shell with about 9 or 10 drams in it. I sealed the bore with an eight gauge filler wad and touched her off. The noise was all I could have wished for, and the cannon did a back flip off the woodpile and landed on the asphalt driveway, undamaged. I don't think I will try that trick again, but may experiment with a few bore size projectiles. They have to be somewhat water soluable so that my neighbor won't find them in his orchard.

[edgarspencer]

For the life of me, I can not find the mortar that my dad had. I suspect he may have "put it away".
From the lawn, in front of the house, to the road is approximately 1200'. From the other side of the road, to the pond at the edge of that field, is another 1200-1500 feet.
The mortar was commercially manufactured, in the foundry which belonged to my grandfather. as I recall it weighed about 35-40 lbs. The bore was, not accidentally, a slight bit larger than a golf ball, such that a snug fit was attained with some sort of patch.
After some adjustment, we were able to lob, one after another, golf balls into that pond.
The mortar never got me into any trouble, but I do recall the Hartford Golf Club being somewhat annoyed when we regularly went out at night and cleaned up the practice driving range.

[edgarspencer]

Here's my 8ga. Strong Firearms Co. cannon. It was made approximately 1890.
The barrel was all a friend had, and he generously gave it to me. In order to make all the bits and pieces, I borrowed the 4ga. Brown from another good friend, to use as a guide. It is an incredibly beautiful piece of workmanship, with the most unique breech. Brown was the predecessor of Strong.
Both cannons were made in New Haven CT, a few hundred yards from the Winchester plant

[Rick Losey]

For the life of me, I can not find the mortar that my dad had. I suspect he may have "put it away".
From the lawn, in front of the house, to the road is approximately 1200'. From the other side of the road, to the pond at the edge of that field, is another 1200-1500 feet.
The mortar was commercially manufactured, in the foundry which belonged to my grandfather. as I recall it woeighed about 35-40 lbs. The bore was, not accidentally, a slight bit larger than a golf ball, such that a snug fit was attained with some sort of patch.
After some adjustment, we were able to lob, one after another, golf balls into that pond.
The mortar never got me into any trouble, but I do recall the Hartford Golf Club being somewhat annoyed when we regularly went out at night and cleaned up the practice driving range.

When I was into reenacting and belonged to a black powder shooting club - we had a member who had a mortar. the bore was bigger than a golf ball, maybe tennis ball size. if you were close when he set it off it sucked the air out of you

two events come to mind- once at the annual rendezvous he fired it too early in the morning. the town cops from a village about 6 -7 miles away as the crow flies came out and asked him not to do it again, people in town called the cops wondering where the explosion was :shock:

and once we stopped for dinner (in garb) at a rural country club for dinner on the way home from an event. a waitress overheard him say something about his "cannon" and she said she didn't believe he had one. he told her to get the manager's permission and he would show her. she got it and he loaded and fired a slightly lighter than normal load - the restaurant emptied out because every car in the lot had its alarm set off :rotf:

[charlie cleveland]

them sure is some good stories....I had to laugh about them car alarms going off....charlie

[charlie cleveland]

while in the army we were shooting at maximum elevation over a mountain...we had 18 155 guns and 4 -8 inch guns...half way up that mountain was papa-sons straw hut...when we fired it usally sounded like we were poping pop corn...when the order came to fire all the guns went off at the same time...papa sons house literally disappeared in a cloud of smoke....out of the smoke came papa son charging down that mountain with him yelling at the top of his lungs....he had a wooden pitch fork in his hands....what a brave man charging a battalion of men alone he was....we all looked to see who s gun had hit the straw hut but nary a gun was aimed at the hut...the blast from all the guns had blowed the hut away...I ll never forget that papa son charging down that mountain with the wooden pitchfork in his hands or that straw hut just disappearing in a cloud of smoke....charlie

[John Dallas]

Charlie-were you in Korea? I spent the better part of a year near Pusan

[Frank Srebro]

This thread is on an interesting tangent and I'll add to it. Here's a black powder mortar with elevation mechanism. 3-inch bore and she shoots dog food cans filled with concrete = 2 pounds. In use the can is patched with a coffee maker filter.

[Phillip Carr]

Nice would love to see you fire that.

[edgarspencer]

There was an episode of American pickers where a father and son were firing bowling balls over the hill behind their house with a homemade mortar. I remember a story in the news a few years ago where someone made a mortar out of the top half of an oxygen bottle. Those bottles only have 3/16 inch wall section and he blew it up and killed himself.

[Dean Romig]

Frank - that mortar looks like those used at Fort Ticonderoga in the mortar accuracy competitions. Do they still hold those events there?





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[Frank Srebro]

Dean, sorry I don't know about mortar competitions at Fort Ti. This one is usually fired in an old coal mining spoil area with little vegetation owing to the acid in the burned culm; of course the target area is fully checked out and observed before shooting. The machine shop that made this one, has the elevation mechanism maxed out at about 75 degrees for obvious safety reasons. She weighs about 90 pounds as shown. EZ to clean after shooting with a garden hose, bore is then dried with paper towels and spray oiled when dry.

[charlie cleveland]

big d I spent 15 months in korea we were on the dmz...cold place to be....charlie