Shooting shot out of a normal black powder rifle

[Coach]

This is probably a weird question, but I've always wanted to take a turkey with one of my black powder guns. Have any of you experimented with using a normal .50 cal muzzle loader shooting shot?

[billrquimby]

Coach:

 

I've shot a few replica and original black powder rifles and shotguns, but never tried shooting shot in a rifle. Don't try it based on what I'm about to say, but it seems to me that it would be safe as long as the weight of the shot did not exceed that of the bullets or balls that you normally shoot. As to whether it would throw enough shot to kill a turkey, or even produce a pattern tight enough to just hit one, I have no idea. Your main problem could be in finding .50-caliber wads. You might want to check some muzzleloading sites on the inernet.

 

Bill Quimby

[azslim]

not sure you could get enough shot to make a good pattern at any distance, would definitely have to shoot at a few turkey targets first

[brent]

Wont work too well because of the spin the rifling puts on the load. I would imagine that unlike a bullet, the spin put on the shot will give you a uslessly large pattern at a very close range.

[azslim]

with the BP shotguns I've shot we would wrap the shot up in newspaper, forget how big the little cup was, about an ounce at most but it has been a long time

 

so were I to try this it would be 50 grs powder, a wad rammed home, then a newspaper wrapped load of shot seated on top of the wad and maybe a wad over that to hold it in place, worst thing that could happen is a useless pattern and you have to clean your muzzle loader