Selous' gun that I mentioned, was a single. He had a pair, so that one was always loaded. His 'caffer' loading the empty one from a leather bag at his waist. Apparently in a tight scrape with a mad elephant, he put in two handfulls of powder instead of just one. When Selous fired that one, the stock broke at the wrist, hammer ripping him across the forehead, and dropping a flap of scalp skin over his eyes. That made a great story, no?
: I found reference to the gun trials of 1883, the only such trials where makers competed against each other. Double rifles along with a smoothbored ball gun by Holland's weere used. The shooting of the smoothbore was rather poor, but mentioned by W.W. Greener that quote - - "A smoothbore shot-gun, choked or cylinder, should make a better diagram in good hands" This means to me, that shotguns were commonly used with ball as well as shot, as I noted in a previous post.
: Incidently, in the trials, a 4 bore double, made the smallest deviation on the 50 yard target of any, the mean shot being only .782" average from centre. This is pretty good shooting and would probably put all 10 shots, in a 2" square or smaller group. It was not common for 4 bore doubles to be rifed as of 1883, but this one might have been rifled as no mention was made that it was a smoothbore.
: A previous test using an 8 bore, put 6 consecutive shots inside a rectangle 2-1/2" wide by 5-1/8" high. Discounting the high left barrel shot, 5 are in a square 2-1/2" X 3-5/8" high. This is better shooting most hunters can do with their scoped moose rifles, even at a mere 50 yards.
: The shooting done in these trials was usually standing, at the high bench, gun gripped as if shooting offhand, with the shooter leaning against and across the table's padding. This 'sort' of hold (gripped as if shotoing offhand) is necesary with heavy recoiling guns to eliminate non-consistant recoil from spoiling the groups fired. Incidently, the bore rifles, from 12 through 4 bore outshot all of the Express rifles at 50 yards at the '83 trials.
: Now, if you can find an 11-1/2 pound 8 bore with 20" barrels, be assured it was most likely for ball. Weights are listed as 24" bls. at 15 pounds to use 10 or 12 drams and a spherical ball. He (Greener) states that (quote) "Possibly the best weapon for large game is this 8-bore with short barrels; but using the light spherical bullet only, and eight or more drams of powder, the double rifle then need not weigh more than 11-1/2 pounds as the recoil will be so much less (than shooting a conical) and the velocity and penetration at the short ranges at which large game is almost invariably shot will be more than sufficient to penetrate and kill even the largest elephant, whether head or side shot be taken. The accuracy of the large-bore rifles and ball guns is very good up to 60 yards with the smooth, and 120 yards with the rifle." (end quote)
: Incidently, a muzzleloading rifle can be loaded quite quickly. My 14 bore, when loaded using paper ctgs. could be loaded ans discharged 8 seconds after the previous shot. Selous gun-bearer probably used no wads, just a handgful of powder and rolled a ball onto it. this, of course, does nothing to keep the ball at the powder for if the muzzle is depressed, the ball will roll forward. I suspect that if needed for a coup-de-gras, there'd be no patch used. Of course, it is possible a patch was used in the normal fashion.