In a manner of speaking, Gatsby - now they're all wound up on using sabots with light bullets to get high velocities. I attempted to 'see the light' concerning reducing a .73 to a .50, but couldn't find it.

As to Ben's 3" 12 bore bullets, one could conceivably re-barrel a double 12 with rifled tubes - but would probably be well advised to stay with round ball. Attempting to get .73 call bullets up to a velocity that would give reasonable trajectories is a lark. The pressures would probably be OK, but all of this has been tried. When considering the very large bore guns, the most effective projectiles within effective game ranges were round balls. Why would anyone want shoot a 440gr. bullet from a .73 cal. cal. rifle, when the round ball for it will weigh 620gr. or more and give deeper penetration and a wider hole. To shoot a .73 cal. bullet of 1 1/2 calibers would be in the neighbourhood of 800 to 900gr., produce much more friction in the barrel reducing velocity, producing must higher trajectory, produce much more recoil necessitating a much heavier rifle - all bad things.

With smokeless powders, pushing a .74" round ball at 1,800fps or even higher, would be possible - even from a 2 3/4" or 2 1/2" case. The 3" isn't necessary and would necessitate 'extra' wadding, which would add to recoil and presssure. At 1,800fps, that's about 4,400fpe (if that number's important to you) and 2,000fps (5,500fpe) or more would easily be possible with less than 30,000PSI.

Now, a hardened 12 bore ball, even a 15 bore ball, driven at muzzle speed of 1,350fps will go side to side on an Indian Elephant's head - how much more do you want? Driven at 1,550fps, the point blank range is 155 yards - driven at 1,800fps, the point blank range is 176yards.PBRange=ball no more than 2 1/2" high or low. Even the low speed listed carries over 2,800fpe at 200 yards and is only 10" low there, from a 130 yard zero. Driven at 1,800fps, zero'd at 150 yards, it's PBR is 176yards and is 5 1/2" low at 200, with 3,800FPE. No slug you could shoot from the shoulder from that 'rifle' will give these flat trajectories. To even get a slug of 1 1/2 diameters to 1,500fps, would kick you into next week unless the gun was so heavy you couldn't carry it yourself.

In a 9 1/2 pound 12 bore rifle, you can easily drive a 620gr. ball to 1,550fps and shoot enough and often and become 'good' with it. Change that to a slug in such a 'handy' rifle and you'll rarely shoot it. Increase that to 15 pounds and I guarantee you'll take it to the range, heft it and shoot it a couple times and that's it - you certainly won't walk with it very far from the truck.

Forsyth went through all the slug bit back in 1858 & worte it up to prevent us from following the dark path of bullets in large bores - must we learn all that over again? In a bore rifle, within hunting ranges, the most effective projectile is the round ball. It was then as it is now. Hardened balls will give sufficient penetration on any game you are likely to encounter and they will give a flatter trajectory was well due to their velocity advantage within the ranges game is killed.

What's to lose? flatter trajectory - ie: longer point blank range - less recoil - less fatigue on the rifle - can be made much lighter due to lower recoil - I see no negatives against round balls - only against slugs in bore rifles.