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Trouble with any sort of wadded slug, is the plastic will melt onto the bore, just as it does in modern guns, but with a vengence. BP flame is much more intense or more of it and melts plastic badly. Putting a couple 1/8" card wds down first will limit the amount of plastic melted off the wads.

The ring and base wad are proably much larger than the bore on the .72 Pedersoli as they are designed to be a tight fit inside a shotshell. Only one way to find out about either of the potential problems.

A third is lubrication/fouling softener to allow loading the next one without having to clean the rifle.

Paper ctgs. are the very fastest, easiest and most accurate way to have follow up shots by reloading. With practice, I wad able to load and fire an aimed shot in 8 seconds using my 14 bore rifle and the tapered paper ctgs. I made. They had no lubricant, on them, so after 10 shots with them, I had to load a very wet, spit patched 3 dram load with pure lead ball, to 'clean' the bore. With 2 wraps of 20 pound printing paper around the ball, the rifling pressed hard into the ball when loading, so they there a very snug fit. Accuracy was identical to patched round ball - get this right- 1.2" to 1.5" at 100 meters for 5 shots - express sigths. The ctg. balls shoot right into the same group and with the same accuracy as carefully patched round balls, and also allow any alloy be used, which is why I developed them in the manner I did.

I initially bored an old mould to make an adjustable weight hollow based slug for the rifle, for a fast second shot after my light 484gr. ball. After firing a few of the 650gr. slugs, I decided I didn't like the arched trajectory, nor the increased recoil, nor the different point of impact. Thus, I developed the 1800's world-wide military paper ctg. into a hunting ctg. giving the same accuracy as patched balls. They work well, giving the best killing power of any ML projectile, load faster than a slug with premeasured, capsuled powder charges, are easy to make & can be carried in a pocket all hunting season or in a modified ctg. container on the belt, as such.
I use white glue for holding the paper ctgs. sides together. 2 wraps around the tapered dowel, glue, and let dry. Fold over the bottom point and glue. fill with powder charge, drop in a ball and fold the paper over the ball, gluing with white glue - done. Tear off the point with your teeth, shove ointed end into the bore, and the powder drains into the breech while you're pulling out the rod. Choke up on the rod to start the tight , now, paper patched ball, and then shove the entrie deal down the bore. The apper wads up between powder and the ball and helps form a seal. None of my paper ctgs. have ever caught fire nor even smoldered. This shows a perfect seal and no gas blowby. At the shot, there is a blast of confette-like paper bits in the air along with the smoke. I've never tried them with modern BP replacement propellents.
Soon, Bruce S. will be writing a book or article on this very subject. Fellows I've know have had excellent resutls form their .73's, .69's like mine, 16 bores, a .58 and one fellow with a .54 Pedersoli double rifle. all have received excellent accuracy.

Edited by CptCurl (16/07/11 10:32 PM)