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Tom, in my humble opinion (sometimes not so humble) the use of short conicals (short would be necessary) in the Pedersoli 12 bore will gain you nothing for use against dangerous game unless they are hardened and as hard, they will not obturate into the rifling. Accuracy will be poor and fouing excessive.

Stick with round balls. With proper testing, you will arrive at a WW alloy ball and patch combination that will shoot accurately and possess all the power your rifle will provide. I agree with hard balls, but stop at WW. They will not break up and will go through a lot of bone without deforming - harder than that, I don't think you'll need. You could even cut them almost 1/2 and 1/2 with pure lead. They will still harden further if quenched in cool water and left to sit for 24 hours. These hardened WW and WW alloy balls retain some maleable traits and do not get brittle as hard alloys like Antimony do.

A quote from Samuel Baker is appropriate here: "That 4 1/2 drams (123gr.) will drive a ball of that size through both sides of an elephant's head, and 4 1/2 or even 5 drams (136gr.) may be used in such a rifle without any very unpleasant recoil and without any bad effect on the accuracy of the ball, but the reverse."

He was speaking of a 14 bore rifle (.69cal.), shallow rifling and 1/4 turn of twist in the length of the bore.(26" barrel, 104" twist) We know of other people with that same double Pedersoli you have, using up to 175gr.(6.4drams) of powder safely used. You will have to target this rifle to see what load the barrels shoot together with.

My own 14 bore single rifle with a load of 6.1 drams(165gr.) and a WW alloy ball smashed both shoulders of a large bull moose. In contrast, my 9.3x57, with a 270gr. bullet at 2,300fps smashed one shoulder of a moose this last fall and only a small fragment of the bullet made it into the lung cavity. Had the moose been a full grown bull like the first one instead of a 350 pound calf, I'd have had a bit of tracking to do.

Do not think of the round ball as a poor penetrator - it isn't, especially in such large sizes. Hardened, they're tremendous penetrators.

Is it enough for Cape Buffalo - yes, I most hearedly think so - accuracy will be the most important variable - that's up to you and your pre-hunt practise and load development.

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Daryl

"a gun without hammers is like a Spaniel without ears" King George V

Edited by Daryl_S (05/12/08 07:20 AM)

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