Knockdown in thick mountainous brush

olafhardtB said:

Blond bear, you are talking about the soft round balls of pure lead shot out of muzzle loaders. I am talking about full caliber hard cast round balls of full caliber. Lots of people have used buck shot for pistol loads -000in 38/357 and 0 in 32. Remington used to sell 357 ammo with three 000 and two 000's in 38 special. There are foraging loads with one 0 for the 30-06. I bought a 5 pound box of 0 buckshot to load in my 32's. The loads went bang and that's about all the range report I have. If you want to buy a lot of factory made projectiles, a box of buck is one cheap way to go and lots cheaper and harder than the 32 round balls sold for muzzle loaders. Might be hard to ram down the barrel. BTW balls don't have a nose to turn up or down.

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Once again olaf, you are correct, except round balls have a nose, just not in the conventional sense. I hadn't thought of foraging rounds and didn't know Remington sold them. During the War of Northern Aggression, troops were actually given hardwood rounds for such. Still, I imagine foraging rounds would be limited by the stresses of rifling and spinning the round to 57,000+ RPM. I would like to know your results, including accuracy and bore fouling.

Art Eatman said:

One of my uncle's tips, back when I was a kid, was for what he called a "squirrel load" for the '06. An 00 ball and five grains weight of shotgun powder. It worked quite well.

Same-o same-o as "foraging load", I guess. Pistol powder would work...

Any 30-caliber: "Turn your SKS into a squirrel gun!"

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In my focus towards considering as well as understanding the means of effective game stopping I didn't properly pause to think about olaf's .500 S&W loads. Reminds me of shooting birds in the barn using .22 LR birdshot rounds (#12 shot). It is well noted the quantity of powder you mentioned is significantly less than the radical, especially by pistol standards, loads of the .500 S&W. Rabbit hunting with an AK and slidefire stock... heh heh heh heh...

olafhardtB said:

Blond bear, to my knowledge I invented the term "foraging load". It is not a real term that I know of. I don't know much about AK's, never shot one but have been shot at with them. I have hunted rabbits in west Texas with a 10-22. Always thought it would be fun with a machine gun mounted on the back of a pickup truck. My high school science teacher had been stationed in the Aleutian Islands in WWII. He said that had a 22 machine gun that they used for practice. Thier favorite targets were migrating salmon.

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Olaf, as I haven't access to physical material mentioning "foraging" followed directly by "round" or "load", I cannot pathologically nor forensically atest to the validity of any claims to the term. However, using the Google search engine with the aforementioned words/terms results in a plethora of results going back over 125 years.

As previously mentioned, my understanding of the "foraging round" goes back to the War of Northern Aggression when soldiers, and cooks especially, were issued round wooden balls. And it makes sense. First, muzzle loaders have relatively low twist rates around 1:66" to 1:108". The slow twist means rotational accelerations are mild. Too, as patches are used for shooting round balls, the rifling wouldn't splinter the wood by cutting into it. Another benefit of the patch is it allows almost any material for the projectile. Digressing for a moment to your mention of shooting/loading hard lead, using a patch makes it possible for almost any material. Therefore, the muzzle-loader can shoot solid carbide, diamond, etc. Wouldn't want to try that through the .500 S&W or any other cartridge based barrel. Returning to the wood foraging round, besides being used with a patch, another great benefit is not having to use a lot of powder to propel the lightweight round to velocities lethal but not destructive to small game as well as trajectories flat enough to be accurate. Too, a wood round wouldn't need a good finish, flying better (as does a golf ball) with a coarse finish.

Honestly, I believe this would be a good topic for a new forum. And I would really like to know how well the round balls hold up in your .500 S&W as well as how much barrel fouling occurs. -Blonde

olafhardtB said:

Blonde, we got involved here I got to thinking about 1/2 hardwood dowels and my hacksaw. Some where I also have a 1/2 aluminum rod I bought for these purposes. One of my motivations in buying the Handirifle was an article I read in an old Gun Digest where some guy in Africa was lamenting that there were no true 500 caliber rifles so he could buy 1/2 copper rod and cut it up for bullets. When the 500S&W Handi came out I rushed to get one.

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Olaf, I think, in general, no matter the type of wood it will splinter. The rifling of the bore may act like an old fashion pencil sharpener and wring the outer skin from the wood. Too, I think not only the wringing action but the explosive acceleration will yield toothpicks and a fair sized remnant.
I know there are wood rounds that have been used for training in "modern arms." They generally are used on regular arms with a threaded barrel for use with an attachment to splinter the round. My reason for mentioning this is barrel blockage. If someone handed you a loaded rifle with a stick in the barrel, would you pull the trigger? Would a splintered dowel sufficiently block the barrel as to cause "negative" consequences?
I like the idea of the rods, copper, aluminum, etc. Alas, I wish I could afford to reload and had access to a lathe. My thoughts hearken to the bottle rocket and Nerf football (with the stick, without the vanes). In every other form of flight of which I can recall, the weight is forward such as raindrops, rockets, planes, etc. Or they are equally balanced such as round balls, footballs, etc and spun to gyroscopically stabilize them. Why not add an aluminum stick to the back end of a 30-06, etc to cause the weight to be shifted forward like a bottle rocket? It isn't like there isn't enough room in the case or length to bullet. Just my 2¢.

olafhardtB said:

My dad told me one could pull the shot out of a shot gun shell and shoot arrows at fish with a crack barrel single shot. I never tried it.

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Some .50 caliber muzzleloading sabots could make so many fun things possible. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh...