Big shotgun

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
A bit off of the general topic of casting bullets, but it is a gun, and pretty cool. I just ran
across this on the web.

Had never heard of the M1028 cannister round for the M1A1 Abrahms tank main gun, 120mm
smoothbore. So - smoothbore......cool. SHOTGUN, and not calling dibs on the front seat.

https://www.gd-ots.com/download/120mm M1028 Canister.pdf


Effective 200-500 meters, lethal to over 700 meters. 1,150 tungsten balls, larger than 000 buckshot, about 25 lbs of shot.
When you absolutely need to take out an infantry company or two with a single shot. :eek:

Bill
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
that kind of kills the string out theory when you look at that cloud of shot..
and yep I'm a cloud of shot guy..
a good load will place a cloud like that at a particular distance and maintain it for at least 10 yards.
you manipulate that perfect cloud with choke constriction and wad choices and to a lesser extent your powder burn rate.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
I am no kind of shotgun expert, but isn't the stringing out of lead shot going
to be due to deformation so some pellets slow down more than others? I don't
imagine that tungsten shot will deform much, should be pretty regular. It seems
like a cloud to me, a darned big one, too. I was amazed at them tracking the shot
so well. Started to fall behind, but corrected and caught up to the cloud.

One hell of a shotgun.

Bill
 

Tony

Active Member
Since the pellets are tungsten I wonder if USF&WS will be approving it for waterfowl. If they do I'll need to find a more economical launch platform than an Abrams tank.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
tungsten is already approved it's been approved for over 20 years now.
It is a bit cost prohibitive so it's usually mixed with iron nickel and tin or with a polymer.

lead shot deforms some but the deformed ones don't so much string out as they generally start veering off to the side. [the way to sort shot is by rolling it down an incline the round stuff will go right down the table and the bad ones will roll off the side]
this affects core density, the ones that fly out by themselves will slow down faster from wind resistance.
this is why we use harder [magnum] shot in some instances and softer [chilled] shot in others.[especially in fixed choke guns]
your 'tricking' the pattern into staying tight or opening up.

one of my tricks for trap shooting is to mix shot in the loads I use from different distances.
a couple of my guns have fixed chokes and they are choked pretty tight.
the first shot on doubles is taken at about 5-6 yards in front of the house,[20 yds away] my pattern diameter would normally be about twice the size of the target at that distance.
really neat for making black ink balls but not much room for error when I still have to find and shoot another target going the other direction at 44 mph.
so I use a mix of soft shot sizes, and mix in shot that is already deformed, to jostle everything around and open the pattern even faster.
when I move back to 27 yards away from the house, my shots on target are closer to 50-55 yards away so I step up to a harder alloy and a larger shot diameter.
I also change my powder speed but not my muzzle velocity..
 
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KHornet

Well-Known Member
Will be surprised if some of the tree hugging, save the whalers, will
not try to get that load stopped as being inhumane. Once they know
about it. Try not to tell them!

Paul
 

Ian

Notorious member
Paul, you forgot "granola-munching" in your list of descriptive adjectives ;) No offense to said group intended, of course ;);)
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
Yeah, Paul, can't hurt anyone during a war.:confused: Fiver....that is some impressive load fiddling,
not being much of a shotgunner, I wouldn't have even thought of that sort of sophistication.

I remember reading about the flechette rounds for the howitzers in Vietnam, and I have a few of
the flechettes, sold as curios at gun shows. Basically a nail with fins instead of a head. Wicked.

Bill
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
I remember seeing those flechettes at the shows all the time too, never did buy any because I knew they would just hang around in a bag somewhere.
I might have probably tied some deer hair on them and made blow gun ammo from some of them for the dart board but that would have been about it.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
yeah Bill.
the shotgun is an impressive piece of equipment if you get into the nuances and various details.
it is limited in range but is the one gun you could truly take and travel the world and kill anything walking or flying on it.
the standard 12 ga pretty easily handles everything from 500 gr slugs at 1300 fps on down to 1/2oz of #12 shot at 900 fps.
same hull and primer, you just change the wad, powder, and payload.
a set of chokes and maybe a rifled barrel would open things up to even more possibility's.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
I would need someone like you to teach me how to shoot a shotgun properly. I was
killing quail and rabbits as a kid and have shot a few pheasant, but I am a pistol shooter
first, and good rifleman and a fair to partly cloudy shotgunner. Just never did it enough
to get good at it. Most I ever did was a rich friend had some of us out to his family
compound (really) and they had a couple of skeet fields. Unlimited free skeet, just bring
your own shotgun and shells. Wow, now that was fun and I learned a good bit by trial
and error, but still - not enough time in this life to learn it all without someone showing you
how.

Bill
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
I wish I could get with people and show them simple little things to make them better shotgun shooters.
it really isn't that hard.
it's like everything else, it just comes down to executing the basics.