Skychief load experiment

[bigpete]

Tomorrow's experiment. To see if the " Skychief " load works...
The Skychief load is something a fellow muzzleloader enthusiast from America seems to have stumbled upon which improves long range patterns in open choked muzzleloader shotguns.
Normal method of loading goes ; powder,thick wad or cushion wad,shot,then thin card to hold it together. The idea of that order is that you need the thick wad to form a seal between the powder and the shot as well as provide a solid base to push the shot out with,then a thin card to hold the powder in that won't interfere with the shot leaving the barrel.
The Skychief load goes powder,thinnish over powder wad,shot,thin card,then an oil soaked half inch fibre wad. So almost the exact opposite of what is traditionally accepted as a standard load. Yet many people vouch for its effectiveness, comparing it somewhat to having a full choke or turkey choke on their gun.
Soooooooo.....of course,I've got to give it a try lol.
My standard load is 72gn/2.25 drams of wano 2f and 580gn/1.35oz of size 4 shot. Tomorrow I'll drop the shot weight to 530gn ( just spent the last half hour working out the settings on my shot bag ) to counter the fact I'll be adding a fairly heavy,oil soaked wad to the head of the shot column.

Will it work ? Who bloody knows lol. But heres hoping......

[Stix]

So whats the theory behind it working...?

Must be something to do with the oil...but what does it do to keep the shot from spreading as far...?

[bigpete]

The general theory is that the oil soaked fibre wad has enough speed and energy to stay in front of the shot and possibly forms some sort of slipstream which keeps the shot together longer

[Stix]

Ok...
I was thinking about it since seeing yr post & wondered if the oil caused the wad to be wet & heavy enough to not fly away & to hang back so the shot pushing into the back of it caused the shot to stay bunched together for longer....

Anyway..i got no idea. but interested to see patterns.

Wish i had time for the sooty stuff...

Farmer i know made his own powder...i assume it would be closer to black powder as it burned real slow (compared to modern rifle or shotgun etc stuff).
Heres a pic i screen shot from the video...

Home made powder.

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[bigpete]

Blackpowder burns far faster than smokeless.

[Stix]

Ah ok...
Well there you go...

Anyway this was pretty slow to my mind & left residue but would still build a good deal of pressure i imagine.

[Oldbloke]

That's risky, making your own black powder.

[bigpete]

Not really

[bigrich]

Hey Pete, I was just wondering if the oil soaked wad would have some influence on pressures ?

[bigpete]

Ok,so I tested the Skychief loads....personally,in my gun,they made everything worse. So I won't bother with them again.
Interestingly, my standard rough loads using leather disks worked the best....
Anyways,the pictures tell the tale. All shots at 30m aiming at the dot. White paper is A4 size,and was replaced after the shots,so is the only real comparison.

[bigpete]

Ok,so for some reason the stupid forum won't load my photos for some reason

[Oldbloke]

Usually because they are way too big. Need to reduce the size. Just text them to your self. Then upload the resulting image. It will be about 10% of the original size

[bigpete]

Usually I just use a screenshot.

[bigpete]

Dammit, that was the problem lol

[bigpete]

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