I have a 50 cal. muzzleloader, smooth bore, and i am wondering if there is a way i could put shot in it for a shot gun?

[drew1998]

I have a 50 cal. muzzleloader, smooth bore, and i am wondering if there is a way i could put shot in it for a shot gun?

[JM]

I know you can, but I am not sure of how.

[4everAutumn]

You will need three kinds of .50 cal wads, but it can be done. You can get them from most dealers like Midway USA, etc. You will need a hard over powder wad, then a thick fiber wad to put over the card wad to absorb the shock of the powder ignition. Then the shot and a thin over shot wad to keep the shot from falling out of your barrel. I would suggest lubing the edges of the thicker wads. I’m guessing you would get performance similar to a .410.

[huntfishtrap]

4ever is right on the money, good advice. The only thing I would disagree with is that I think it would be closer to a 20 gauge, performance-wise - depending on how "hot" you load it of course.

[Mdhunter1]

IMHO, after hearing everything i think it might be less time consuming and perhaps cheaper/easier in the long run to save up for an 870 or something.
-Jack

[JM]

I talked to my neighbor(He is around 85) and he said when he was younger they would load bird shot(among other things) into muzzle loaders. He said he would use the normal amount of powder, place a wad made from newspaper over it, then use an equal measurement of bird shot and put another wad of newspaper on top. I can't remember the name he and his friends nicknamed the load, but he said bird shot is pretty much worthless beyond 10 yards out of a muzzle loader.

[JM]

P.S - If your username has anything to do with your age then I would not attempt this on your own(And I mean that - people lose fingers/hands every year from loading their muzzleloader incorrectly).

[4everAutumn]

The old timers did use newspaper for wadding and it worked alright except for the fact that paper could ignite, smolder and cause fires. The pressed card wads don’t burn like newspaper does, so they are a much better alternative. It is also hard to compress newspaper consistently, so the patterns would vary from shot to shot. If the muzzleloader is rifled, the pattern will look like a donut with a big hole in the middle out past several yards. A smoothbore will perform just like a shotgun though, assuming it is loaded properly. You just need to work up a load to find the best combination of powder, wad and shot. But as JM said, this can be a dangerous undertaking, so don’t try to go it alone.

[Kevin Hilton]

4ever is correct again. Your performance would be close to a .410. Actually it would be in between a 32 gauge and a .410.

[Ethan Dobbins]

I do it all the time. I use about 26-30 grains of pyrodex powder for playing around. 50 grains if I'm trying to pop a squirrel or bird. I load powder, a rolled up ball of paper, then the shot, about 200 grains worth of shot because I figure a real shotgun load of 1oz would blow up the gun, and over the shot I put another wad of paper. Makes a large pattern but will kill a bird.