Hello from South Africa

Hi all from South Africa. Been shooting and hunting (mostly doves and pigeons) with a smoothbore Indian P53 Enfield for a number of years. I couldn't even begin to guess how many I've shot over the years. When the corn fields are freshly harvested or the sunflowers are ripe, the rock pigeons can fly like swarms of locusts.
I also have a Pedersoli Country hunter in 50 caliber.
Still got a lot to learn which is why I am here.

Welcome to the Forum Bighilt, Glad to have you here

Welcome, do you do any big game hunting? 

I worked with one of your countrymen for a few years, off a farm up near Kruger. Nice bloke.

Hi Bushfire
I do occasionally do some big game hunting but not as much as I used to. Game prices have sky rocketed over the past few years as have fuel prices. That has made big game hunting a little expensive for me. I went on two hunts for warthog this year but the animals refused to co operate and come within smoothbore range. So that did not work out.
I like to shoot a lot and rock pigeons offer that opportunity. In the Free State, for example, there are no bag limits whatsoever.
I am lucky in that I can go and hunt them any time I want on a farm only 10km away.
The area near Kruger is wonderful.

Bighilt wrote:Hi Bushfire
I do occasionally do some big game hunting but not as much as I used to. Game prices have sky rocketed over the past few years as have fuel prices. That has made big game hunting a little expensive for me. I went on two hunts for warthog this year but the animals refused to co operate and come within smoothbore range. So that did not work out.
I like to shoot a lot and rock pigeons offer that opportunity. In the Free State, for example, there are no bag limits whatsoever.
I am lucky in that I can go and hunt them any time I want on a farm only 10km away.
The area near Kruger is wonderful.

That's a bugger, is that because things are getting so popular with the American tourist hunters these days? 

I really wanted to hunt Africa and have wanted to my whole life - especially a foot hunt for an eland- but over the last couple of years it's faded off a bit. I feel like it's lost its value and I'm not into all the 5 star accommodation and servants etc. 

Please do share next time you get a pig or a few birds, always love seeing others success.  

What are you shooting through the County Hunter? I'm not familiar with that model.

There certainly are a lot of foreign hunters, especially Americans and Europeans and the game lodges have had to tart up their facilities to cater for them. This has definitely pushed up prices as landowners try to recover their investment. Unfortunately a lot of farmers see game farming as a way to get rich quickly and charge dollar and euro prices which for foreign hunters are reasonable or even cheap, but for locals, when you have to multiply the dollar price by 16 (R16 buys one US$) hunting has become an expensive proposition for ordinary South Africans.
I guess you can't really blame the landowners but for an ordinary guy like me, I definitely can't hunt big game (I use that term in the American sense rather than in the African sense) as frequently as I used to.
With regards the Country Hunter I use it mostly for messing about. I have shot both Lee REAL conicals and patched round balls in it both with just so-so results. Certainly nothing like the accuracy I see guys like Idaho Lewis getting in their videos.

I take it that there are no public lands in South Africa? Shame that, if everything is private land then hunting becomes a sport for the wealthy.

You are correct. There are no public lands and hunting has become a rich man's pastime sadly. Still lots of cheap or free pigeon shooting if you know where to look.

I just looked up the country hunter, with a 1:34 twist your better suited to bullets. Even sabots if you have those available? I have good results with Hornady XTP's and Monoflex sabots. I'd play in the 80-120 grains of 2F zone. No reason why you can't get it shooting well.

If you want to use PRB with a fast twist try backing your load down to 40 or 50 grains of 2F. 

What is your loading set-up for the smoothbore? I'm still working on tightening up the groups in my 20G fowler.

Thanks for the advice. Appreciate it. I shall look for some sabots.
The smoothbore likes a bare ball. 70gr powder, ball on top of it with no wad, then a wad on top of the ball made of a crumpled up piece of brown wrapping paper that is cut 2 inches by 1 inch and folded over to make a 1-inch doubled over square. (Hope that makes sense). When shooting off hand that load allows me to keep all my shots in a circle the size of a paper plate out to about 60m.
Before ramming down the over-ball wad I give the barrel a spritz of a 20:1 mixture of water soluble cutting oil. This allows me to shoot long strings without having to swab the barrel.
My shot load is the same charge, an over powder paper wad as above, 80gr per volume of shot and a similarly lubed paper over shot wad. It is effective out to about 30 meters. I miss as often as I hit, so perhaps I could fiddle around in an effort to make the patterns better but to be honest I'm too old, too cranky, too lazy and too set in my ways to be bothered.
After a lifetime of competitive shooting in IPSC, metallic silhouette and high power rifle, one of the reasons I took up muzzleloading was to get away from the reloading bench and the endless trips to the range to test loads.
Now I just want my shooting activities to be simple. I want to grab my possibles bag and wander around in the veld on my own with my dog.The only pressure being to have fun.
My apologies for this long-winded reply.

I haven't been able to find any balls or moulds to shoot round balls, but if I can get dinner plate groups at 60m that's all I need for deer hunting. 

I'll give your shot method a go too, I've been playing around without finding anything all that good. I want to do some fox shooting and then next year a bit of duck/quail with it. 

I hear you mate, that's one of the great things about black powder shooting!

Get the Dixie Gun Works print catalog, they have a very informative chapter on blackpowder and muzzleloading.

On the Country Hunter rifle, try the Lee REAL bullet, lubricated with liquid alox. Use a pre-lubed felt wad over the powder charge. You will have to get the Lee mold for the REAL bullet.

Hi George. I have the Lee REAL mold and have been casting and shooting REALs for a number of years. I manage to shoot 50m groups of around 2 to 3 inches with them. I guess the biggest problem is probably my 64 year-old eyes! Those iron sights have become mighty blurry over the years.

Welcome from NW SD.

rob