.690 Round Balls Load for 12 Gauge using HS-6

Since I am new here I thought I would jump in and share some .690 Round Ball load data that I dug up, loaded, and tested at the range yesterday. There is not a lot of data in the books or on the web for shooting .690 pumpkin balls but they are inexpensive and a lot of fun to shoot.

The other day, I found my notes on loading .690 Round Balls as slugs for 12 gauge. Since they were notes I made a couple years ago I thought I would test fire a few rounds to verify the information because there is not a lot of load data for round balls and even less using HS-6 powder. This is what worked for me YMMV. The data was gathered from manuals and web searches and the charge range below is where the data from different sources matched.

Going from the my notes 30-33 grains was the load range so, I loaded 10 rounds at 31 measured by hand and 10 at 32.4 (Lee Load all 141 bushing as dropped). All rounds were fired from an 18" smooth bore Mosberg 400G pump shotgun.

My loads were
Win AA and Universal Hulls
Win 209 Primers
Western trap wads with 2 under shot cards No petals cut off
31 and 32.4 grains of hs-6
Lee cast .690 pure lead ball aprox 1 1/8 oz
Regular fold crimp

The rounds fired and cycled well in my gun with no feeding or ejecting issues. The one thing that I didn't have in my notes is that there is a fair bit of recoil compared to the 1oz cast slug that I normally load at 32.4gr of HS-6. The Rounds were high at 25 yards but once on target destroyed tide soap jugs filled with snow in a shot or two.

I shot lightly alox lubed and dried as well as unlubed balls with no difference that I could see or feel and there was no leading in my barrel after 25 rounds. My shoulder felt the difference from the Lee slugs that I normally shoot though

Sorry, no camera to post pics. Hopefully this helps others looking for .690 RB load data as an alternative to shooting 7/8 or 1oz slugs.

Cactus