Good lord, an 8 bore? Stories pleas?
It's an 8 Bore percussion rifle of early English style built by our forum member Steve Zihn, the standard load is 300 grains of blackpowder under an 800 grain pure lead round ball, it also has a hard ball load, that ball is cast with much harder alloy, then rolled across a set of flat files to 'score' the ball so it wont slip the patch after you add another 100 grains of powder, that load is the one the African Bore Rifle hunters used on all manner of dangerous game in the days of old, iirc, the 8 Bore is one of the best penetrators of all the Bore rifles, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, and 2 bore.
I couldn't reach Mr. Zihn on the phone one day, so I called a man in Kansas that apprenticed under him, he said that hard ball load was a real stoner of a killer, I have shot it, and it's most unpleasant recoil wise.
If you take a 10lb rifle, with 400 grains of powder under an 800 grain projectile at or near 1500 fps, free recoil is approaching or slightly exceeding 200 ft lbs, not for the timid, I brought that rifle to a 24HR pig shoot in Tennessee one year, but purposefully loaded only 200 grains of black powder in all the speed loaders, I didn't want anyone to get hurt shooting that thing, loaded full bore, it's not for the uneducated or unfamiliar!
