LeMat fun == scraped knuckle

[Scarecrow Repair]

I tried my LeMat's 20-gauge today. Set up a strip of cardboard ten feet away, used one ounce of some small stuff (bag is marked #6), 60 grains of2f, and kaBOOM! Kicks like a king kong mule. It came back so far that the hammer scraped skin off the knuckle at the base of my thumb. At ten feet, the shot spread so much that it was off the edges of the paper. I tried again closer (later measured at 5'6" from muzzle to cardboard) and got about a one foot pattern. I also tried some #3 .250" buckshot, and here is the result. The big holes are the wads, two per shot.

I also tried 20 grains of 3f, standard pistol load. The wads didn't all make it thru the cardboard and the spread seems a tad less, maybe 10 inches instead of 12, but it still kicks like a Tennessee mule on founder's day.

[ATTACH]4081[/ATTACH]

Now a halfway serious related question. This thing is obviously not going to do for skeet shooting, drat. In battle, what distances would this be effective at?

[tteng]

Jeb Stuart carried one of this, correct? If yes, I'd say point-blank to 20yrds while fighting mounted against Yankee calvery. Being a general, he probably didn't use it much (I'm just guessing). When he did, it was probably out of desperation which cost him his life at Yellow Tavern. A trooper would probably carry 2/3/4 cap&balls for the quick close-in/disengage of calvery fight- maximum firepower in shortest amount of time.
I have a repro colt-51 Navy, and it took me ~8 min to powder/ball/seal/cap all 6 cylinders. No way they can live and fight w/ a single pistol.

[chiefcrash]

i thought a LeMat revolver's shotgun barrel was 16 gauge, not 20 ga

as for range to use the shotgun barrel, i'd say point blank

[Scarecrow Repair]

I have a repro colt-51 Navy, and it took me ~8 min to powder/ball/seal/cap all 6 cylinders. No way they can live and fight w/ a single pistol.

I load my six shot 1858 Remington replica now in about two minutes on the first load, subsequent ones slower when I clean between loads. I powder and ram each, then seal all and cap all. I have a desktop loader which is faster for the first load, especially doing spare cylinders, but it doesn't help much for subsequent loads because the thing gets so dirty that cylinder removal gets harder and harder, not to mention hands getting incredibly filthy.

[Scarecrow Repair]

i thought a LeMat revolver's shotgun barrel was 16 gauge, not 20 ga

as for range to use the shotgun barrel, i'd say point blank

Wikipedia says they came in a zillion different sizes which had a lot to do with not being more popular. This is Cabela's cavalry 1864 edition, 9 x .44 + 20 gauge.