doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Card & fiber wads vs 1-piece plastic

Twicebarrel wrote,, "Eugene thanks for the offer of the study but this little project is a non scientific test to see how much pattern improvement I can expect to achieve at normal hunting ranges by using a commercially available disc and post spreader device (Polywad Spred-R) commonly available here in the Colonies in my tightly choked 1880s vintage Lefever and 1920s vintage A H Fox. After shooting hundreds of roll crimped shells I have the feeling that there will be no improvement in pattern using folded crimp but since I'm going to the trouble of shooting a number of loads with a number of guns throwing in a couple folded crimped shells to validate my perception seems like a good idea."

I'm attempting to open up the patterns on a tight Parker except with brass hulls and 3/4, 1, and 1 1/8 oz. loads. I'll let you know what works for me.

Made maybe too many "cruciform inserts" with a small plastic photo trimmer and shellboxes. I didn't know glue was required. As for the "learning more, knowing less" syndrome, TERC is not the sole sufferer of this malady! It taxes credulity to note that Molloy has a patterning study with results which illustrate that shot scrub doesn't matter, that mylar sleeves and shotcups don't matter, that's it's all same same. What shot counting protocol did your study employ, Eug? 20 and 30" circles or other?

jack

The results of the cited study do not sound "logic" (to me at least).

JC

This is the way UMC did it back in the day (1905) --



Here is how Western Cartridge Co. did it in 1937 --



By 1951 the Xpert Brush Load had gotten the folded crimp --

There are many different sizes and shapes of forcing cones. We hear about the benefits of certain forcing cones for trap use, target use, lower recoil, higher velocity, etc. In fact, nearly every manufacturer's forcing cone design is a bit different than the others. Granting that various forcing cone shapes offer whatever advantages are claimed, the issue of wads becomes primarily one of providing a good gas seal in the forcing cone and barrel, and secondly one of buffering the shock of the load going from zero fps to 1200 fps in a fraction of a second.

In "the olden days" fiber wads made of tough natural fibers, usually wool felt, often didn't expand enough under pressure to provide a good gas seal through the varying diameter of a forcing cone. A hard card was used to separate the powder from the wad but it was not uncommon for shooters to find some of their pellets were fused together by hot gasses leaking into the shot column. Clumps of two, three, or more pellets just don't pattern or fly very well. To mitigate the problem, forcing cone designs tended to be short by today's standards and the concept of "over bore" was not popular. Loading with multiple wads also helped. For, example, in the 1930's Stoeger listed "white felt", "black edge", "pink edge", "nitro felt", "grease proof", and "seal-tite composition" wads and recommended them to be used in various combinations. They were also offered in "one-half gauges, cut to order".

Then plastic wads came along. They were advertised by their manufacturers as the panacea for all problems with shot, pressure, and patterning. In general, plastic wads have a flared base that expands under pressure and helps prevent the flow of hot gasses into the shot column. The flared base maintains a decent seal regardless of the shape and length of the forcing cone. Built in "buffers" are incorporated into the design to reduce deformation caused when pellets smash against pellets when the load is fired. Today, there are dozens of different configurations of plastic wads, all touted as better than the competition's. Some of the designs are so bizarre that they must surely have been developed with the sole purpose of having something new and different to introduce into the marketplace.

Good quality fiber wads of today are not the same as the simple felt wads of the past. They are thicker and are made with a mixture of man-made and natural materials. I just cut a top quality 12 gauge cartridge open and here is what I found. Over the powder was a very hard card more than 1/8" thick that is fully impregnated with a waxy substance. On top of that was a fiber wad nearly 3/4" thick. The fiber wad has a black film of some plastic-like material bonded on each end. The wad itself consists of numerous layers of "fiber" compressed together. I have noticed when firing these that, unlike felt wads, they disintegrate when they leave the barrel. I don't know if it is the plastic film, the composition of the fiber, the diameter, the long length, or all of it together but whatever it is, it works. I have fired modern fiber loads in 12, 20, and 28 gauge in new and old pump guns, several autos, several doubles, and two single barrel trap guns. I also chronographed and patterned a dozen 12 gauge shotgun cartridges, some with fiber wads and some with plastic wads. I fired several of each of the tested loads out of an auto, a modern O/U, and a 100 year old SxS. I did not find any significant downrange difference between good quality modern loads with fiber wads and good quality modern loads with plastic wads.

The more you choke a gun the more uneven the pattern becomes. You can't smash hundreds of shot pellets through a constriction at the speed of sound without deforming the shot to some degree. That is one reason harder shot shoots better patterns, i.e. being harder it resists deformation.

There is an excellent article written over 100 years ago by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, a noted shooting authority in his day who is credited with many thousands of birds shot. He explains the advantages of cylinder bore guns and choked guns. His words are still true today. The article is called The Merits of Chokes and Cylinders, as Applied to Their Effect On Game and Suitability to the Shooter. If you want to read the entire article, three parts, you can find it here:

The Merit of Chokes and Cylinders

Here is a small excerpt:

"There is no doubt a choked gun shoots with more force than a cylinder, though only slightly; but I have never found this superiority exist to such an extent as to cause any noticeable effect on game at sporting-ranges, though at the target the full-choke will penetrate at 40 yards a couple more sheets of paper than the cylinder.

What a choke does is this: it carries its charge of shot closer, and so, of course, puts more pellets into the game than can a cylinder; and this attribute at a long distance naturally tells in favour of the choke, provided the aim is sufficiently correct to place its smaller shot-circle on the mark. Up to 35 or 40 yards (the latter being a long shot), a cylinder or a slightlychoked gun is far easier to hit with, and therefore a more deadly gun to use, than a full-choke, and either of the former will place amply sufficient pellets in the game to stop it well and neatly without wounding, even at a longer distance. At 35 yards a full-choke will place in the game half as many more pellets than are required to kill, which not only spoils its flesh for the table, but prevents the bird being kept till fit for cooking, from its perforated condition.*

* I have seen driven partridges�birds which a shooter is often obliged to fire at within 18 to 20 yards or not at all� so shattered by the mass of shot plastered into them by a full-choke that nine to the dozen were best suited for ferret-meat! Last season, for the sake of experiment, I killed six driven partridges with a full-choke at the ordinary range at which these birds come over a high hedge in a level country, and on reaching home I counted the holes drilled through their skins, which were respectively, 37, 33, 32, 29, 21, 19. The next day I killed six more birds with a cylinder at the same stand, and at the same average distances; result in pellets to birds�17, 15, 12, 12, 9, 7. The latter six birds were brought down as clean as could be wished, and dropped without a flutter. These were, however, all fit to eat, the previous six being only fit to drink in the form of soup."

I remember those old loads vividly. They shot well if "hard" shot was used...not so well with the "chilled" shot that was about all we had available, at that time. I also remember that these loads were not especially gentle "on the back end".

I also remember what happened when shooters went to plastic OP wads. (The first were Remington H-Wads, I believe.) A lot of guys either did not or would not reduce their powder charges, which often led to fair amount of unnecessary wear and tear on both shooters and guns. (I remember one little guy [Why does it always seem to be the short ones?] who proclaimed to one and all, "I'll be damned if I'm going to spend FIVE DOLLARS for a new charge bar". So, he ended up with a raging flinch and a cracked receiver in his brand-new Winchester Model 1200 trap gun.)

For those who retain any interest/curiosity in spreader load effectiveness in tight choked barrels I finally got around to counting pellet strikes on my pattern paper shot last weekend a chore I avoid like the plague but in this instance not too bad.

Remember this is by no means a scientific study but a simple comparison using a small sample size to satisfy my curiosity about the effects of Spred-R device on pattern at normal hunting range.

The gun is a late 1880's Lefever 16 gauge, 30 inch barrels choked .040 which is .010 tighter than the modern full choke. Patterns were fired at 30 yards.

Ammunition tested were:

Load #1 7/8th ounces hard #8 loaded in Cheddite paper hulls trimmed to 2 9/16 inches using 17.9 grains of Unique with a 1/8 inch over powder wad, 1/2 inch Federal Waxed ring fiber wad topped with another 1/8th inch nitro card. 3/4 ounce of shot was loaded into the shell followed by a SpredR disc and topped with another 1/8th ounce of shot. The shell was closed with a .030 overshot card and roll crimped with a 3/16th deep crimp. Estimated MV 1180 fps chamber pressure at or less than 8,000psi. Pattern results were about as expected shot #1 64% density but there were four voids that would result in a missed clay target or quail. #2 produced a 70% pattern density with 2 voids that would result in a missed target or quail size bird.

Loan #2 (control load) 7/8th ounce hard #8 shot loaded in a plastic Cheddite hull trimmed to 2 9/16th inches using 17.9 grains of Unique under a Gualandi 1621 wad roll crimped with a .030 overshot cared with a 3/16th deep crimp. This load also performed as expected shooting 99% patterns at 30 yards. Pattern was about perfect with even shot distribution and a good solid 19 inch inner core.

Load #3 was an add on to confirm or dispel the notion that folded crimps are superior to roll crimps. Since I didn't have any empty Cheddite hulls I had to result to a load consisting of 7/8th ounce of hard shot loaded in a Remington SP hull using 16 grains of Unique under a Remington R16 wad. This is one of my favorite clay target and quail loads in my Fox Sterlingworth Brush model and has broken many targets and taken may birds but I was a bit surprised to see what the load looks like on paper. Pattern density was as expected at 99% but the distribution of shot was not nearly so even as the roll crimped loadss, the center core was a very tight 15 inches and distribution of the shot was in the shape of a football.

As I stated earlier this is by no means a scientific analyse and I am sure your results will differ, after all you probably won't be shooting your patterns with a 120 year old 16 gauge gun with .040 chokes but it does show the effectiveness of the Spred-R at modrate hunting distance using tightly choked guns.

Jack, read it for yourself. Here is a link to the study in PDF format.

BASC

The fibre v monowad tests are about half way down.

It's interesting to see that grenadier and Mike Bonner the only two folks who made experimental comparisons found nothing to controvert the general conclusion "Clearly these findings relate to the one cartridge tested i.e from one manufacturer, one cartridge type and one pellet size only. We cannot assume necessarily that they apply to other cartridges of other makes, sizes and types (including wad design)- but they do raise a question over the traditional views of plastic wads".


Eug

I've read it, Eugene. Makes sense in the limited context of one load.

jack