doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com "Old-style Wad Reviews?

One of the (few) nice things about getting older is that, if one waits long enough, stuff comes back into style. (Of course, one's own stash of said stuff is long gone, by the time this happens!)

One such "retro-revival" has to do with a renewed interest in old-style "built up" shotgun wad columns. I would venture to say that there has not been such interest expressed in these kinds of wads in at least two generations.

There have been some problems in this revival, of course. One of these problems has to do with getting useful information about the merits of the various kinds of old-fashioned wads.

From what I can tell, there never seemed to be all that much of what would now be considered compelling ballistic evidence about the relative merits of such wads. While there must have been such data available to ammunition companies most of the information that we "Joe Blow" shooters and reloaders got was some pretty anecdotal and "pre-industrial" stuff. The same is pretty much true, today, "Ballistic Products'" useful information, notwithstanding.

What I would like to find out includes:

What are the true limitations of card OP wads?

What are the true relative merits of cork, fiber, and the various types of felt filler wads?

What methods of filler wad modifications (if any) might contribute to more effective performance?

What filler wad lubricants are best for which applications?

Just how much (if at all) do thin OS wads actually degrade patterns and under what kinds of conditions?

Can "cupped" cardboard OP wads (e.g. such as was used in the old Winchester Super-X shells)be made to perform as well as their plastic equivalents?

Can paper, cloth, or cardboard shot bandages, shotcups, and/or "shot concentrators" be made to work effectively?

What, if any, "home brewed" wad technologies, (e.g. oiled sawdust or cormmeal (?!)or even crumpled-up newspaper filler wads)might have some merit, if only as emergency expedients?

A good post Sir, I hope you get some feedback.
I like genuine felt wads but they are like hens teeth to find.
I have used fibre board wads made from builders fibreboard, I dip my wads in vegetable oil/ beeswax liquid (hot) and then allow the wads to cool and drain in a wire guaze pot liner.

The Greeners, Burrard, and Thomas wrote extensively about wads. I will see if I can find some of them.

My shooting student and double gun mentor Joe Wood found a book by WW Greener's father on Google books that had some information on wadding. I don't know how relevant it would be when reloading with dense nitro powder.

Best,

Mike

Salopian,

Thank you for your kind words. I look forward to more input on these old/new wads.

FWIW, I believe that Circle Fly stocks felt wads. They are not cheap but I understand that they are quite good. CF also stocks a proprietary wad lubrucant.

Your method of wad lubrication is a common one but it raises one concern. There have been instances where fiber wads that have been dipped into hot lube shrank to some extent.

Wads so lubricated also soak up a heck of a lot of lube. As I understand what Greener wrote, I believe that the old-timers lubed their wads by rolling them in shallow layers of melted lube that was contained in a "frying pan-type arrangement". Failing that, I have found that a quick dip in melted lube that is immediately followed by placing the lubed wads on sheets of newspaper works as well as anything else, as long as the melted lube is just above its melting point, and no more.

Your technique reminds me of the early days of the Ljutic trap shotgun. Al Ljutic was a genius and an unreconstructed character, in no particular order. In the early days of his company he offered proprietary lubed fiber wads. The wads were cut from fiber board that had already been lubricated. AL then offered the "holey" fiberboard remnants as charcoal lighters!

One thing that I am especially interested in is "nonstandard" wad materials. For example, an old Gun Digest article mentioned wadded-up newspaper as filler wads for both m/l and b/l shotguns. The stuff seemed to work pretty well. Greener mentioned that one of the cartridge companies of his day used oiled sawdust for the same purpose. During my Wisconsin boyhood I was made aware of an old gent who used cornmeal as filler wad material. He even had a little machine rigged up to drop measured amounts of the stuff into his shotgun shells. (This indicates the possible dangers of leaving a German or a Skandahoovian alone with tools during long winter days and nights!)From what I can tell, the guy's loads worked out, OK. I understand that he claimed that the birds he missed he at least fed. I also understand that, when these shells were fired into a strong headwind, the shooter and bystanders could come away looking like they were in the last stages of terminal dandruff!

I think that Francis Sell may have had the last recent/modern book on using fiber wads. It was a 'transitional' bit of work with one foot in the plastiq, in a manner o' speaking. He did a lot of pattern work with the 3" 20's and assorted fiber, felt & paper wadding combinations seeking improved performance for waterfowl using lead shot.

The 'issues' if you want to call it that, with older load data is a total lack of any pressure data and possibly questionable velocity estimates. OTOH, hundreds of thousands of paper cases were reloaded using the recipes provided by makers of loaders & component suppliers like Alcan. MEC had fixed charge bars & they provided generic load data sheets that were often less than specific for use with their dif. bars. 'Paper' or 'plastic' was about as differential as it got for wads being used. Primer? Yes.

I know that the BP muzzle loaders valued hornet's nest as a good wadding, but have never seen reference to its being used in a shotgun. It always struck me as an interesting material for someone to do an article on.

The use of 'fillers' such as corn meal & flour was shown to create excessive pressure levels in some articles that were published later as pressure testing became more prevalent, so I would excercise caution before just replicating some older filler type reloads. Same issues were found using Kapoc in some reduced centre fire loads, excessive pressures. Probably much safer to go with data from folks like Ballistic Products that have recent data on their filler(s) and stick with their exact selection of components.

OTOH, I still load Ljutic Mono Wads, Alcan Blue Streaks and assorted card & fiber wads in Federal paper cases for the 12 and Remington Huntsman papers for the 16, though my remaining supply of those hulls is nearly extinguished.

You bring up a good subject that could bear more discussion & revival. Thanks!

I have been loading cards and fiber wads for the last 5 years in all brass Rocky Mountain Cartridge (RMC) hulls. The recipes were obtained from Tom Armbruster 815 385-0037 at Ballistic Research Inc. My wads and cards are from www.circlefly.com plus a few old Alcan filler wads. I have been reloading plastic 1-piece wads since they were available and still do so for target loads. I have patterned and chronographed the card and fiber wads that are now my mainstay for all upland bird hunting and I could not be happier with the patterns and velocities.

Well, you can always go back to the Eley Patent wire cartridge of 1828:



The shot was contained in a copper wire mesh basket filled with shot just small enough to get through the holes and buffered with bone meal and the whole wrapped in a thin piece of paper. Lagopus.....

I suppose we could. Of course, from what I have read the performance of these wire cartridges could be "iffy". But, then, who knows?

What one learns in looking through some of the old shotgun literature is just how little is actually "new". Just in W.W. Greener's book, for example: Ported barrels? They're in there. Straight-rifled shotgun barrels? Yep! Monte Carlo stocks? Yeah, sorta, if one wishes to count Greener's "Rational Stock". One-piece wads? You bet!

Greener's one-piece paper "Swedish wads" bear a remarkable resemblance to today's one-piece plastic wads. About the only major differences seem to be in materials and in the fact that today's plastic wads are "vented". The "Swedish wads seem to have performed well, too. If one wades through Greener's data it shows full choke pattern per centages that range from the high 70%s to the low 80%s when smokeless powder was used. Per centages seemed to be just slightly lower when black powder was used. This is "pretty tall stuff" if one factors in the crude smokeless powders and relatively soft shot that were in use, at the time.

I can get you an address for sheet felt in 1/8" or 1/4. I believe the seller imports from India. I have several sheets of 1/8" for over-powder wads in percussion revolver. You would need an arch punch of a diameter which produces a wad fitting your bore. It's easy to open up the cheap punches from Harbour Freight to get your size. I lube with a mixture of Neatsfoot oil and beeswax heated in a coffee can double boiler, dip em one at a time with tweezers and place on wax paper. I've thought about cushion wads for shotgun shells with the same material by the same process but haven't got a round tuit.

jack

In response to the question of "homemade" components, I have loaded build-up wad columns (using published data that called for a shot wrapper) using polyethylene coated paper drink cups cut to proper dimensions. This material survives the ride down the bore intact, even with BB sized shot. Doubled up it may even work with steel shot, one day I intend to submit loads for ballistics testing using it, the ultimate eco-handload.