I would question the same thing, unless the person isnt getting a good gas seal over the powder. The one thing I wonder, do you need the cushioning stem on a plastic wad for use with a muzzleloader? I'm thinking the shot cup is sufficient.
-
Friends, our 2nd Amendment rights are always under attack and the NRA has been a constant for decades in helping fight that fight.
We have partnered with the NRA to offer you a discount on membership and Muzzleloading Forum gets a small percentage too of each membership, so you are supporting both the NRA and us.
Use this link to sign up please; https://membership.nra.org/recruiters/join/XR045103
20 Gauge Plastic Wads?
- Thread starter PathfinderNC
- Start date
Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:
that is what I wanted to hear. and I suspected would happen!!They work as long as you like spending an hour scrubbing black powder residue mixed with melted plastic out of your bore. Trust me, I learned the hard way
Blind Dog
36 Cl.
Curious, those who report melting in the bore, how did you load them? I’ve used plastic wads for tighter Turkey loads with no issues. I cut the cushion wad off leaving just the **** cup. I load this over an over powder wad followed by a fiber wad, heavily lubed, then the plastic cup.
I suspect the heavily lubed fiber was underneath helped, I just used the plain plastic was, mostly out of a breach loading BP shotgun.
Yes, they do, but it isn't severe, generally occurs in the forcing cone area and chokes, and really isn't all that difficult to remove with common cleaning solvents. It would be a bear with water.
Wildrangeringreen
40 Cal
smokeless burns between 3000 and 3400 degrees Fahrenheit (double base powders with a high proportion of Nitroglycerine are on the high end of that range... the reason why the cupro-nickel jacketed bullets propelled by Cordite MK1 burned the hell out of the Metford Barrels (while the BP .303 and the same bullets did not)) ... BP does not really exceed that lol, otherwise, the iron barrels they were using in original ML guns wouldn't hold up... and yet they did. It has a higher auto-ignition temperature than SOME formulations of smokeless, but that doesn't mean it actually burns hotter (that confuses some people, for some reason). Those plastic wads, when used with BP, are not going to be subjected to any more strain than if you used a very fast smokeless powder like Red Dot... which those shotcups were intended to work with.
With that out of the way, the challenge is going to be getting shotwads that fit your bore properly. Breech loading guns have the advantage of being able to use wads that are very close, possibly even slightly over bore size (due to the forcing cone in a barrel gently sqeezing the shot column down to bore diameter). Combined with the expanding cup base on modern wadding, it seals the bore on a breechloader quite well, even in blackpowder loads (yes, people load BP in shot shells still, many take advantage of modern wadding). In a ML gun, you need to get them down the barrel without getting them stuck, or having to put so much force on them that you compress the cushion portion of modern wadding (it needs to be able to collapse upon firing in order to cushion the shot inside it). If it's too loose, it won't seal properly, and it will be like shooting a .50 sabot in a .52 rifle... doesn't work out too well; and the amount of plastic fouling you'll get is going to keep you busy cleaning. For your 20 bore, you may need a wad meant for 24 or 22 bores to fit right, or you may be able to get 20 bore wads to work (depends on how over or underbore your barrel is). You may have to go with a wad for a 24 bore and paper patch it up to a snug fit in the barrel.
I know people use them, and most people that spend enough time to develop a good loading with them see good results. Don't forget, you'll still need a felt or card on top. If you do need to remove plastic fouling, it isn't that hard, it's not all that hard of a material, and a brush gets rid of it.
I like to play with mixing new stuff in with old stuff from time to time; and most of the time, I don't find the modern stuff to be all THAT much better than what was originally used in these guns. Combine that with the potential added cost and trouble to make it work, I often feel it's not worth reinventing the wheel. Depends on what you're doing and using, I suppose.
I eventually settled on cotton balls for my wadding in shot loads, it's cheap, easy and works.
With that out of the way, the challenge is going to be getting shotwads that fit your bore properly. Breech loading guns have the advantage of being able to use wads that are very close, possibly even slightly over bore size (due to the forcing cone in a barrel gently sqeezing the shot column down to bore diameter). Combined with the expanding cup base on modern wadding, it seals the bore on a breechloader quite well, even in blackpowder loads (yes, people load BP in shot shells still, many take advantage of modern wadding). In a ML gun, you need to get them down the barrel without getting them stuck, or having to put so much force on them that you compress the cushion portion of modern wadding (it needs to be able to collapse upon firing in order to cushion the shot inside it). If it's too loose, it won't seal properly, and it will be like shooting a .50 sabot in a .52 rifle... doesn't work out too well; and the amount of plastic fouling you'll get is going to keep you busy cleaning. For your 20 bore, you may need a wad meant for 24 or 22 bores to fit right, or you may be able to get 20 bore wads to work (depends on how over or underbore your barrel is). You may have to go with a wad for a 24 bore and paper patch it up to a snug fit in the barrel.
I know people use them, and most people that spend enough time to develop a good loading with them see good results. Don't forget, you'll still need a felt or card on top. If you do need to remove plastic fouling, it isn't that hard, it's not all that hard of a material, and a brush gets rid of it.
I like to play with mixing new stuff in with old stuff from time to time; and most of the time, I don't find the modern stuff to be all THAT much better than what was originally used in these guns. Combine that with the potential added cost and trouble to make it work, I often feel it's not worth reinventing the wheel. Depends on what you're doing and using, I suppose.
I eventually settled on cotton balls for my wadding in shot loads, it's cheap, easy and works.
Last edited:
Heck, we started off using paper wasp's nests as wads. They were free. Last percussion shotgun I bought "as-is" had "something" stuck in the barrel. Oil-soaked wadded-up, hand set type newspaper atop equally oil-soaked black powder. Off-topic, sorry.
Mike in FL
50 Cal.
THAT is a very good question. Maybe because BP burns hotter?
Smokeless powder burns fast, but Black powder explodes. That explosion part is was tends to "melt" the plastic wad. They work ok if you don't mind scrubbing the bore to clean out the melted plastic/powder residue which is a royal pain in the arse.
As an ATA life member and shooter of MANY years I will say that you do get plastic wad residue in a barrel, and you will also scrub it out when you clean your shotgun when you are done with a match at the end of the day or weekend of a long event. If you care about your shotgun, you must take care of it
Wildrangeringreen
40 Cal
Both Smokeless and Black Powder are hot enough to turn the surface of the bore red upon ignition lol. Last I checked, the temp required to turn steel red is waayyy above the melting point of the plastic lol. Come to think of it, it's also above the burning point of paper, felt, and cotton, yet paper and cloth patching and felt wads are barely singed. It's not only about the heat, it's about duration, and 1-1.5ms isn't long enough to do much to those kind of materials.
You will get plastic in the bore, just like you will get lead and powder fouling in barrels, regardless of the propellant used (including air guns, but obviously no powder fouling in an airgun). Clean the danged thing.
You will get plastic in the bore, just like you will get lead and powder fouling in barrels, regardless of the propellant used (including air guns, but obviously no powder fouling in an airgun). Clean the danged thing.
Last edited:
Rock Home Isle
54 Cal.
I quit using plastic wads in my blackpowder smoothbores…when it comes time to clean the gun, you have a stringy plastic mess to scrub out of that bore. Using a thick Nitro Card and/or a lubricated fibre wad helps…a little.
But then…why use the plastic wads?
Actually, from what I have been reading and seeing, I may start experimenting with Cornmeal rather than an over-powder wad. It seems to be excellent in grouping shot into a nice even pattern.
Rock Home Isle
54 Cal.
I got my best patterns using a single heavy nitro card over the powder, and a single overshot card. Though I have yet to try the SkyChief Load
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2022
- Messages
- 1,155
- Reaction score
- 1,429
Because it is hotter
ohio ramrod
75 Cal.
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2008
- Messages
- 7,473
- Reaction score
- 2,209
Back when I was using them I would load the modified barrel as is, but cut the stem off of the ones used in the full choke barrel so I could get it loaded. They both worked.
SlidePicker
40 Cal
The thing about BP being "hotter" than the less smoke stuff isn't due to the temperature of deflagration. That is much higher with the less-smoke stuff. But the products of that stuff are gases, which even though very hot don't contain as much heat energy as the 55% of black powder that ends up as a mist of incandescent molten salts, which appear as smoke and fouling after cooling. That stuff contains and quickly transfers more heat to whatever it contacts than the less-smoke gas. Also, the mass of BP is ~4X the mass of dense, fast burning less-smoke stuff that imparts the same "drams equivalent" velocity to a shotgun charge. I notice that my fowler's barrel is quite warm near the breech after firing a single shot. Less-smoke, not nearly so much. Cue up The Beatles' "Happiness is a Warm Gun."
longcruise
70 Cal.
I'm going to wander into forbidden territory here but I think it is relevant.
I have a modern 12 ga break action single shot with a smooth shiny bore. I have never noticed any significant plastic deposits in the bore with my own reloaded smokeless shells. HOWEVER, the same components loaded using BP leaves considerable plastic deposits in the bore.
It is quickly and easily removed by wrapping steel wool around a bore brush. If you are going to use them in your smoothie I'd recommend assuming the plastic is there whether you can see it or not and scrubbing with the steel wool. It may not be visible using a brush alone but you can see it in the steel wool and can tell when it's removed.
It's my opinion that plastic or lead deposits in a bore are going to hold fouling under them and probably result eventually in corrosion.
I have a modern 12 ga break action single shot with a smooth shiny bore. I have never noticed any significant plastic deposits in the bore with my own reloaded smokeless shells. HOWEVER, the same components loaded using BP leaves considerable plastic deposits in the bore.
It is quickly and easily removed by wrapping steel wool around a bore brush. If you are going to use them in your smoothie I'd recommend assuming the plastic is there whether you can see it or not and scrubbing with the steel wool. It may not be visible using a brush alone but you can see it in the steel wool and can tell when it's removed.
It's my opinion that plastic or lead deposits in a bore are going to hold fouling under them and probably result eventually in corrosion.
Wildrangeringreen
40 Cal
lol, Nitro powders burn hotter (gasses at peak pressures are conservatively 3000F plus), especially if they contain larger percentages of Nitroglycerine (many shot powders do). It's moot, since both are significantly above the burning point of the plastics used. The reality that the Brits burned out their Metford barrels quick once they fielded the Cordite MK1 charged cartridges (with the same 205gr bullet only traveling about 500fps faster than with BP) demonstrated that. You also have to consider that on our sibling forum (modern) some people are using LDPE "cards" under their black powder and smokeless loads, and don't have appreciable issues with either; so long as proper fit is ensured (a key aspect of shooting, especially ML's, since the load isn't generally going to be over bore size).
Last edited:
Similar threads
- Locked
