A “natural” patching material . . . .

[Jim]

Somewhere I’ve read of using wasp nest material for patching round balls.
Might have been in Ned Robert’s “The Muzzleloading Caplock Rifle.”
Anyone ever tried it?

 

[Brokennock]

Somewhere I’ve read of using wasp nest material for patching round balls.
Might have been in Ned Robert’s “The Muzzleloading Caplock Rifle.”
Anyone ever tried it?

Not so much for patching for a round ball, but, has been used in modern times as a wad for smoothbore shooting, both shot and roundball.
Somehow, at some point in time, it became popular to assert that this was a traditional wadding material. It is natural, fire resistant, and seems to work well. But, no one can find any documentation, no period account, no note in a journal or memoir, nothing, to give us any reason to believe it is a historic load component.

 

[William Lincoln]

Well they call them "paper Wasps" could it be because it's like
a soft strong flexible paper patch?

 

[Grenadier1758]

The nest from the paper wasp is paper like and held together by wasp spit which is kind of sort of a fire retardant material. If the wasp larvae are still in there, they act as lubricant. Best to harvest the paper wasp nests when it's cold and all the wasps are gone.

 

[necchi]

Anyone ever tried it?

Yeah, a lot. I mean honest. I have harvested and tried that stuff in many-many circumstances.
It's never caused any harm.
But it's also never done me any good. That's honest too.
There's a lot of legend behind it, that makes a lot of sense.
I simply haven't found any good use for the stuff, at least how it applies to shooting or improving accuracy in our trad guns.

 

[Phil Coffins]

The muzzleloader rifle back in the day was cutting edge technology, there for I believe those people would use the best available patching to achieve the best performance from it. Today some folks want to think that Stone Age methods must of been used. That doesn’t make sense to me.

 

[FPDoc]

Best to harvest the paper wasp nests when it's cold and all the wasps are gone.

Especially do not open the front fuel fill door on my 1990 F 150 before then!

 

[Flintlock]

If patches are burning through you can put a bit of wasp nest over powder and it will stop the patch from blowing out supposedly. I've used it many times in smoothbores and like it becouse it's easy to find ( hunting them in winter is fun to do with grandkids) it works great, good patterns, free and historically accurate.

 

[user 49399]

Somewhere I’ve read of using wasp nest material for patching round balls.
Might have been in Ned Robert’s “The Muzzleloading Caplock Rifle.”
Anyone ever tried it?

I actually use it in rifles and smooth bores. It works for me and is easy to load. I will not call it historically correct. Mayhap it is, mayhap it aint.

A few months ago I posted a thread in the percussion rifle section “Wacky Shooting “. I showed how I load a Kentucky rifle with powder/wasp nest wad/ bare ball/wasp nest wad. I tried this just to see how it would work and it actually works good for me at ranges of 50 yards or less. I load my smooth bores the same way.

Here in East Tennessee we call them waspers.

 

[smo]

I use it as a buffer between the patched ball and the powder in my hunting rifle.

In my smoothbore I have used it when shooting bare ball loads too hold the ball against the powder charge.

 

[Brokennock]

Some, um, interesting replies. A couple I've seen before.
It sounds like the few who described using it are using it like a wad or buffer.
To the o.p.'s original question, has anyone used it as a patch?

It doesn't seem conducive to wrapping around a ball like a cloth or deerskin patch to me.

 

[smo]

West Tn Red Wasp nest…. Under the seat of my folding chair in my shooting house…

I can’t see how it could be used as a patch … but as a replacement … in a pinch.

 

[Jim]

I’m only speculating here, but . . . .
How ‘bout using Hornet Nest material as an over-powder wad . . .under a greased patch round ball load?
Seems to me, when hunting, carrying a loaded muzzle-loader all day would allow the grease of the patch to contaminate the powder some.
If you loaded the rifle in the early morning, but didn’t get a shot ‘till late afternoon, would there be a risk of a “blooper” load when the trigger was pulled?
Just “thinking out loud” here. . . .

 

[Phil Coffins]

Jim, I use a lubed patch around my ball and can report the load works after at least two weeks. It won’t degrade the powder.