Can't shoot lead balls all the time - what's better than paper wads?

[Alan O]

Same to you!

 

[Tom A Hawk]

How about ...Gundarts?

 

[BadDaditood]

For blanks I heard flower foam to pack the powder down in revolvers, you wouldn’t need to in a rifle.
I make “gloolits” with hotglue, you can squirt it into any round ball mound you want.
They DO bounce back however...

 

[smoothshooter]

Where I live I can't shoot lead balls (have to go to a range for that) because the neighbors are too close by. I do sometimes shoot "blanks" (powder with paper wad) but paper just doesn't create a good seal most of the time, and the charge kind of just goes "poof". I like a loud bang with some smoke. Has anyone shot cork or wood balls and, if so, how did that work out? And, for those who've had to use paper, what works best? Mine catches on fire a lot of the time so I have to be careful. Thanks.

If you have a bullet mould, try hot-glue bullets. Get a few hot glue gun sticks to melt down, and pour some into your mould. Give each one plenty of time to solidify before opening the mold.
Be cautious with these-they will almost certainly penetrate a light backstop or ricochet more than cork or some other lighter materials.

 

[Smokey Plainsman]

I’ve shot a circus peanut out of a smoothbore pistol one time.

 

[bpd303]

I have made some blanks with Jute Tow and bees wax, roll a ball of Tow in bees wax lube and ram it on the powder. It sounds just like a regular round ball load but the Tow doesn't travel very far. I used that load to bring my two big dogs home when they would go off in the woods & didn't want to waste a round ball. They would come running when they heard the boom hoping for a treat.

 

[macr0w]

This is an interesting subject for me because I'm getting ready to start building my first ever flintlock (or any other type of gun) kit.
I wouldn't mind doing some testing with a blank load to kind of dial it in a little.
The problem I would have is that I live near downtown in Charlotte NC. My house is about half a mile from the busiest fire station in the state of NC.
Don't get me wrong, my neighbors and I hear plenty of gun shots on a daily basis. Unfortunately none of them are people testing out their new flintlocks.
On the other hand I could probably get away with it because normally no one bats an eye when they hear gun shots around here.

 

[mooman76]

On another forum for awhile they were talking about shooting glueletts. They coined them glueletts because basically it was hot glue formed in a bullet mould. The mould was coated with some type of release agent like Pam. They were shot using the primer only out of brass that had a enlarged primer mould and still had enough velocity to kill a rodent. That could very well be done in a ML with a tiny bit of powder for some plinking.

 

[Woody Morgan]

I use 130 grains of ffg and four squares of tp rammed into the bore of a .75 caliber cannon.
Makes a heckuva bang.

wm

 

[sawyer04]

easy to load! Should work great for 'blank' loads

Highly, highly flammable. should light up the world.

 

[Buckskinn]

Not sure where you live, but NY law prohibits "discharging a firearm" within 500 feet of an occupied dwelling without the owner/tenant's permission. Not sure if it has to be a live round with a bullet to qualify. I'd hate to find out the hard way. Text: You cannot discharge a firearm within 500 feet, crossbow within 250 feet or longbow within 150 feet of any school, playground, occupied factory or church, dwelling, farm building, or structure unless you own it, lease it, are an immediate member of the family, an employee, or have the owner's consent. As a habit, I mention that I "sometimes let off my flintlock off the porch on special occasions, always in a safe direction." Never had an objection, so I take that as "consent. It also helps if you invite them to fire it once...

ADK Bigfoot

Why on earth would anyone live in an area like that??? Or for that matter that you couldn't walk outside and shoot real projectiles...

 

[HiDesertHunter]

Highly, highly flammable. should light up the world.

I think you missed the part where I mentioned dampening the lint balls with water prior to use, but no matter they did not work very well to compress the powder for noise making so the 'world' is safe!

 

[macr0w]

Why on earth would anyone live in an area like that??? Or for that matter that you couldn't walk outside and shoot real projectiles...

Not everyone wants to live out in the woods.

 

[B P Arn]

I have used a wad of newspaper over a normal charge of BP. Seemed to work fine.

 

[Bad Karma]

So let me get this straight. You like to shoot every day but you don't have to shoot a projectile. You just like to make a loud bang noise with smoke. Do I have that straight? If I do, why?

He already told us. He likes to do it. Good enough for me...

 

[Bad Karma]

4th of July, New Year noise making etc.

Been doing it for years myself.

Beats the heck out of the knotheads in major urban areas doing mag dumps with AK 47’s... what comes up...