Does anyone here wad with Tow?

[Magungo1066]

Hi

Recently acquired my smoothbore and wondering if how you get Tow for wadding

Gary

So I commonly wad with TOW. HOWEVER, I've found that if you don't grease/oil this stuff that it is like napalm at the range. Ive gotten some dirty looks over the smoking wads haha. I love how it performs/wads however

 

[Magungo1066]

I find tow on amazon all the time. I just search for undyed flax-fiber

 

[Stony Broke]

I once saw a pretty good fire start in front of the firing line at a match. We were all out stomping on it for a while. I worry about such things and stay away from tow.

 

[George]

I've used tow a far bit and find it works quite well. I found that I get best results if I put a thin wad of some sort overpowder before the tow, more power and more consistent patterns. I frequently use the historically documented folded brown paper for that.

When flax for weaving is prepared the fibers are combed and the long ones extracted. All the broken short ones and the chips are discarded.This is the part prepared for spinning and then weaving, long and silky:

This is what is discarded:

I use the discarded part for my wadding, it packs in better, more compactly, seems to give me a better, more consistent seal.

Fire hazard is not usually a problem in my area, but I'm aware of the potential for embers when using tow. I've never found smoldering tow, and I wonder if it's because of that overpowder card I routinely use with it.

Spence

 

[Runewolf1973]

Some 100% wool blanket cut into 1" pieces works extremely well.