Patterned my New Englander today

[jlangenh]

I tried .125 over powder wads, plastic AA wads, and wool wonder wads at the range today. I was shooting my New Englander with a modified choke. I was using 70 grains of RS pyrodex and 1 1/8 oz. of #6 shot. The wool wonder wads gave the best pattern by a large margin(all the shot was well within a 30 inch circle at 30 yards). The wonder wads load so easily that I question how well they seal. The .125 card wads were acceptable. Has anyone done any testing to find out which seals better wonder wads or card wads. I am guessing that the .125 card wads produce higher velocity.

 

[slowpokebr549]

I have done lots of shooting with a modified choke CVA trapper. I get better penetration with card wads but wonder wads are so much easier to deal with in the field the increase in velocity isnt worth it. That being said, try 3f black powder. I get good patterns and penetration with it. I use about 70 grains with 1 1/8 oz for small game and up that to 80 and 1 1/4 for turkey. I had trouble killing squirrels with RS, not much ooomph.

 

[paulvallandigham]

There is a difference between card wads, and OP wads, Joel, so I am not sure what you are talking about. If you are using those thick 1/8" cardboard OP wads, then I know what you are referring to.( There are also Vegetable Fiber Wads that come in different thicknesses, and are used as OP Wads.) They do seal well, BUT ONLY IF YOU HAVE THE CORRECT SIZE WADS FOR YOUR ACTUAL BORE DIMENSION. Without knowing the bore diameter of your gun in thousandths of an inch( measure with calipers, and then measure the diameter of the OP Wads, too) you won't know if you have a good seal or not. Do NOT RELY on the markings on a barrel to tell you what the actual bore diameter IS in your gun. Some companies have impecable records for producing barrels that are all the same diameter. Whether they are the same diameter as the wads you can buy is quite another matter. Some are smaller, and some are larger.

If you have followed this forum, Roundball has indicated that he gets the best sealing using felt pre-lubed wads when he uses an oversized felt wad.

Remember that those plastic AA wads are actually smaller in dimension- a 13 gauge wad, not a 12 gauge wad-- so DON'T expect them to seal well. They may go through that Modified choke easier, but they will not seal the bore. All that must be done by the OP Wad.

I recommend you use OS cards, which are only .010" thick, and made of the same material as shirt backs. These cards can be bent or actually " bowed " to get them down through the choke of your barrel, and then turned with a short starter, or your ramrod, to go down the barrel squarely. Because the edges where the wad pivots get bent a bit, use at least 2 OS cards together, once aligned on a N-S axis, and the second on an E-W axis( Or using a clock for the analogy, 12-6 axis, and 3-9 o'clock axis). That way the turned edges are sealed by the next card, and no gas escapes to blow your pattern.

Poke a hole in the OS cards OFF-CENTER with an awl, and align the holes so they don't line up with the one next to them. YOu can use 4 OS cards instead of the .125" OP Wad. Because the cards are lighter in weight, and the holes allow air to separate them as soon as they leave the muzzle, they are less likely to follow the shot down range, and do fall to the ground rather quickly. That plastic shot cup can usually travel further than a 25 yard target.

To reduce the weight of the AA plastic shotcup, cut off the material below the cup, since its not doing you any good. The bottom of the cup can sit on the OP wad or OS cards.

If you want to lube your barrel, put that felt pre-lubed wad between the OS cards and that plastic cup. The lube will work, and the felt will cushion the shot in the cup. The felt wad will separate quickly, and the lighter cup will drop out before it goes 20 yards.

To get even tighter patterns, you can tape up part or all of the petals on that plastic wad, or insert a mylar collar, or paper collar in the cup to that the petals fold out on exiting the muzzle to become an air brake, while the collar has to drop off later to release the shot.

I found that greasing the barrel of my smoothie AFTER the final OS cards are put down on top of the shot load seems to keep the plastic from rubbing off on the inside of the barrel and leaving plastic deposits in the bore. Those deposits reek havoc on later patterns, and require modern solvents and a bore brush to get the plastic out of the barrel.

I keep a small baggie of greased cleaning patches( bore butter) in my kit, and use them in front of the jag as I run the last OS cards down on top of the shot. This saves me a step, and an extra stroke with that ramrod down the barrel. Any excess lube is pushed out the barrel by those tight OS cards, so I am not seeing any extra problems with cleaning, doing this. Just keeping the plastic out of my bore, and choke makes greasing the barrel worth the extra effort.

 

[slowpokebr549]

Uhhggg, just leave the plastic wad out of the equation entirely. You won't get plastic fouling and it will pattern just as well if not better without them. Powder, wonderwad or two, shot and another wonder wad or a thin card stock overshot wad on top.In a hunting situation I use wonderwads both overpowder and overshot and get good killing power and patterns.But, then again I am using 3f to help make up for the loose seal. It makes for fast,nasty recoil. If I always used card stock paper wads I could use 2f or maybe even RS.I have tried several brands of felt wads, just try to find the tightest fitting one. Every gun has its likes but I have never gotten a plastic shot cup to perform well enough to justify them. Paper shot cups actually work pretty well, but,for me at least, arent very consistant.

 

[caplock28g]

I tried the AA type wad with the bottom half cut off a couple weeks ago in a 12g choked .021 for prairie birds in Montana next month. Wanted to tighten things up a bit. It tightened it up, made one neat 3/4" hole @ 25 yds. I didn't recover the "slug" but it must have fused the pedals together when I fired it.
Caplock

 

[bingo1952]

You have to use a 1/8" over-powder wad to keep the plastic intact and do not cut the base off the wad. Black powder burns the full length of the barrel where modern shotgun propellants have just about finished in the first 6-8" of barrel length.

 

[paulvallandigham]

If you didn't use an OP wad, the burning powder melted the base of that shotcup, and probably the petals, too. Try it again with an OP wad, or a filler, like corn meal, farina, oatmeal, etc. Put about 50 grains by volume of the filler down a 12 ga. barrel. You can reduct that by 10-15 grains for a 20 gauge gun. Hornets nest, and wasp nest also makes a good filler, as the flashpoint of the stuff seems to be higher than paper. Those plastic wads are made 1 gauge smaller than your bore is, so that they can fit down into a paper or plastic shotgun casing. So, don't expect that flared base to provide ANY kind of seal to the burning gases.

I suspect that if you were to shoot that same load over a chronograph, the velocity would be far less than you thought it was.

Been there, done that. Don't want to do it again! :rotf: :hmm: :thumbsup:

 

[caplock28g]

Just to simplify things I left out the other materials used. Here is the whole thing. -- 12 gauge SxS choked .021 & .028-- 77gr FF Goex, 2 over shot cards & 1 wonder wad in that order over the powder, AA type plastic wad with the seal & cusion removed, 1 1/8oz #6 hard shot & toped it all off with one OSC. Please forgive me folks, I will do better :redface:
Caplock

 

[paulvallandigham]

Consider increasing that load to 1 1/4 oz. I still don't understand how that plastic cup fused on you. It should open if you have the velocity That your powder charge should deliver. However, If your bore is Oversized, gas is going to escape around the wads, and cup and you just are not going to get the performance you seek. It is very important that you measure the bore of both barrels and order wads based on those measurments, not what the company prints on the barrel.

I have a 20 gauge fowler, with the barrel from a reputable source. However, instead of the nominal .620, or the .610 that some of these 20 gauge barrels are reported in dimension, Mine proved to be .627- almost 19 gauge. Only when I obtained 19 Gauge OP wads, and OS cards did I begin to get the velocity I was expecting. The change in wad diameter caused an increase of over 200 fps in velocity, using PRB to run over the screens.

That is how important measuring your bore diameters is.

 

[caplock28g]

I have a .010 press fit with the OSCs. I will try it again today with 3 OSCs over the powder. One and a quarter oz load would overfill the cup by way too much & I would think that would make it less effective.
Cap

 

[paulvallandigham]

The cup size does limit you. I bought some plastic shotcups made to hold 1 1/4 oz. of shot to use in my modern 12 gauge. Consider using paper cups instead. I make mine using the 3M Post-it Notes, because they have an adhesive on one edge, already, which makes wrapping them around a mandrill and glueing the edge down simple, and without mess, or glue drying time.

I close the bottom 1/2" or so by folding the ends over on each other, then dip the cup into molten paraffin wax, and hold it down on wax paper until the paraffin cools and solidifies. I do put a OP wad inside the cup just to lend support to the tube, and provide a smooth surface to release the shot out the muzzle. Cut the slits in the top after figuring out how long the cup needs to be for your chosen load. The longer the slits, the faster the shot is released, and the more open the pattern. The shorter the slits, the tighter the pattterns. The slits create petals, which in turn act as brakes when they open in the air, causing separation of the cup from the shot.

Remember to try to keep your shot loads with BP and a cylinder bore, Below the speed of sound( 1135 fps, nominally) That usually is not hard to do, consider BP characteristics, but I see several people here shooting loads I know exceed the Sound Barrier, and that causes the patterns to blow apart. In my 12 gauge percussion, using FFg powder, I am shooting 76 grains of powder under that 1 1/4 oz. load. Velocity is in the low 1000s at the muzzle, and when I use the paper cups, the patterns tighten.

If you want to test the velocity with your chronograph, but don't want to risk damaging the machine, just make a longer shotcup, fold over the front ends on top of the shot, and use a couple of OS cards on top of the cup in the barrel to hold it in place. The package won't open up( You didn't cut slits) so that it will cross the screen on your chronograph before anything can drop out of the line of sighting to damage the machine. Or, you can test the powder charge with a ROUND BALL the same weight as your load. A 12 Gauge ball will weigh almost 1 1/8 oz.( they are slightly smaller in diameter to fit down the barrel) so you can get a good idea of your MV just by shooting a PRB with the same powder charge. Increasing the weight of the shot by 1/8 oz. to 1 1/4 oz will reduce the velocity from what you get with that PRB.

Because an open cylinder bore shotgun is a close range( 25 yard) weapon, the pellet energy retained at that distance by the shot will be still very goodl. Go to the tables in the Lyman Shotshell Reloading Manual, and check pellet energy at 20, 40, and 60 yards for various MV loads.

Oh, I fund doing two turns with that 3M Post-It note paper gave the right thickness of paper cup, so that the paper did not tear in the barrel, and did not let the shot poke through and rub lead on the barrel's inside. When I used 3 complete turns, I produced a shotgun pellet " slug", that keyholed through my 25 yard target, and cut down the center post stand leg for my 50 yard target behind the first. OOPS! I didn't slit that cup, BTW, and I am sure that added to the problem. Some of the members here have been having success using Card Stock, like is used in 3 x 5 index " cards". I intend to try making some cups from card stock, after I find a cup design that produces the best patterns, using the 3M Post-It note paper I have on hand.

 

[Britsmoothy]

http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/222535/

Check it out caplock :thumbsup:

Britsmoothy.

 

[caplock28g]

I have been using the brown paper bag thing with 2 wraps and no folded base for quite some time with good results on birds up to 25 yds. Just looking for a way to hold the pattern & still have good penetration out to 30 or maybe 35 yds. I will try the folded paper cup with 1 1/8oz later today. If I'm not happy with that I'll go to 1 1/4 oz over my normal 77gr FF. I have always liked #6 shot but I might try 7 1/2s ( #7 would be better but hard to find) & see if they fill in the pattern at 35 yds & still pass the soup can test. I'm OK with 7 1/2s for Huns but looks a little small for Sharptail even if they do pass the test.
Caplock

 

[paulvallandigham]

YOu are not going to be happy with the retained pellet energy of those #7 1/2 shot. I am using #5 shot to get better performance at 35 yards, rather than using #6 shot. I have increased my shot load to 1 1/4 oz. of 1 1/8 to improve the pellet count.

 

[caplock28g]

Thanks Paul, I"ll not waste my time with the 7 1/2s.