Polyester fact or fiction?

[Old Sarge]

Just asked my wife if my hip boots were still in the basement. :shocked2:

 

[M. De Land]

All one needs do is recover some of the patches shot and you will quickly be able to tell if their was a problem with the material.
If it has melted stiff or blow holes in it then it has failed. I have used my old cotton felt Shirts from Costco for years and they have worked perfectly. Have no idea if they have some polyester in them but they are tight of weave, right thickness and tougher than pillow ticking.
You could wash and reuse them if one wanted to collect off the range.

 

[Danny Ross]

At the rate this is going, I'd be looking for chest waders forget the hip boots. :rotf:

 

[mooman76]

I have used many kinds of scrap cloth in my MLs over the years. I did not intentionally use a Poly blend but I can't say it didn't happen either and probably likely I did at some point or another.

 

[Zonie]

I found a interesting site and copied the information shown below.

Melting points and ignition temperatures
Plastic Melting Point Range---- Ignition Temperature
Nylons 160°-275° ---- 424°-532°
Polycarbonate 140°-150° ----580°
Polyesters 220°-268° ----432°-488°
http://www.tcforensic.com.au/docs/article10.html


Note that all temperatures are given in Celsius.

For temperatures in Fahrenheit, multiply the Celsius temperature by 1.8 and add 32.

The temperature for cotton to ignite is 120°C (248°F ) so if a cotton patch doesn't show signs of burning, polyester might not melt or ignite.

Or, maybe it might. :hmm:

 

[azmntman]

Yaers and years ago, w/o benefit of you fine people, I was all alone to play with my 10GA pedersoli. I read that I needed a wad. Wad? No clue, I was all about patches n Hoppes. So I went to the garage and looked and looked and found a really tight looking meshey sorta of filter (I think?). Like for a swamp cooler but super tight. :grin: WAD! :shocked2: STREAKs of melted wad :shake: Some stuff is a real PIA to remove even with gasoline, ammonia, glass cleaner, a bristle brush (did I mention these are not freindy with chrome lined barrels?) & etc.. Any way i further stumbled along and loaded the skycheif way believing a simple card could no way hold in the shot so it must go down over the powder and the wad (which after a few weeks of barrel TLC and research I found at cirlce fly?) went over the shot. I shot this way for YEARS til I landed here and found I was bassackwards. Now I will be trying it with a LUBED wad on top!

Nahh....cant recommend anything that could possibly melt be shoved down the barrel of a black powder gun :shake:

 

[William O.]

When I first started shooting muzzleloaders I had to try everything modern in my sidelock up to and including synthetic powder and plastic skirted bullets. I can tell you first hand that the chosen substitute powder burns hotter than the Holy Black and melts those plastic skirts into a hard, tar like substance that is an incredible PITA to remove from the bore of your rifle. As far as polyester goes, I know it melts when fire is applied to it so knowing that along with my experience early on, I will not use any patching material that contains any amount of poly-anything in my smokepoles.