sxs shot cup ?

[jthom1898]

new to muzzleloaders. shooting a pedersoli 12 ga. sxs. having trouble with patterns opening up too much. can modern plastic wads be used ? thanks.

 

[Billnpatti]

They can be used but you have to deal with the plastic fouling in the bore. A better choice is to use paper cups that you cut from heavy paper like grocery sacks. You can also use what are called "candle cartridges". The candle cartridges are simply shot contained in a bees wax matrix. They are easily made by using some old empty 12 ga. shotgun shells as your moulds. Cut off the base of the shell and plug it with a piece of snug fitting dowel or cork plug of the correct size. You can find these corks at most hardware stores. Then you simply pour the desired amount of shot into the shotgun shell and pour in enough melted bees wax to cover the shot. When it has cooled, use a dowel of the correct size to push out the plug of shot filled wax. Wrap it in a piece of paper, printer paper works just fine. So does waxed paper. When you are ready to load, just pour in your measured powder charge, seat your OP wad and then insert the "candle cartridge" and top it with an OS card. You would think the shot in the wax would act like a slug but, in fact, the wax breaks apart shortly after leaving the muzzle and allows the shot to start to disperse into a nice pattern. Give it a try and see what you think. You can actually adjust your wax according to the weather (outside temperature) by adding a bit of paraffin to make it harder or olive oil to make it softer. It's easy and worth a try.

If you want to try the paper cups, send me a PM and I will tell you how to make and use them. They work but the candle cartridges are better.
https://sites.google.com/a/muzzleloadingshotguns.com/site/articles/candlecartridges

 

[Dave K]

Some have great luck with paper wads. For some reason I don't at all. Very inconsistent for me. Some will pattern some will stay as a slug. If your pattern is spreading to much without a was there are a couple if things to try. Increase your shot some, decrease your powder some and use a thinner cushion. This us what has worked for me in the past 10+ yrs. No extras to carry, no plastic fouling. Once you spend a little time patterning, you will see a pattern of loading techniques that seem to be the standard. Good luck.

 

[Patocazador]

My limited experience is similar to Dave K's. I have ~2000 plastic wads left over from reloading modern shells. I cut off the cup portion, use a OP wad followed by 1/3 of a lubed fiber wad followed by the shot cup. Top it off with a thin OS card.

I tape the petals together for turkey and cut the tape in 2 spots for tight dove patterns.

 

[Billnpatti]

Oh, I forgot to mention that when you are shooting the candle cartridges, remove the paper before loading the cartridge. If you leave the paper on, it will act much more like a slug. In fact, depending on how you wrap it, it may not open up at all. When you are ready to load, just remove the paper wrap and load the bare wax slug on top of the OP wad. :thumbsup:

 

[azmntman]

Doesn't the heat at ignition melt the wax? Seems it could coat the bore? Or does the over powder wad do OK to prevent this? Thanks!

 

[Wes/Tex]

I doubt there's enough elapsed time to actually melt the wax mixture. Would think it's more of a compressionfactor at work. The over powder wad will cup up enough to scrape most of the wax from the bore as the whole column goes out. Semi-self cleaning!! :wink: :haha:

 

[aeatwood]

1F is your friend. I also have had miserable luck trying to use 1/2" or 1/4" fiber wads. I used 3 poster board card wads, and a thin poster board OS wad. Wads were punched w/ 3/4" hollow punch from Harbor Freight. Nice tight fit, and yet easy to load even in full choke guns.

 

[Darkgael]

The dean of BP shotgunning, the late V.M. Starr, used cardboard cards as described by AlanA.
I have gone that way myself. My upland hunting loads use cards only. This simplifies loading in the field as I am carrying only one kind of card. Two go over the powder and one over the shot. I get nice dependable patterns at the distances that I normally engage birds = 20 to 30 yards.

A MUST read article is Starr's "The Muzzleloading Shotgun".
A source for articles regarding MLing SGs is: http://www.muzzleloadingshotguns.com/articles/gettingstartedwithamuzzleloadershotgun

 

[ohio ramrod]

I shoot and older pedroseli sxs 12 gauge and have good results using a paper shot cartridge made by wrapping three thickness of newspaper around a wooden dowel ( I use a .570 dowel but a 5/8 will work ) tieing off with kite string, filling with shot, twisting and folding over and tieing shut. I use 75 grain FF two 1/4 inch leather wads, the paper shot cartridge loaded folded end out with NO over shot card. The folded and twisted end serves as the over shot card. I find that any thing thinner than thee thickness of newspaper doesn't hold up and any thicker doesn't "open" and gives a slugging effect. For hunting I also use a wax paper powder charge made the same way. I rip the end off the powder charge dump the powder in and then ram the wax paper and any remaining powder as an over powder wad before the leather wads. :idunno:

 

[nhmoose]

I use plastic shot cups in my sxs. Good patterns, easy loading, worry about plastic fouling clean the damn bore with shooters choice after cleaning the BP fouling. No problems after 2-3 rounds of trap or hunting for a week.

They are not pc/hc but will work.

 

[roundball]

Increase your shot some, decrease your powder some

There really does seem to be wisdom in the old saying:
"Little powder, more lead, shoots far, kills dead"

I had similar inconsistent results with paper shot cartridges opening vs. slugging...maybe 1 in 10 would slug and those odds were simply too poor to chance it on a once-a-season-shot at a longbeard. In the end I decided while I'll never be confused with a purist, I'd just stay with a bare bore and figure out how to make it work.
Experimented with various amounts of powder, wad configurations, shot pellet size, and shot charge size...finally hit on a couple good combinations that did what I needed.
And what I learned going through those trials first hand was invaluable, to say nothing of the self-satisfaction of figuring it out myself

 

[Wes/Tex]

Well said Roundball...nothing, absolutely nothing, beats getting out there and trying the different variations. Through the years I've gotten some pretty big surprises...good and bad!