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What's your favorite source for Dacron and/or Kapok?

Kid,
I like Kapok-it won't melt. I get it from old style life vest from flea market.
Mike

I like cotton balls, available from any Rite-Aid or Wallyworld.

Best, Mal

I get my dacron at the local fabric store.

My wife supplies me also. In straight walled cases like 577, I use fiber wads and I have some of the Kynoch wads to try.

Neither does the dacron/ polyester or backer rod(foam) that I use.

I have heard from several shooters that polyester melts in the barrel and is hard to clean out. I have used it for many years and have found no evidence of it coating the bore. Maybe I am missing it but I don't think so. My suspicion is they are packing it in tight if they really do have this trouble- that could equate to a secondary projectile, I suspect.

I never had trouble with dacron melting,either,I never used it. It just made sense that it would.
Mike

I've looked at wads from my shooting and the dacron shows no signs of melting and there is no melted plastic in the barrels.
I suspect that this is an 'old wives tale' that has been passed down as gospel for too long.

PM - do you just stack the fiber wads all the way up from the powder to the seated bullet?

Never tried this or heard of it. I've LOADS of fiber wads in a plethora of bore sizes. This definitely intrigues me.

Nothing fancy, just stack'em so you get good compression.

Just a note, in the DGJ article on fillers and pressure by Bell, I think that fiber wads had the highest pressure spikes out of all the fillers that he tested. On the other hand if the spike, regardless of size was inconsequential to the gun in question and the rifle regulated, I would probably use them too.

Tom

What volume of the DGJ? Sherman uses cork wads in the 577.

On any loading, when you change a component/components start below max and work up carefully.

Tom, many thanks for jarring my thick head's memory bank. I of course had heard about using fiber wads before, I READ about it in Bell's article and, before that, Graeme Wright's book, for God's sake.

I just turned 58, I hope I'm not going senile on the express train.

But back to Bell, yes his article made me wonder about the pressure spike, just a bit. More concerns were in regards to regulation. I've only used dacron because that's what the gun was regulated with and that's what I got for free from a kind soul when I bought my Henry .450 BPE. I'll be running out of it soon and I was just wondering where the best place to get more would be. Hence this post.

I must say, if I get in the "benching mood", which I rarely am, this post has got me thinking about testing other fillers. The cotton balls would be cheap and easy to get and would be nearer to the dacron weight than the wads, I imagine (if that even matters).

Well, when the weather cools down in a couple months I think I will load up a few with different guts and see for myself. Seems like it could be interesting and time worth spent.

Again, thanks to all who contributed, I appreciate it.

Marc

I got a load of dacron from old flat pillows after my wife discovered that one of her stuffed critters was losing weight and looking kind`a puny..

You're a mean man, Mike!

LMAO! She's got too many dust collectors.. Some can make a sacrifice for my use!

The article was a good one, although it didn't mention accosting stuffed animals for their entrails. I would try that but I have the added variable of dog slobber as well.

I have stuck with cotton for the time being. Only fear is that I end up starting a fire during a dry spell. I have also wondered about the possibility of it becomming an obstruction, but with the grain or so that I use I am guessing that it's doubtful.

Cheers

Tom

cornmeal

In my 577/500 Mag. 3 1/8th" I use a full 15 grains worth of dacron. That Teddy Bear was on a serious diet.

I have used the foam backer rod that you can get from any Home Depot, Lowes, Ace or other hardware store.
I prefer it because it comes in three diameters and is so easy to measure and cut.

Funny you should mention that. I just read about that stuff a couple nights ago in a Ross Seyfried DGJ article(?), at least I think that's where the info came from. I've been reading so many articles on double rifle loads recently I lose track of the source.

Actually strike that. I think it was mentioned as an aside by "Capt Curl" in his treatise on paper patching. I can recall the damn picture of the stuff, but am foggy on the source! Anyway, it did look promising. Haven't printed out his essay yet, but will. Also managed to order the Paul Matthews book on paper patching he thought was out of print.

But back to your point, Huvius, the stuff really did look very "user friendly". Many Thanks for confirming that.

Krakow Kid,

The 1/2" backer rod is the easiest filler to use in a .500 3" NE. I don't use backer rod in bottle neck cases because it is closed cell foam that won't readily conform to the bottle neck.

I get mine at Lowes.

Curl

Thank You, Capt. That's good news as I'm only interested in straight cases - I'm a novice rifle handloader, the easier the better!