It's been a while since I put up some blackpowder shells so today I loaded up 50 hulls. I'll shoot them over the clays course this weekend. Once fired Winchester cheapo Univeral hulls, Cheddite primer, 80 grains of old Elephant 2fg, hard nitro card followed by a Circle Fly lubed fiber wad ( I soak them in left over old blackpowder bullet lube and drain them on wax paper) overshot card, 1 oz of #7&1/2 shot with a fold crimp. The wad column is put down on the powder with a wooden dowel and I use a bit of compression from the ram on my MEC press. Not much compression is required but make sure there is no air space in the column. If one uses the fiber wad without any lube it blows apart and the debris can come back at you depending on the wind direction. With the lube the wad stays together and deposits some lube in the barrels. Have shot them both ways and perfer the lube wads. ( next time I just may try the Circle Fly waxed fiber wads to save a bit of mess and fooling around). Hot soap and water clean up with a bronze brush takes care of the fouling and any plastic or lead left in the barrels. I either brush at several stations or shoot a couple of smokless shells to keep the fouling under control over the course. Great fun but both you and your scorer will have trouble spotting broken birds on true pairs due to the voulme of smoke!
