doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com strange residue

Strange ash found while cleaning black powder from barrels. This week I loaded Some Salvaged shot into some 8 ga. hulls to use in a Pheasant tower shoot.
!.75 oz of buffered heavy shot salvaged years ago from some water damaged shotshells. 2f black powder. While scrubbing the bore with hot soapy water I noticed a couple Of small tissue-paper thin ashes about 1 inch long come out of the bore. The buffered 5 shot shot was in a shot cup and and I roll crimped an overshot card to close the shell. Has anyone seen this type of residue? The ammunition worked well enough in this lite load.soft recoil and impressive smoke and report, But not particularly lethal at longer ranges. The 34 inch barrels are not choked much. It was a hoot to shoot but after carrying the 13lb monster all day long I missed my little Fox . Next time im giving the Winchester 21 duck a chance with some handloaded 3inch cheddites.

BP will melt most plastic shotshell cases and do the same to the plastic wads. Some it will burn and char them more than melt them though.
It will deposit the plastic onto the bore surfaces. If you shoot a lot of them the plastic build up can be considerable with some brands of hulls and/or wads.
Strings of melted plastic in some instances. Other times just an ultra thin coating that gets broken up during the scrub & wash cycle of BP cleaning.
That might be what you are seeing.

Thanks: that might well be what I was seeing. The hulls (Remington
Industrial) Show signs of being heated (a charred look)and I use them for one BP loading only. I have not noticed any plastic build up in the barrels but The BP is pretty filthy after a box of shots.

I load quite a lot of BP and BP substitute in 12ga.
The Remington 'black' promo hulls stand up the best to the heat from either powder. They do char,,but don't melt and send much plastic down the bore.
I've never found a plastic wad that'd stand up to the heat w/o melting at least some and coating the bore w/plastic.
People have said the plastic wads made for steel shot reloading are good for BP loading and won't melt on you, but I've never tried it. Don'y know if they are assuming they are better or actually have tried it.

The Winchester AA hulls are the worst I've tried for BP loads.
Not even a box thru the gun and pink colored plastic strings clinging to the bore are staring at you.
The hull plastic from them scrubs out fairly easily with a stainless steel bore brush but many won't want to use one on their pride and joy.
Sometimes the plastic from the wad can be very stubborn to remove,,others not. Depends on the brand just like the hulls do.

I use cardboard and fibre wads all the time now. The Remington black hulls get used exclusivly if I don't have any Federal paper ones left around.
One loading only and I toss them. I imagine they'd go another loading but that's about it. They are brittle and charred from the one shot. The hulls are plentiful so I don't push them at all.