If one were to substitute card and fiber for 1-piece plastic wads with the same powder charge and shot weight what would you expect the differences to be for any given load?
Pressure:
Velocity:
Pattern:
Safety note: I have no intention of doing the above without lab verification, but I would like opinions before spending the money for lab tests.
My reasons for making a wad change is to be able to shoot 3/4 oz. target loads in the very tightly choked bores of a 1920 Parker without having to open up the chokes.

Wyo:
The general answer to your question is: higher, more, and who knows. But since you don't specify bore size, further input is difficult. Also... what relationship do you think there is between that shot charge and choke? Why open them? Choke has very little effect on pressure.

Best, Kensal

[quote=Kensal Rise]Wyo:
"The general answer to your question is: higher, more, and who knows. But since you don't specify bore size, further input is difficult. "

Sorry, my mistake. The bore is 16 gauge.

"Also... what relationship do you think there is between that shot charge and choke? "

The tight chokes on this Parker ensures that shots ranging from 20 to 35 yards are ineffective unless the bird is fringed because an extra full pattern at the above ranges makes them unfit for the table.

"Why open them?"

I want patterns suitable for upland bird hunting and there are several ways of accomplishing that goal, one of which is by using card and fiber wads instead of 1- piece plastic wads.

"Choke has very little effect on pressure.
Agreed."

The question is

You can simply remove the shotcup if you wish. Just cut it off. This will require filler wads on top of the 'brush wad' you just made. The BPI 'x-stream' insert takes up the space of 1/8oz shot, and that works to make a spreader wad too.

Use chilled rather than magnum shot, the two above techniques, and it should open the pattern up quite a bit.

An alternative to the x-wad is the old trick of dividing the shot column into layers with card wads.

Jim, I plan on using an old Lefever for grouse this year. The chokes are to tight for my type of shooting. I contacted Brian from New Era shells wanting to buy paper cased shells with fiber wads.I thaught this would open the pattern.His testing shows little difference between paper and plastic out to 30 yds. He recomended spreader loads.You may want to check around.
Dave

terc, I use card and fiber wads in only one gun and that is a #2 AyA choked IMP CYL and Mod. and because my first brass shells were Double Hammer, I could not use 1-piece plastic wads because of their inside diameter. After getting RMC brass hulls, I tried to use 1-piece plastic wads and the patterns were noticeably inferior to The loads in the DH hulls. I loaded the RMC hulls with the same as the DH loads and to my surprise the patterns were consistently outstanding. I load 12, 20 and 28 gauge brass hulls with 1-piece plastic wads and get great patterns, so I have not tried card and fiber wads in the other gauges.

It isn't that simple. Just as loading different brands/types of plastic wads changes performance, using fiber wads and cards of differing thicknesses, materials, and diameters will all effect pressure, velocity, and patterning differently.

There has been much debate about the merits of fiber wads vs plastic wads. For a time I made a point of researching it and I found just as many articles written in favor of one as in favor of the other. My personal experience is that well made ammunition with fiber wads performs the same as comparable ammunition loaded with plastic wads. I prefer shooting with fiber wads because they don't leave plastic residue in the barrels and they don't leave indestructible plastic wads littering the ground.

I am sure you can work up some loads with fiber wads that will meet your objective. But why don't you first try out some 16ga factory ammo loaded with fiber wads to see how you like them?

In general, higher charges, like tighter chokes, tend to cause greater pellet deformation. The result is more uneven patterning and less retained pellet energy way downrage. Shooting shot faster produces more penetration at close range but as the pellets fly they loose energy faster because they are more deformed and misshaped. At 40 yards those more deformed pellets may actually be going slower than well shaped pellets fired at a lower velocity. For long range, I'll take a good moderate velocity load over a high velocity magnum load any day.

I experimented with my Perazzi skeet gun with Tula chokes. As these guns were originally made to use Russian paper shells with felt wads, I loaded some Federal paper Gold Medal hulls with:

18gr Green Dot, 1/16" over powder wad, 1/2" felt wad, 1/16" undershot wad. 1 oz #8 shot. Federal 109 primers

18gr Green Dot, WAA 12 plastic wad, 1 oz #8 shot, Federal 109 primers.

I wondered how the patterns would compare using the two types of wads, I thought I might get a better skeet pattern with the felt wads at 16 yards as that Tula choke I think was designed for felt wads, and a tighter pattern using the WAA12 wads.
To my surprise there was no discernable difference between the two wads. FWIW,
Mike

Now that the weather is starting to moderate I will be doing some simple pattern testing with a couple long barreled tightly choked 16 gauge guns using fiber wads with Sprd R inserts and roll crimps. From what I have been able to garner from looking at various data from public and private sources it appears that chamber pressures are somewhat less with fiber wads while velocities are higher.

The load I intend to test is A Cheddite Paper Hull trimmed to 2 9/16th inches, 17.9 grains of Unique, 7/8th ounce of shot using 1/2 inch fiber wad with 1/8th inch nitro cards on either side of the fiber wad a Sprd R with 1/8th ounce of teh shot on top of the disc and .030 overshot card. My control load is a cheddite plastic hull, Gualandi 1621 wad with 17.9 grains of Unique and 7/8th ounces of shot. If anything interesting shows up I'll post again on Sunday.

Wyobirds I think for you to get any appreciable increase in pattern you will need to use some sort of spreder device weather it be a SpredR, X or soda straw

OOps, what I meant to say was that the original Tula choke worn by the MU8 skeet gun was designed to work with Russian paper shells with felt or fibre wads, not the Perazzi!
I still have a few of those Russion shells from the World Moving Target Championships in Endomtom, 1983. Faint aroma of burning horsehair on firing!
Mike

You will probably have much better results if you don't use over shot cards. Comparing shotshells with overshot cards to those without is like comparing broccoli to peaches.

There are some very good 16ga 15/16oz loads in 67mm cases with fiber wads available if you decide to use factory ammo. You can find them by googling "16ga royal game". Of course that's not going to help you with the choke.

Lower, lower, tighter. Much easier to get tight patterns at lower velocity. The trick is to get your tight long range pattern at high velocity so the pellets have suffiecient energy to do the job.

Back in my early days of reloading the "standard" 1200 fps load most every trap shooter in my circle used was a Federal paper case, Federal primer, 23 grains of Red Dot, a nitro card wad, two Feltan-Bluestreaks, and 1 1/8 ounce of # 7 1/2 or #8. Then along came the little PGS (plastic gas seal) wad to replace the nitro card, and for the same 1200 fps you could drop the powder charge to 18 grains of Red Dot.

Grenadier the purpose of this exercise I am trying to get an open pattern from a tightly choked barrel. I'm quite sure that at normal hunting distances of 35 yards or less (I'm not comfortable shooting game over that distance any longer) that there will be no discernable difference betweem rool crimped and folded crim pattern performance so I'll shoot a couple extra patterns with the same load as the roll crimped shells and we shall see.

Excellent. Please let us know how things work out.

A few years back BASC in the UK commissioned lethality study on game cartridges, part of which was a measurement of pattern percentage variations between fibre and monowad cartridges.

In cartridges loaded as nearly the same as can be there was no discernible difference in pattern percentages. Both sets had modern star crimps in plastic cases without a card overwad.

Twicebarrel If you'd like a copy of the study just drop me your email addy to MOLLOP@AOL.com. I think I've got it stored on my No.2 PC.

Regards

Eug

PS as an afterthought ... the only spreader loads I've seen that actually worked had a cruciform insert running lengthways in the shot charge. You might be able to buy them in the US. Alternatively you could spend the evenings cutting bits of cardboard into to shape and glueing them together.

Now I'm confused again. The more I learn the less I know.
Up until recently I thaught the general opinion was that the advent of plastic shot cups revolutionized shot gun patterns. The standard chokes of M/F 75 years ago changed to I/M because of tighter patterns with plastic. Some gun writers tried to convince us that chokes in a shotguns aren't even necessary any more. Now I'm being told that at normal ranges it really doesn't make a difference.
Is there a simple explanation? I guess there usually isn't.

[quote=eugene molloyPS as an afterthought ... the only spreader loads I've seen that actually worked had a cruciform insert running lengthwise in the shot charge. You might be able to buy them in the US. Alternatively you could spend the evenings cutting bits of cardboard into to shape and gluing them together. [/quote]

Eugene thanks for the offer of the study but this little project is a non scientific test to see how much pattern improvement I can expect to achieve at normal hunting ranges by using a commercially available disc and post spreader device (Polywad Spred-R) commonly available here in the Colonies in my tightly choked 1880s vintage Lefever and 1920s vintage A H Fox. After shooting hundreds of roll crimped shells I have the feeling that there will be no improvement in pattern using folded crimp but since I'm going to the trouble of shooting a number of loads with a number of guns throwing in a couple folded crimped shells to validate my perception seems like a good idea.

Twice: Could I get more information on the various types of spreaders. I am familiar with the yellow overshot discs with the small shaft molded into it but have not used the others. Many thanks.

Twicebarrel wrote,, "Eugene thanks for the offer of the study but this little project is a non scientific test to see how much pattern improvement I can expect to achieve at normal hunting ranges by using a commercially available disc and post spreader device (Polywad Spred-R) commonly available here in the Colonies in my tightly choked 1880s vintage Lefever and 1920s vintage A H Fox. After shooting hundreds of roll crimped shells I have the feeling that there will be no improvement in pattern using folded crimp but since I'm going to the trouble of shooting a number of loads with a number of guns throwing in a couple folded crimped shells to validate my perception seems like a good idea."

I'm attempting to open up the patterns on a tight Parker except with brass hulls and 3/4, 1, and 1 1/8 oz. loads. I'll let you know what works for me.

Made maybe too many "cruciform inserts" with a small plastic photo trimmer and shellboxes. I didn't know glue was required. As for the "learning more, knowing less" syndrome, TERC is not the sole sufferer of this malady! It taxes credulity to note that Molloy has a patterning study with results which illustrate that shot scrub doesn't matter, that mylar sleeves and shotcups don't matter, that's it's all same same. What shot counting protocol did your study employ, Eug? 20 and 30" circles or other?

jack

The results of the cited study do not sound "logic" (to me at least).

JC

This is the way UMC did it back in the day (1905) --



Here is how Western Cartridge Co. did it in 1937 --



By 1951 the Xpert Brush Load had gotten the folded crimp --

There are many different sizes and shapes of forcing cones. We hear about the benefits of certain forcing cones for trap use, target use, lower recoil, higher velocity, etc. In fact, nearly every manufacturer's forcing cone design is a bit different than the others. Granting that various forcing cone shapes offer whatever advantages are claimed, the issue of wads becomes primarily one of providing a good gas seal in the forcing cone and barrel, and secondly one of buffering the shock of the load going from zero fps to 1200 fps in a fraction of a second.

In "the olden days" fiber wads made of tough natural fibers, usually wool felt, often didn't expand enough under pressure to provide a good gas seal through the varying diameter of a forcing cone. A hard card was used to separate the powder from the wad but it was not uncommon for shooters to find some of their pellets were fused together by hot gasses leaking into the shot column. Clumps of two, three, or more pellets just don't pattern or fly very well. To mitigate the problem, forcing cone designs tended to be short by today's standards and the concept of "over bore" was not popular. Loading with multiple wads also helped. For, example, in the 1930's Stoeger listed "white felt", "black edge", "pink edge", "nitro felt", "grease proof", and "seal-tite composition" wads and recommended them to be used in various combinations. They were also offered in "one-half gauges, cut to order".

Then plastic wads came along. They were advertised by their manufacturers as the panacea for all problems with shot, pressure, and patterning. In general, plastic wads have a flared base that expands under pressure and helps prevent the flow of hot gasses into the shot column. The flared base maintains a decent seal regardless of the shape and length of the forcing cone. Built in "buffers" are incorporated into the design to reduce deformation caused when pellets smash against pellets when the load is fired. Today, there are dozens of different configurations of plastic wads, all touted as better than the competition's. Some of the designs are so bizarre that they must surely have been developed with the sole purpose of having something new and different to introduce into the marketplace.

Good quality fiber wads of today are not the same as the simple felt wads of the past. They are thicker and are made with a mixture of man-made and natural materials. I just cut a top quality 12 gauge cartridge open and here is what I found. Over the powder was a very hard card more than 1/8" thick that is fully impregnated with a waxy substance. On top of that was a fiber wad nearly 3/4" thick. The fiber wad has a black film of some plastic-like material bonded on each end. The wad itself consists of numerous layers of "fiber" compressed together. I have noticed when firing these that, unlike felt wads, they disintegrate when they leave the barrel. I don't know if it is the plastic film, the composition of the fiber, the diameter, the long length, or all of it together but whatever it is, it works. I have fired modern fiber loads in 12, 20, and 28 gauge in new and old pump guns, several autos, several doubles, and two single barrel trap guns. I also chronographed and patterned a dozen 12 gauge shotgun cartridges, some with fiber wads and some with plastic wads. I fired several of each of the tested loads out of an auto, a modern O/U, and a 100 year old SxS. I did not find any significant downrange difference between good quality modern loads with fiber wads and good quality modern loads with plastic wads.

The more you choke a gun the more uneven the pattern becomes. You can't smash hundreds of shot pellets through a constriction at the speed of sound without deforming the shot to some degree. That is one reason harder shot shoots better patterns, i.e. being harder it resists deformation.

There is an excellent article written over 100 years ago by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, a noted shooting authority in his day who is credited with many thousands of birds shot. He explains the advantages of cylinder bore guns and choked guns. His words are still true today. The article is called The Merits of Chokes and Cylinders, as Applied to Their Effect On Game and Suitability to the Shooter. If you want to read the entire article, three parts, you can find it here:

The Merit of Chokes and Cylinders

Here is a small excerpt:

"There is no doubt a choked gun shoots with more force than a cylinder, though only slightly; but I have never found this superiority exist to such an extent as to cause any noticeable effect on game at sporting-ranges, though at the target the full-choke will penetrate at 40 yards a couple more sheets of paper than the cylinder.

What a choke does is this: it carries its charge of shot closer, and so, of course, puts more pellets into the game than can a cylinder; and this attribute at a long distance naturally tells in favour of the choke, provided the aim is sufficiently correct to place its smaller shot-circle on the mark. Up to 35 or 40 yards (the latter being a long shot), a cylinder or a slightlychoked gun is far easier to hit with, and therefore a more deadly gun to use, than a full-choke, and either of the former will place amply sufficient pellets in the game to stop it well and neatly without wounding, even at a longer distance. At 35 yards a full-choke will place in the game half as many more pellets than are required to kill, which not only spoils its flesh for the table, but prevents the bird being kept till fit for cooking, from its perforated condition.*

* I have seen driven partridges—birds which a shooter is often obliged to fire at within 18 to 20 yards or not at all— so shattered by the mass of shot plastered into them by a full-choke that nine to the dozen were best suited for ferret-meat! Last season, for the sake of experiment, I killed six driven partridges with a full-choke at the ordinary range at which these birds come over a high hedge in a level country, and on reaching home I counted the holes drilled through their skins, which were respectively, 37, 33, 32, 29, 21, 19. The next day I killed six more birds with a cylinder at the same stand, and at the same average distances; result in pellets to birds—17, 15, 12, 12, 9, 7. The latter six birds were brought down as clean as could be wished, and dropped without a flutter. These were, however, all fit to eat, the previous six being only fit to drink in the form of soup."

I remember those old loads vividly. They shot well if "hard" shot was used...not so well with the "chilled" shot that was about all we had available, at that time. I also remember that these loads were not especially gentle "on the back end".

I also remember what happened when shooters went to plastic OP wads. (The first were Remington H-Wads, I believe.) A lot of guys either did not or would not reduce their powder charges, which often led to fair amount of unnecessary wear and tear on both shooters and guns. (I remember one little guy [Why does it always seem to be the short ones?] who proclaimed to one and all, "I'll be damned if I'm going to spend FIVE DOLLARS for a new charge bar". So, he ended up with a raging flinch and a cracked receiver in his brand-new Winchester Model 1200 trap gun.)

For those who retain any interest/curiosity in spreader load effectiveness in tight choked barrels I finally got around to counting pellet strikes on my pattern paper shot last weekend a chore I avoid like the plague but in this instance not too bad.

Remember this is by no means a scientific study but a simple comparison using a small sample size to satisfy my curiosity about the effects of Spred-R device on pattern at normal hunting range.

The gun is a late 1880's Lefever 16 gauge, 30 inch barrels choked .040 which is .010 tighter than the modern full choke. Patterns were fired at 30 yards.

Ammunition tested were:

Load #1 7/8th ounces hard #8 loaded in Cheddite paper hulls trimmed to 2 9/16 inches using 17.9 grains of Unique with a 1/8 inch over powder wad, 1/2 inch Federal Waxed ring fiber wad topped with another 1/8th inch nitro card. 3/4 ounce of shot was loaded into the shell followed by a SpredR disc and topped with another 1/8th ounce of shot. The shell was closed with a .030 overshot card and roll crimped with a 3/16th deep crimp. Estimated MV 1180 fps chamber pressure at or less than 8,000psi. Pattern results were about as expected shot #1 64% density but there were four voids that would result in a missed clay target or quail. #2 produced a 70% pattern density with 2 voids that would result in a missed target or quail size bird.

Loan #2 (control load) 7/8th ounce hard #8 shot loaded in a plastic Cheddite hull trimmed to 2 9/16th inches using 17.9 grains of Unique under a Gualandi 1621 wad roll crimped with a .030 overshot cared with a 3/16th deep crimp. This load also performed as expected shooting 99% patterns at 30 yards. Pattern was about perfect with even shot distribution and a good solid 19 inch inner core.

Load #3 was an add on to confirm or dispel the notion that folded crimps are superior to roll crimps. Since I didn't have any empty Cheddite hulls I had to result to a load consisting of 7/8th ounce of hard shot loaded in a Remington SP hull using 16 grains of Unique under a Remington R16 wad. This is one of my favorite clay target and quail loads in my Fox Sterlingworth Brush model and has broken many targets and taken may birds but I was a bit surprised to see what the load looks like on paper. Pattern density was as expected at 99% but the distribution of shot was not nearly so even as the roll crimped loadss, the center core was a very tight 15 inches and distribution of the shot was in the shape of a football.

As I stated earlier this is by no means a scientific analyse and I am sure your results will differ, after all you probably won't be shooting your patterns with a 120 year old 16 gauge gun with .040 chokes but it does show the effectiveness of the Spred-R at modrate hunting distance using tightly choked guns.

Jack, read it for yourself. Here is a link to the study in PDF format.

BASC

The fibre v monowad tests are about half way down.

It's interesting to see that grenadier and Mike Bonner the only two folks who made experimental comparisons found nothing to controvert the general conclusion "Clearly these findings relate to the one cartridge tested i.e from one manufacturer, one cartridge type and one pellet size only. We cannot assume necessarily that they apply to other cartridges of other makes, sizes and types (including wad design)- but they do raise a question over the traditional views of plastic wads".


Eug

I've read it, Eugene. Makes sense in the limited context of one load.

jack