doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Any benefits to modern plastic wads?

I have not seen this question on this board before but im sure that its a old topic. Is there any benefits to modern plastic wads in old shotguns that the chockes are intergrated into almost the entire length of the barrel? Or are they manley beneficial to modern shotguns where the chokes are in the last few inches of the firearms? Will a old shotgun pattern better with the plastic wads or the old fiber wads?

I believe you may have a misconception of the chokes in older guns. While some barrels may have some taper from breach to muzzle, the choke in all the barrels I've seen was still in the last few inches.

I shoot plastic wads in old guns. A modern plastic wad with a shotcup will provide a tighter pattern in general. A modern plastic wad without a shotcup will have a pattern not much different than a felt wad.

"Better" is just a question of tighter versus looser, IMO.

All my doubles were made in the past 30 years or so; some very recently and all have fixed chokes and all the chokes are in the last few inches of barrel (that's how chokes work) and I shoot modern shells with plastic shotcups all the time.

I think some very few guns were made with full-taper barrels but I'm sure more knowledgeable people can comment on that.

I have looked for and talked about tapered bore guns for 50 years. Stories of Parkers and LeFever tapered bore guns are out there but I have never seen one. Even had a friend in PA who was going to bore a sleeve job with a full taper but never finished the project.

bill

I'd like to hear from someone that has such a gun in hand. I don't mean one that has .002 - .005 taper which could just be incidental, but one that has a lot of taper that was obviously intended to impart a choke effect.

As Chuck H. indicates, "better" can be in the eye of the beholder.

If "better" involves relative pattern density, then the nod most often will go to loads that use modern plastic wads. This will be due to the wads' ability to seal powder gasses and in their ability to reduce shot deformation. However, this ability can come at the cost of "hot" pattern cores and "overchoked" shot counts. "Better" can also come at the cost of plastic fouling even though lead fouling is usually reduced.

The "magic" tends to be more the result of wad design than of wad materials. Greener describes a very "modernistic" one-piece paper wad, "The Swedish Wad", that delivered some very impressive results. Years ago, an article in "The American Rifleman" described simple light cardboard "shot concentrators" (shot cups). I have made these devices and I have used them to good effect.

Greener describes a tapered barrel (page 254) and illustrates it (page 261, barrel #3)

However, he distinguishes such a barrel from a "choked" one and refers to it as a type of "cylinder" barrel.

Here are a couple of Lefever crossbolt guns with "tapered bores". The first one is a Grade 5B and the second is an Optimus. Not all of the crossbolts I have measured have tapered bores, but some do. Measurements are taken at 2 inch intervals from the muzzle.

We're probably about due for a new thread here. But, dismissing that, Daryl - what thought have you given to that step that occurs in the first set of barrels at about 10-12 inches?

5E, I see there is an Increasing Decrease in diameter from about 16" to 10" from the muzzle. I am no expert at all on this. Maybe they were trying to get the bore diameter smaller as they approached the choke area so they could use choking tools made for more "normal" diameters. What do you and others think ?