Fredwalton Posted May 31, 2015 Report Share Posted May 31, 2015 I've just watched a video on fibre and plastic wads, I use fibre as I guess it's better for the countryside but from the video it seems that plastic wads hold the shot together for longer. Just wondering what people use and is there any advantage or disadvantage to using fibre wads? Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay_Russell Posted May 31, 2015 Report Share Posted May 31, 2015 Always use fibre myself. My shooting is over farmland and my syndi only allows fibre Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
den5008 Posted May 31, 2015 Report Share Posted May 31, 2015 Fibrer for me as well.Nothing worse than seeing a drilled field full of plastic wads. atb Den Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pothunter Posted May 31, 2015 Report Share Posted May 31, 2015 This is the "is there or is there not a god" question. There are people who see it from either side who will never agree with the other view. It doesn't matter what evidence is produced; there will always be counter evidence and counter argument. I use fibres for the reasons above, and because they work fine. (By the way, it seems to me very counter-intuitive and weird that you can't get 20 bore steel cartridges in fibre wads). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ehb102 Posted May 31, 2015 Report Share Posted May 31, 2015 (edited) (By the way, it seems to me very counter-intuitive and weird that you can't get 20 bore steel cartridges in fibre wads).I saw a presentation from Robert Everitt of Hull Cartridge yesterday. He addressed this very issue, saying that you need the plastic cup to keep the steel shot together. Thus you don't have lead but you do have plaswad littering the countryside. There was a good bit about the environmental impact of such things. ETA of course you already know such things but I found it very interesting coming from a cartridge manufacturer who makes steel cartridges. Edited May 31, 2015 by ehb102 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitchrat Posted May 31, 2015 Report Share Posted May 31, 2015 I've just watched a video on fibre and plastic wads, I use fibre as I guess it's better for the countryside but from the video it seems that plastic wads hold the shot together for longer. Just wondering what people use and is there any advantage or disadvantage to using fibre wads? Thanks IF the plastic cup holds the shot pattern tighter for longer, you can always use a tighter choke if you think you need to..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fredwalton Posted May 31, 2015 Author Report Share Posted May 31, 2015 IF the plastic cup holds the shot pattern tighter for longer, you can always use a tighter choke if you think you need to..... I could but I have a fixed choke gun Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitchrat Posted May 31, 2015 Report Share Posted May 31, 2015 I saw a presentation from Robert Everitt of Hull Cartridge yesterday. He addressed this very issue, saying that you need the plastic cup to keep the steel shot together. Thus you don't have lead but you do have plaswad littering the countryside. There was a good bit about the environmental impact of such things. ETA of course you already know such things but I found it very interesting coming from a cartridge manufacturer who makes steel cartridges. I thought the plastic cup was to stop the steel shot touching and perhaps wearing out the bore of the barrel. So fibre wads with steel shot wouldn't make sense unless the landowner requires fibre and the law requires non-toxic. Then you have to go to bismuth or the like at £2+ a pop!! I could but I have a fixed choke gun Nothing that money can't fix!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pothunter Posted May 31, 2015 Report Share Posted May 31, 2015 There's plenty of wildfowling loads in 12b fibre wads, just not in 20b. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest cookoff013 Posted June 1, 2015 Report Share Posted June 1, 2015 thats where "niceshot" can come in, just reload a fibre lead shell with this soft nontox. costs alot but is available Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snow white Posted June 1, 2015 Report Share Posted June 1, 2015 People that use plastic wads on farm land have no respect for the farmer whose land they shoot over.I stop using plastic in the 70is when after a good day on pigeons 250 birds the field was covered in plaswads. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest cookoff013 Posted June 1, 2015 Report Share Posted June 1, 2015 People that use plastic wads on farm land have no respect for the farmer whose land they shoot over.I stop using plastic in the 70is when after a good day on pigeons 250 birds the field was covered in plaswads. one could also argue about the "lead" being thrown onto the land, let alone the "plastic". it could also be argued that throwing steel out into the fields are bad... but i wont go into that.. shotguns create a huge amount waste. i`m not really picking an argument, i think photodegradable plastics are the future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savhmr Posted June 1, 2015 Report Share Posted June 1, 2015 Personally, I use fibre wad where I'm shooting over land where sheep and cattle graze. What concerns me more is the cumulative toxicity effect of large syndicates over shooting comparatively small land areas. I do not belong to a syndicate and am fortunate enough to have land where I'm the only person permitted to shoot by the landowner. Bounding this land is land used by a syndicate. To put some figures to the effects they're having on that land, they shoot at fixed pegs including several pond sites (for duck) and one afternoon in December we counted over a dozen guns shooting what seemed a non stop barrage for minutes at a time on each peg. We estimated that each gun could well have shot up to a few hundred cartridges over the 4 or 5 hours of the shoot that day. That equates to 72Kg of lead on the land per afternoon. With up to 3 shoots per week over 4 months, even if halving the amount shot, that's close on 2 tonnes of lead spread over less than 100 acres per season, and after just 5 seasons, 10 tonnes of lead, so if one were to divide that over the realistic area that shot falls on (possibly no more than 20 acres) that amounts to 500Kg of lead distributed per acre in just 5 short years! That, to me, is appalling and I think that such shoots should be using non-tox at the very least I know they're not because we found some of their spent carts ont our land but that's a different story). That lead is a commutative toxin and there are loads of watercourses it affects as well as the health of the animals grazing it and ultimately us who eat the animals. Food for thought. Never thought about it that way previously because I've always shot land in small groups or on my tod which I prefer, but large syndicates I think have a responsibility to limit the damage that they may be inflicting on the countryside Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbiep Posted June 1, 2015 Report Share Posted June 1, 2015 If you'd ever seen a vet post-mortem a calf, and the cause of death has been determined to be a plaswad stuck in the windpipe, you'd never use plaswads again. Which is why, on my land, using plaswads is absolutely forbidden. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snow white Posted June 1, 2015 Report Share Posted June 1, 2015 (edited) Saghmr I would take a recount on the number of shots fired I shoot some reley big driven pheasant shoots 150/200 bird days and if we shot 50 cartridges each a day we are lucky. Edited June 1, 2015 by snow white Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savhmr Posted June 1, 2015 Report Share Posted June 1, 2015 (edited) Maybe, but even if the number of carts was say 50 per day (and on some days, the shooting is so intensive, it's difficult to accept they're only shooting two boxes each), the point is that lead is a cumulative toxin so over lets say 10 to 20 years over the same patch of land, it's a considerable amount of lead and statistically significant in terms of pollution. I'm not anti-syndicate, far from it, but I do think that larger syndicates shooting relatively small acreages need to consider the longer term impacts of their sport and perhaps ban lead shot as well as plastiwads if it is to be a longer term thing. Edited June 1, 2015 by Savhmr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snow white Posted June 1, 2015 Report Share Posted June 1, 2015 Lead it a natural element that is already in the ground plastic wads are not.and if you read adout the shooting in the states they are complaining about some of the duck ponds which are very shallow turning brown with the steel shot going rusty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon R Posted June 1, 2015 Report Share Posted June 1, 2015 I'm not anti-syndicate, far from it, Had me fooled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fenboy Posted June 1, 2015 Report Share Posted June 1, 2015 Saghmr I would take a recount on the number of shots fired I shoot some reley big driven pheasant shoots 150/200 bird days and if we shot 50 cartridges each a day we are lucky. A 200 bird day with a team of 8 guns shooting at 2-1 equates to a average of 50 cartridges each and very few shoots will have a team of guns shooting to those standards so it would be perfectly possible to get through that amount of cartridges , also consider a 200 bird day is not a big day to some !. That said its not good when fellow shooters are suggesting bans on lead for othe reasons than those already with us . I myself am happy using plastic as my farms are all arable and the farmers have no issue with it , I do pick up as many wads as I can when I have been shooting on drilling etc though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savhmr Posted June 1, 2015 Report Share Posted June 1, 2015 Lead it a natural element that is already in the ground plastic wads are not.and if you read adout the shooting in the states they are complaining about some of the duck ponds which are very shallow turning brown with the steel shot going rusty Not in the concentrations that's found in on over-shot land it's not. All I'm reasonably trying to point out is that some land is inappropriately shot (ie small relative acreage shot too often by very large numbers of guns). It may not be that common place, but it is thought provoking, especially where animals are grazing said land. I'm not suggesting legislative bans on anything, far from it (I support keeping lead shot from any legislative ban list as hunting has already been clobbered by successive governments to placate bleeding heart interference mogers) but do think that some larger gunned syndicates should perhaps give more thought about the longer term effects on their own shoots. Surely, by being responsible as a community, that helps our cause and wards off outside interference? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motty Posted June 1, 2015 Report Share Posted June 1, 2015 People that use plastic wads on farm land have no respect for the farmer whose land they shoot over.I stop using plastic in the 70is when after a good day on pigeons 250 birds the field was covered in plaswads. I'm sorry, but that is absolute rubbish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenholland Posted June 1, 2015 Report Share Posted June 1, 2015 I always tidy up in the hide when I have finished so why not the field fibre works for me. plastics no more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dipper Posted June 1, 2015 Report Share Posted June 1, 2015 Going back in time again there was a biogradable green wad .After a few months on the ground you could pick them up and they would crumble.They were called Bio wad think they were made by kent. Down side was they had a short shelve life they were ok for the reloader as you would know how old they were. But for the cartridge makers they were not ideal .Dont think it would be rocker science to slow down the bio grading proces .Dipper. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mutiny Posted June 1, 2015 Report Share Posted June 1, 2015 Surely, by being responsible as a community, that helps our cause and wards off outside interference?It could be said that it would hurt our cause - game shoots switching to steel could be seen as an admission that shooting lead is terrible for the environment, and also that the majority of shooters are happy to shoot steel/see it as a viable alternative to lead, which is a contentious issue! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dodeer Posted June 2, 2015 Report Share Posted June 2, 2015 I've always preferred fibre wads myself as plastic look bad when found on the ground. For performance I don't think there's a difference but that's just my opinion. I'd like to see more manufacturers provide bio degrading wads but to be honest I don't think it will be long before most UK manufacturers just make fibre. Hull and Gamebore do mostly fibre now for the game market, and mostly the imported stuff is plastic as costs less to produce. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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