Just a thought...plastic wads

[Scully]

One of the lads in our syndicate ( a farmer ) while up at Westlands clay shoot last weekend, commented on the amount of plastic wads everywhere. 

Reading a post in another section regarding the use of steel shot only in a comp’ as Holland have banned lead shot, had me wondering. 

If the time comes when plastic wads are banned as the result of an ever increasing campaign to reduce the amount of plastic worldwide, is any manufacturer busy developing a replacement non-plastic wad capable of preventing steel shot from coming into contact with internal barrels? 

[ditchman]

there is a plastic that was developed several years ago made from wheat starch...........performs just like plastic but when it gets wet it dissolves...im sure when the manufactures are FORCED ...the will find something.....they really should be proactive rather than reactive in this day and age

[Smokersmith]

Any forward thinking company would be developing and launching something like this for both steel and lead, as the pressure on plastics is clear for all to see.

[panoma1]

Gamebore already produces a 12 bore cartridge which uses a totally enclosed biodegradable wadcup made from card.....I think they work out at something like 15p per wad for homeloading?

I have been using them for hard shot in 8 bore for some years!

[Salopian]

This is a real issue that needs addressing now , not when we are forced to .

I have a scientist friend who has developed a totally biodegradable wad , he has sent samples to BASC, Eley , Hull & Gamebore for evaluation /implementation .Only Gamebore have replied saying they already have developed a bio-wad.

I spoke to Eley and they said it was too expensive (pennies) to incorporate into cartridges , I also asked them about moving totally to paper cases , answer 'Too expensive".

Now if clayshooting cartridges are available at circa £240 per thousand ,and Game cartridges available at circa £460 per thousand , where is the extra expense of paper /boi degradable components ???? Or is it just a case of greed?

Degradable wads have been available for over thirty years at least why the reluctance to use?

[Stimo22]

We have a problem on our duck pond where we can not use plastic wads. Gamebore Silver steel have a fibre wad but they are 3" so ok for us but do not understand why a cartridge company do not get this problem sorted

[Yellow Bear]

It would be useful is they were readily available in 75 both for clays and for pigeon (there is a market for steel shot birds both for reptile keepers and Falconers bet farmers object, with good reason, to plaswads)

[figgy]

Eley have a photo degradable plas wad and it works, after a few months with the sun and daylight they just crumble away.

[Smokersmith]

If only we had a body that looked after both shooting and conservation to help drive this ...

[TIGHTCHOKE]

3 hours ago, Salopian said:

This is a real issue that needs addressing now , not when we are forced to .

I have a scientist friend who has developed a totally biodegradable wad , he has sent samples to BASC, Eley , Hull & Gamebore for evaluation /implementation .Only Gamebore have replied saying they already have developed a bio-wad.

I spoke to Eley and they said it was too expensive (pennies) to incorporate into cartridges , I also asked them about moving totally to paper cases , answer 'Too expensive".

Now if clayshooting cartridges are available at circa £240 per thousand ,and Game cartridges available at circa £460 per thousand , where is the extra expense of paper /boi degradable components ???? Or is it just a case of greed?

Degradable wads have been available for over thirty years at least why the reluctance to use?

Surely this is down to the manufacturers to sort out, if offered at a reasonable price then people will start to use them.

6 minutes ago, Smokersmith said:

If only we had a body that looked after both shooting and conservation to help drive this ...

By Jove that's a cracking idea!

[Gordon R]

I recall reading somewhere about photo-degradable or bio-degradable wads, which had accumulated at a clay ground over many, many years, but never actually degraded. To be of real use, just how long should they take to degrade?

Edited May 2, 2018 by Gordon R

[stagboy]

I think photodegradable is even worse than non-degradable, because when exposed to sunlight it fragments into tiny pieces of plastic that never actually disappear but are taken up  even more readily by wildlife. Not readily visible to human eyes when that happens, but all the worse for that. Old style plastic tree guards are made of this stuff, and I have some that are 20 years old and still standing, looking very shabby, with pieces scattered about.

What you need is something truly biodegradable, which breaks down into molecules and is effectively eaten by microbes. Organic stuff like cardboard, paper, natural fibre or felt. Don't know how long the necessary bio-digestion actually takes - could be months or even years, in certain conditions. But at least is does happen eventually, unlike conventional plastic, which remains intact forever.

 

[bluesj]

Could PVA not be used for wads?

[Uilleachan]

Fibre formed wad cup is the answer. 

[PPP]

This was raised on here a few years ago and the the poor sod in question was shot down in flames.. finally due to unrelenting news coverage people are starting to listen

[anser2]

13 hours ago, Scully said:

One of the lads in our syndicate ( a farmer ) while up at Westlands clay shoot last weekend, commented on the amount of plastic wads everywhere. 

Reading a post in another section regarding the use of steel shot only in a comp’ as Holland have banned lead shot, had me wondering. 

If the time comes when plastic wads are banned as the result of an ever increasing campaign to reduce the amount of plastic worldwide, is any manufacturer busy developing a replacement non-plastic wad capable of preventing steel shot from coming into contact with internal barrels? 

Gamebore already market felt wads for steel shells - Silver Steel-. Got a box , but never got around to using them. Saving them in case I  am on a driven day with a duck drive. With the push to keep plastic out of the environment sooner or later, we will have to have them for wildfowling cartridges.

Edited May 2, 2018 by anser2

[Vince Green]

Plastic wads were a big con perpetrated by the American cartridge companies on the shooting public in the middle of the last century, about fifty to sixty years ago.

The industry had developed much faster high speed cartridge loading machines for their production lines but the conventional fibre wads were the weak link. They could not cope with the higher automated loading processes and speeds, so they had a problem.  The market was becoming price sensitive and to get the price down they had to produce higher volumes.

Plastic wads solved that problem and were much cheaper to produce in bulk but would the shooting public go for them? No they probably wouldn't, why should they?.

So a truly massive public relations exercise kicked in talking about supposed advantages of plastic wads like better groups, harder hitting, cushioning etc. Shooting magazines, mindful of their adverting revenues,  swung into action behind it claiming in articles all sorts of benefits, many of which were just pure hype. Much of that hype was repeated so often people still believe it and repeat it today.

Its the industry's problem not ours. Plastic wads don't exist for our benefit and they never have.

Its much the same with plastic cases, even if they don't end up in the hedges for a couple of thousand years they still end up in land fill somewhere.

Edited May 3, 2018 by Vince Green

[ClemFandango]

21 hours ago, panoma1 said:

Gamebore already produces a 12 bore cartridge which uses a totally enclosed biodegradable wadcup made from card.....I think they work out at something like 15p per wad for homeloading?

I have been using them for hard shot in 8 bore for some years!

Homeloaders leading the way. 

[TIDES EDGE]

As I have said before on other posts Game Bores fibre cup is the way forward and should be used in all cartridges mass production would bring the cost down they make them in 65mm steel clay cartridges so it is possible.

[Salopian]

" If only we had a body that looked after both shooting and conservation to help drive this ..."

My Scientist friend gave some to BASC to evaluate , but he says they were not interested .

 

I do believe PVA is the medium used , but many years ago Sporting Gun did an article about Potato starch also being used .

Edited May 3, 2018 by Salopian

[Penelope]

23 hours ago, figgy said:

Eley have a photo degradable plas wad and it works, after a few months with the sun and daylight they just crumble away.

But the plastic still remains in micro particles.

[SpringDon]

Excuse my dimness but I use fibre only for both clay and pigeons. It seems to be some sort of tar paper stuff. Is there a reason that this can’t be used for steel. (Higher pressures maybe?)

 

[Brodie]

Armusa Green Shoot cartridges used a water soluble wad which reviews showed degraded quite quickly. Don't know if they're still available. Purbeck Shooting Supplies, I believe, were UK agents.

[panoma1]

11 minutes ago, SpringDon said:

Excuse my dimness but I use fibre only for both clay and pigeons. It seems to be some sort of tar paper stuff. Is there a reason that this can’t be used for steel. (Higher pressures maybe?)

 

Hard shot such as steel, needs to be retained within a totally enclosed shotcup to prevent the shot damaging the bore when fired!

[PPP]

27 minutes ago, panoma1 said:

Hard shot such as steel, needs to be retained within a totally enclosed shotcup to prevent the shot damaging the bore when fired!

If only there were a proven, widely available, more effective shot material available that ideally had been proven over hundreds of years and was able to be loaded with fibre wads and for all calibres....oh, hang on a moment...