What Do You Prefer,Plastic Or Fibre Wads Cartridges?

[marsh man]

I dare say that over 95% of my shooting over the years have been using cartridges with plastic wads , the odd times I have used fibre wads I could notice the difference with the recoil and to me had a bit more pock in them than the plastic ones I use.

Last Tuesday we had our main beaters day and as I am not to keen standing on a peg for long periods I volunteered to pick up and take my gun to clear up any cock birds that came back , when I looked at what cartridges I had in the cabinet I found some boxes of Black Gold fibre wads , as I was told these are one of the top of the range shells I took a couple of boxes of these instead of my cheap pigeon shells .

On the first two drives I never had a shot then on the third drive I more or less knew where they would come out of the corner of the wood , I had two guns either side of the hedge and both of them are tidy shots , all the single ones and the odd pair they dealt with well before they got anywhere near me , then four burst out of the cover , one gun got a nice r + l and the other gun knocked one down with his second shot , this left one that was going to come directly over my head at a average range , the first shot seemed to catch the end of his tail and the second shot just done enough to drop him well into the wood , with the drive nearly over I took my dog to the area where I thought he came down and touch wood he soon found it still alive , well to cut a long story short I done more or less the same on another one after dinner , after that I just concentrated on picking up and didn't get any more shooting .

Now moving on to Friday , we had another little shoot to go on that was a walk one stand one , I knew I had enough shells in the motor so I didn't bother to put any more in my bag , we walked the first one and stood on the second one , I got off to a bad start by letting a lovely Partridge go past without firing a shot because I thought they finished the day before , as it turned out the captain looked on his phone at the B A S C website to confirm they were still in season , anyhow , a nice hen bird gave me a shot that had no effect then a cock bird was only tickled , this was doing my head in a bit so in desperation I used one of my 28gm Velocity 7 1/2 I had in my other pocket for the next bird, and yes you have guessed right I killed it out right which as it turned out was the last bird of the drive , I then heard a couple of beaters shout , about time you got one  , well again to cut a long story short I only had four more shots during the afternoon and using the little cheap pigeon cartridges they were all dead as dead could be , weather it is in the mind I don't know but it restored my confidence and I felt I was back on form , so unless I am forced to use fibre wads for the time being I will give them a miss.

So if anyone want to swap about 400 Black Gold 32gm fibre wad shells for Clear pigeon or something similar by all means get in touch .

[GingerCat]

I prefer fibre and always have. Never noticed any difference on birds or clays from plastic. I miss them all the same. The ones I hit tend to die quite convincingly as well. Range wise it's the same again.  

My preference comes from not leaving little bits of plastic all over the place or trying to remove the fouling from my barrels. 

[JRDS]

I would only ever use Plastic on a Clay ground.  Fibres work fine in both my 12 & 20.

[Walker570]

I reload all of my 410 shells these days and use a slightly modified version of the load put out by John at Folkestone Engineering.  I use his fibre wads and over powder cards and a weighed 18.7gr of either #6 or #7 shot over 19.7grns of SP3.  I will probably go all #7s this next year/season as in my 410 they seem to do the job if I do.  I have shot a lot of plastic wad shells both 12,16, and 410 and can honestly say I have not noticed any deterioration in ratio of kills since going all felt.  I am always loath to blame my tools, but on one occasion I did by a slab of 12 gauge from the local farm supply shop and had similar results to you, lots of feathers but no kills. Last year I did buy a slab of Lylevale fibre 410s and on the first outing with them appeared to be missing more birds than usual until my wife who was standing with me said, your hitting all those birds you know and then a picker up about 200yrds behind came up and said he had picked a couple of the birds I had shot which where runners.  Needless to say, those cartridges are now kept simply for dispatching tree rats in catch cages, I wouldn't use one on a tree rat up in a tree even.

 

[rimfire4969]

I will only use fibre, had my best season ever with Blackgold. I find them very consistent and have no wish to leave more litter/plastic around the countryside. 

As far as I’m concerned I would Have no problem if plastic was banned everywhere apart from clay grounds. But that is a slippery slope. 

[Jason_ox]

If it was up to me not only would we all be using fibre, we would all be using paper cases as well! 

[Ultrastu]

Just now, Walker570 said:

I reload all of my 410 shells these days and use a slightly modified version of the load put out by John at Folkestone Engineering.  I use his fibre wads and over powder cards and a weighed 18.7gr of either #6 or #7 shot over 19.7grns of SP3.  I will probably go all #7s this next year/season as in my 410 they seem to do the job if I do.  I have shot a lot of plastic wad shells both 12,16, and 410 and can honestly say I have not noticed any deterioration in ratio of kills since going all felt.  I am always loath to blame my tools, but on one occasion I did by a slab of 12 gauge from the local farm supply shop and had similar results to you, lots of feathers but no kills. Last year I did buy a slab of Lylevale fibre 410s and on the first outing with them appeared to be missing more birds than usual until my wife who was standing with me said, your hitting all those birds you know and then a picker up about 200yrds behind came up and said he had picked a couple of the birds I had shot which where runners.  Needless to say, those cartridges are now kept simply for dispatching tree rats in catch cages, I wouldn't use one on a tree rat up in a tree even.

 

Im not keen on the layvale .410 carts either .i find them a bit gutless and dont seam to kill well .my gamebore 16 grm no6 are much more effective than the layvale 18 grm fibre no6 .

Imo.

[sabel25]

Can only agree about plastic wads on game/ vermin shoots  There's enough media coverage on plastic polution without adding to it

For years i only used Hull Three Crown paper cartridges  28g fibre no6 for everything

Plastic cases are ok if they could be recycled in someway

[Farmboy91]

I patterned around 10 different 12 bore cartridges before Christmas of varying brands shot size and weight, Plas and fibre and found that 32g clear pigeon fibre threw by far the best abs most even pattern around the 35/40 yard mark, once I've used up all the odds and ends I have I'll be sticking with them. 

Edited February 5, 2019 by Farmboy91

[vmaxphil]

It's fibre all the way for me, just for the environment, plastic cased cartridges can easily be picked up and disposed of easily 

[PPP]

I think you’ll find that it’s a familiarity or gun and cartridge combination variance rather than anything else.  I always use black gold and dark storm through my game sxs and the are fabulous, putting a few through my ou that I only usually use on clays whilst roost shooting on Saturday and they weren’t as effective.  The variables are the bore 18.6 in ou vs 18.4 in sxs and a different gun but they are both fit to me.

[Walker570]

.....and of course we ALL have an off day don't we ?

I do advise checking the patterns though. It took me a while to discover that the #3 choke which i suppose is about 3/4 in my Yilditz o/u grouped best and then fine tuned it to the 18.7 load of shot/19.7 SP3.  I know that load patterns about as good as it gets at 35yrds so when I have a day like I had recently where I went from my normal 2.5 to 3 to 1, to more like 5 to 6 to one then it is me and I discovered I was wearing a different coat because it was bitter cold, it was thicker and more restrictive, so next day changed back to my thinner fleece and back to normal.

There are so many variables.

[Smokersmith]

13 hours ago, marsh man said:

So if anyone want to swap about 400 Black Gold 32gm fibre wad shells for Clear pigeon or something similar by all means get in touch

PM sent!!

[marsh man]

52 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

.....and of course we ALL have an off day don't we ?

I do advise checking the patterns though. It took me a while to discover that the #3 choke which i suppose is about 3/4 in my Yilditz o/u grouped best and then fine tuned it to the 18.7 load of shot/19.7 SP3.  I know that load patterns about as good as it gets at 35yrds so when I have a day like I had recently where I went from my normal 2.5 to 3 to 1, to more like 5 to 6 to one then it is me and I discovered I was wearing a different coat because it was bitter cold, it was thicker and more restrictive, so next day changed back to my thinner fleece and back to normal.

There are so many variables.

THANKS for all your interesting and varied replies , I am far to old to blame the tools of the trade and it's more in the head thing than the quality of the cartridges , these cartridges were totally alien to me as my pocket is not deep enough to spend that sort of money on cartridges for my type of shooting , i bought these off a member on the forum along with about 1000 Hull super fast 27gm shells , these were superb over decoys and didn't feel any recoil with light clothing on during the extreme heat of last summer , when they were all used I moved on to Gamebore Velocity 28gm 7 1/2 , again another excellent cartridge both for pigeons and the odd walked up Pheasant .

Then before the Clear Pigeon got expensive that was my number one choice for all round general shooting , because I used a lot of them I got used to what they were capable of and were more than good enough for all my shooting ( except wildfowl ) , now moving back to the Black Gold , these have been in my cabinet since last year and the intention was to sell them to one of the shoot members or swap them for a decent pigeon cartridge as they seemed an expensive cartridge purely to use on pigeons where my cheaper ones do exactly the same thing .

So having only started on the first box last week I found them totally different from the ones I had been used to , I have only got around 400 so not really enough to start worrying about patterns ect as I don't intend to buy these in bulk , I have had an offer from Smokersmith to do a swap , so maybe my days of using Black Gold are now numbered.

 

Edited February 5, 2019 by marsh man

[marsh man]

48 minutes ago, Smokersmith said:

PM sent!!

P M ... Replied to.

[old'un]

Unless I have missed it you don’t say what load or shot size the Black Gold were?

[figgy]

I love the environment excuse for fiber wad when your still littering lead allover the place.

Plaatic wads look awful littered around but so do fiber wads, fiber will breakdown faster though. Won't get stuck as easy if animals eat them.

To be environmental use steel and fiber cup carts.

[Walker570]

I use fibre because they work, simple as that.  If I remember maybe 30 or more years back when the plastic wad thing was in question, it was found that in fact fibre wads where more detrimental to cows in particular if swallowed as they scrub the barrel on the way out and consequently contain lead etc.  At the end of the day shoot what gives you confidence otherwise it tends to get a bit anal.

[oowee]

4 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

I use fibre because they work, simple as that.  If I remember maybe 30 or more years back when the plastic wad thing was in question, it was found that in fact fibre wads where more detrimental to cows in particular if swallowed as they scrub the barrel on the way out and consequently contain lead etc.  At the end of the day shoot what gives you confidence otherwise it tends to get a bit anal.

I think I also remember somewhere a degradation test that suggested fibre wads not breaking down in the environment? I would support a move away from plastic if there is an option.

[Walker570]

Have a thought for those scientists 2000yrs from now digging these plastic wads up and wondering what they were for.

2 minutes ago, oowee said:

I think I also remember somewhere a degradation test that suggested fibre wads not breaking down in the environment? I would support a move away from plastic if there is an option.

 

[Stimo22]

Always use fibre because most of my shooting is on land that requires fibre. On our clay ground we have plenty of signs saying fibre wads only but still get people using plastic, one gun said he could only shoot with plastic. Another local ground has just stopped allowing plastic and have had shooters stopped going. The ground was covered in wads and skeet range developed a white layer that looked terrible, and why people can not use fibre on sheet ranges is a puzzle

[Seadog1408]

Fibre for me, on everything.

[browning123]

I now use fibre for all my game & clay shooting - but I must admit I had less pricked birds when using plastic wads and this was with the same gun.

[mk70]

9 hours ago, Farmboy91 said:

I patterned around 10 different 12 bore cartridges before Christmas of varying brands shot size and weight, Plas and fibre and found that 32g clear pigeon fibre threw by far the best abs most even pattern around the 35/40 yard mark, once I've used up all the odds and ends I have I'll be sticking with them. 

What gun and choke are you using?

thanks

[B725]

A few years ago me and two mates had a good day on barley stubble that had been baled and cleared, it was only when clearing up we realised just how many Plas wads there was lying around on the field 

We never shot Plas wads again just fibre, the last year or two we have been shooting 32 gram fibre clear pigeon and been pleased. I too have used black gold but won't buy any more. I started a post a couple of weeks ago about pigeon v expensive game cartridges for me I will stick with the Clear Pigeon for everything and they work well in my eye watering expensive semi auto. A lot of shoots now are insisting on fibre only.