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Reloading fiberwad cartridges


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2 hours ago, wymberley said:

I would hazard a guess and suggest that Dipper is referring to the 30" circle. We can only surmise as you've given no idea as to what your 30 refers.

Now that the season is over and you have some time on your hands, it wouldn't do your credibility any harm at all and in fact would get it in the ascendent from the flat line, if you were to do those pattern test that you mentioned. There's no need to do the 10,000, just 6 will suffice. I'm sure someone local enough to you on here would be quite happy to come along and help as you're going to need a big 'plate' of some sort. Various silly ranges up to 100 yards have been mentioned, but could we settle for, say, 80?

However, being realistic, the answer to this whole debate is as it so often is - if it's made, if it's there and available someone will want it and buy it irrespective of rhyme or reason - as ever, is to follow the money.

I’ve actually already said for My own curiosity I’m going to do so! I have access to a number of pattern plates so no issue there!

my friend did pattern the HPE 36/4 he used this season at 70yds and I must say they were quite impressive.

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23 minutes ago, GingerCat said:

Didn't stop you commenting over the last few pages either. Why the snippy remark?

Didn't mean to offend; just agreeing about getting back to the original theme. I thought that the brief remark covered it. Yep, we've had some comments and after all it would be a bore if the forum was just a load of one-liners

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31 minutes ago, Perazzishot said:

I’ve actually already said for My own curiosity I’m going to do so! I have access to a number of pattern plates so no issue there!

my friend did pattern the HPE 36/4 he used this season at 70yds and I must say they were quite impressive.

Great! Look forward to seeing them. I'm just posting out of interest but step-son is now into driven and has already booked next season I believe. I'll see if he has any cartridges and what they are left over and possibly give them a check.

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1 hour ago, Perazzishot said:

I must have maybe 20 or so different heavy loads I’ve used or been asked to test over the last few seasons it could become an interesting experiment!

Leave it with me.

 

Look forward to seeing the results, would be good if you also open up one of each type you test and take a photo of the contents.

 

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“This is exactly what we have found this season, far more dead in the air head back kills than ever before!

Not only that but the very fast bleed out rate where strike has been to lesser organs such as liver, kidney gizzard, where the bird continues flyingg/gliding after taking pellets to see it collapse out the sky 50 or so yards later.

Speak to most pickers up and these birds are dead, runners tend only to be winged birds nowadays not injured!

Im sure Dave from Kelton can add to this.”

Sorry for the delay in responding on this. Background is the Estate I pick up on is fibre wad only and has been for the years I have worked there. If you use anything else you don’t come back. There is no doubt from what I have observed that the teams like Perazzishot’s using dedicated guns with the fibre wad cartridges he refers to are killing birds dead at substantial distances. Equally I am picking partridges in particular dead at substantial distances from the guns. I do pick live pricked birds but they tend to have collected a shot to a wing not to the body. I always look carefully at any bird brought back live as I don’t want to be collecting pegged birds. Practical experience indicates to me that body shots are indeed killing whether by shock, or bleeding out I cannot say. 
 

What is very clear to me is that top quality fibre wad cartridges are efficient and are having no observed effect on the number of birds going in the bag. That is from picking up behind teams three days a week where large numbers of shots are fired and substantial bags achieved. Not sure if this adds a great deal but thought my observations might help.

I will comment separately on the 8 bore point.

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I too have the 8 bore loading books having used one since they were published. The point to my mind is less about the use of a plastic wad than enclosing the shot in a cup, so less damage to shot, retained shot at the muzzle and having an efficient gas seal. In my 8 bore I have been using Alan Myers approach which is to use a card shot cup driven by the plastic obturator wad minus the petals. I load with tungsten only in the 8.

I am however conscious of the issue of plastic in the environment and am intending to experiment with a card gas seal as used in the old Winchester XX cartridges. This is the model followed by a lot of fellow wildfowlers and given that we can now get the card cups in ten bore the close season will be spent experimenting and patterning 8 and 10 bore at 60 yds. It will be interesting to see how it goes as it took me sometime to get my current load right.

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10 hours ago, Dave at kelton said:

The point to my mind is less about the use of a plastic wad than enclosing the shot in a cup, so less damage to shot, retained shot at the muzzle and having an efficient gas seal.

Agreed … the plastic wad achieves the two benefits cheaply and simply. Coupled with the ease of loading that helped it become such a success. Anything that helps those 2 aims will improve patterns .. e.g TSS which doesn't deform like lead and throws very dense patterns.

I too use the ITM wad arrangement you refer to, and also have the inverted card cup solution, although I prefer the plastic base whilst I have stock.

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16 hours ago, Dave at kelton said:

“This is exactly what we have found this season, far more dead in the air head back kills than ever before!

Not only that but the very fast bleed out rate where strike has been to lesser organs such as liver, kidney gizzard, where the bird continues flyingg/gliding after taking pellets to see it collapse out the sky 50 or so yards later.

Speak to most pickers up and these birds are dead, runners tend only to be winged birds nowadays not injured!

Im sure Dave from Kelton can add to this.”

Sorry for the delay in responding on this. Background is the Estate I pick up on is fibre wad only and has been for the years I have worked there. If you use anything else you don’t come back. There is no doubt from what I have observed that the teams like Perazzishot’s using dedicated guns with the fibre wad cartridges he refers to are killing birds dead at substantial distances. Equally I am picking partridges in particular dead at substantial distances from the guns. I do pick live pricked birds but they tend to have collected a shot to a wing not to the body. I always look carefully at any bird brought back live as I don’t want to be collecting pegged birds. Practical experience indicates to me that body shots are indeed killing whether by shock, or bleeding out I cannot say. 
 

What is very clear to me is that top quality fibre wad cartridges are efficient and are having no observed effect on the number of birds going in the bag. That is from picking up behind teams three days a week where large numbers of shots are fired and substantial bags achieved. Not sure if this adds a great deal but thought my observations might help.

I will comment separately on the 8 bore point.

Thanks Dave, It’s what we have been hearing all season from the estates we visit and prompting others to go fibre only. hope you are feeling better!

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20 hours ago, Dave at kelton said:

I too have the 8 bore loading books having used one since they were published. The point to my mind is less about the use of a plastic wad than enclosing the shot in a cup, so less damage to shot, retained shot at the muzzle and having an efficient gas seal. In my 8 bore I have been using Alan Myers approach which is to use a card shot cup driven by the plastic obturator wad minus the petals. I load with tungsten only in the 8.

I am however conscious of the issue of plastic in the environment and am intending to experiment with a card gas seal as used in the old Winchester XX cartridges. This is the model followed by a lot of fellow wildfowlers and given that we can now get the card cups in ten bore the close season will be spent experimenting and patterning 8 and 10 bore at 60 yds. It will be interesting to see how it goes as it took me sometime to get my current load right.

I use the Winchester type, inverted bottle top OP card wads in my 8 bore home loaded cartridges, using a fibre wad, a card cup and just under 2 1/4ozs of ITM.......I have never patterned them, but my home loads certainly kill geese! I believe the pressure of the expanding gasses opens the OP wad, umbrella fashion which presses against and makes a better gas seal than an ordinary card OP wad?

I did this to replace the Gualandi plastic wad ( minus the petals) gas seal....as I too try not to use plastic components in my home loads (or shop bought cartridges!) any more.

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3 hours ago, panoma1 said:

I use the Winchester type, inverted bottle top OP card wads in my 8 bore home loaded cartridges, using a fibre wad, a card cup and just under 2 1/4ozs of ITM.......I have never patterned them, but my home loads certainly kill geese! I believe the pressure of the expanding gasses opens the OP wad, umbrella fashion which presses against and makes a better gas seal than an ordinary card OP wad?

I did this to replace the Gualandi plastic wad ( minus the petals) gas seal....as I too try not to use plastic components in my home loads (or shop bought cartridges!) any more.

That is what I am attempting for next season in both ten and eight bores. What powder load do you use. I am currently 55 gns blue dot for 2oz of ITM

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On 10/02/2020 at 19:41, wymberley said:

And the barrels weren't back-bored and the wads were probably proper kleena.

I suspect that most i.e. nearly all of the "fibre" wad cartridges marketed by the majority of manufacturers, contain the diana type wad. This wad form seems to be relatively "non-compressible" compared to the old kleena wad (eley) or wool felt of various density. As such it's capacity to obturate at the instant of ignition and initial propulsion of ejecta through chamber cone is questionable?

I opened some "felt" wad cartridges - by three different (major) manufacturers - and they all contained the  same "fibre" wad - hard and relatively incompressible - similar facings on wad top and bottom. This wad may produce satisfactory/acceptable/indifferent/don't know ballistics and pattern performance through many guns but equally may not do so in others. "Felt" recoil ( perceived) is a notoriously fickle quantum to measure or categorise, however my impression is that the diana type wad may give , on average, and overall, a more noticeable/unpleasant sensation,  --albeit in comparing plastic wadded vs fibre wadded cartridges with similar standard 30gm loadings. Obviously there are so many other variables to consider in the conundrum such as crimp vs rto closure and respective firmness of closure.....etc,,,, ad infinitum...

Seems to me that little has changed since Dr Walsh expostulated his research based opinion on cartridge loading in his magnum opis "Modern Shotguns....

Appologies for....long winded comment, perhaps ......pointing out that....there ain't nothin' new...

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May I suggest that P ... Shot , on any given day of target shooting (at Game needless to add,-as inanimate objects would not be able to confirm his "data" regarding lethality, bleeding out, etc,-- minimum of 70 yards range), has a nameless loader - who fills his Perazzi, with 'unlabelled" cartridges of various wad&load, randomly...  in a double -blind trial to confirm/negate his ....opinion on ....???????

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38 minutes ago, harkom said:

May I suggest that P ... Shot , on any given day of target shooting (at Game needless to add,-as inanimate objects would not be able to confirm his "data" regarding lethality, bleeding out, etc,-- minimum of 70 yards range), has a nameless loader - who fills his Perazzi, with 'unlabelled" cartridges of various wad&load, randomly...  in a double -blind trial to confirm/negate his ....opinion on ....???????

I do just this when I'm trying/trailing different cartridges, and have gifted my loaders with a good amount of cartridges this season,  in one case 475 in one batch after not touching a feather for the 25 that I fired. Then hit 3/5 after we changed back to HPE. No I won't name them but they never worked for me!

I almost knew instantly when I was using HPE the only cartridge that matched if not bettered and was given full use on days use towards the end of the season was the Cheddite 35/4 Fibbrio. 

It has left a dilemma for next season!

Edited by Perazzishot
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4 minutes ago, BADGER.BRAD said:

Another question which I'll keep on here rather than create another thread but are all 12g shotgun primers the same ie: I could reuse any shotgun shell or would I have to make sure they are all the same make.

For consistency you will need to stick to one case and one primer.

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On 12/02/2020 at 19:32, Dave at kelton said:

That is what I am attempting for next season in both ten and eight bores. What powder load do you use. I am currently 55 gns blue dot for 2oz of ITM

Sorry Dave missed that! I have been using, and I still have a quantity, of TK8.....dirty but works well!.........unfortunately unobtainable now I’m told!

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9 minutes ago, BADGER.BRAD said:

Thanks Tightchoke, much appreciated

Brad, I would add that sticking to the same components will make everything just a bit easier.

So then, same case, same wad, same powder, same size and amount of lead and same crimp.

Once you achieve a reliable and repeatable load, then you test it and get used to using it.

Good luck.

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