Ballistic products BW20 brush wad

[Harold Lee Pickens]

Has any body used this brush wad in a 20 ga? I have a bag of them, but no loading data, and couldnt find any data on their website. It has a shotcup, but no petals--thus the lead shot would be in direct contact with the bores. I really dont need spreaders for any of my 20"s except my PH 20 with steel barrells choked F/F. Was talking to Brett Hoops this weekend who was experimenting with spreader loads, and just remembered I had an unused bag of these.

[Daryl Corona]

In the early 80's I wrote a letter to Tom Roster (remember those) asking him for advice on how to open a pattern on a Parker F/F without reaming the chokes. He suggested just cutting the petals off the wad to allow the pellets to scrub the bore and deform them enough to open the pattern. I still have the letter but have quit obsessing about chokes although I will say that it did open the pattern 10-15% but only really worked with 8's or 9's. For me spreader loads are not worth the effort.

[Harold Lee Pickens]

Yeah, I dont ever shoot spreaders thru my 20"s, cause most are already open choked, except for the PH. Brett Hoops was working on opening up the pattern on a F/F 20 for the grouse woods and had some nice patterns with his spreaders. I remembered i had this bag of brush wads that I had never tried.
I am going to take my PH 20 pheasant hunting this year.

[Dean Romig]

Ya hit ‘em or ya miss ‘em. Agree, not worth the effort.





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[Daryl Corona]

This is my experience with full choked guns and will not suite everyone. If your gun is tightly choked and you are worried about "blowing the bird up" just go to the lightest shot charge you can find and I'm talking 5/8-3/4oz. in the three most popular upland gauges; 20, 16 and 12. Keep the speed in the 1160- 1250fps and you would be surprised at the success you will have.

[Dean Romig]

That’s exactly what we should use for our smaller upland birds to prevent rendering a valuable bird to the garbage heap... too wasteful.

These small shot weights translate to less pattern density, keeping in mind that the pattern doesn’t open any more than a heavier (more dense) load so we still must be good shots, else we blame the load.





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[Daryl Corona]

How else can you explain the effectiveness of the 28ga?

[Jeff Kuss]

I have been playing around with the brush wads in my 28. It appears to
give me a more open pattern. Rst uses the brush wad in the 28 to open up the patterns.

[Harold Lee Pickens]

Still, if you have never shot at a grouse or woodcock in the Great Lakes young aspen/popple patches in early October, I think you would ruefully regret your Full chokes, and wish you had a few spreader loads in your pocket--15 yds and out of sight.

[Daniel Carter]

Harold you are so right. In early Oct in Maine the only shot you get is 15 yards or less and a spreader in a cylinder bore is a help. When the leaves are down and you can see something at 35 yards you can take the time to let them straighten out and use the gun as intended the spreader is no longer needed. In the place and time they are the difference between hit or devastated.

[Brett Hoop]

I got interested in trying spreaders for the most part because I have a nice 30” full/ fuller, straight grip DHE 20ga that I like but I have yet to hunt. And although I do normally play the pheasant fields, dearest to me are 10 -15 year old Aspen cuts of the northern Lake states. Yes, I have a number of other Parker Bros. grouse and cock clubbers, but I just wanted to see what spreaders might do out of these barrels, at typical grouse ranges between 15 and 25 yards. I was impressed with the patterns this gun produced with RST 2 1/2” , 7/8oz., 7 1/2 shot spreader loads. They printed nice round, dense patterns about 24” wide. Otherwise this one shoots on a pie plate, and I ain’t Daryl or Randy.

While I was at it I shot several other 20 ga guns, those with regular RST 7/8oz, 7 1/2 shot. A couple of Parkers I know well and a Winchester 21 stray that’s growing on me. Those all did as expected, but none of them shot as uniform patterns as the 30” gun.
Now I just need to convince myself that I won’t bang those 30” barrels off too many trees.

[James Halvorson]

https://www.ballisticproducts.com/load07-18-10.htm

SR7625, Herco & Blue Dot. If none of those work for you, shoot me your email and I'll send over what I have.

[Harold Lee Pickens]

Thanks for the info Jim, I'll take a good look at it