Pennies and corn
 

A friend uses corn for filler on a light load. On Mec 650's a penny or dime can be placed under the rod on the primer station to help seat primers. Sometimes a penny is too thick causing the primer to stick up above the bushing and a dime must be used. Paul

paul thats a good tip...you can use corn cherios toilet paper those foam peanuts...wander what else we could use as filler wads...... charlie

I got tired of having to drop a pinch of shot in the top of my shells because the bar is dropping lighter than should so I'm going to go with puffed wheat the generic brand. over the top.

I also have been told when the shot is above the wad's fingers this can wear down a barrel. and with the 1 oz wads i'm using when I add a pinch of shot to get a better crimp It does bring the shot just above the top of the wad fingers. So all in all I'm going to have to find a good filler for the top of my shells and one that brings a good looking crimp.
Anyone experience this delima????

They cost a little but Craig Smith could sell you some cards that would fit right in your shot cup. Circle Fly Wads.com he's a heck of a nice and helpful fellow. ch

THANKS!!
I have enquired info from circlefly.com today and am waiting for a recomendation.

Sure feels good firing my own shells they are doing great at 30yard and even better at 50. ready for the quail shoot which is coming up soon.

You couldn't possibly shoot enough shells (lead shot) in your lifetime to have any measurable effect on the barrel wall thickness. Cleaning the barrels with a brass brush would be more abrasive than shooting it. The internal parts of the receiver will be trashed from use long before there is any neglible wear to the bore.

Too much of any kind of filler on top of a shot column can have the potentially unwanted effect of opening or blowing a pattern.

J.B.

So I take it you are saying it would best to place my filler in the bottom of the shot cup in the wad?? This makes more sense allowing nothing on top of the shot to interfere with the pattern.

Yes - not too much on top. You can make the hole in the bar for shot a little bigger with a file or Dremel tool. I've gone to adjustable bars on all my reloaders - it's so easy to get what you want without having to change bars. Right now my 12ga load for shot is between 3/4 and 7/8oz. Was looking for 3/4 but the crimp was too deep with a hole in it, so turned the knob a bit and in went a little more shot. When shooting brass shells I tried a thick [ .060 instead of the standard .028 ] overshot wad. It had a big hole in the center of the pattern. That was just my load - I believe others have used a thick O.S. wad with no problems. But if I was useing a thick wad I'd pattern the load before too many were made. Paul

Yup, we shot unprotected shot in our barrels by the tens of thousands before the advent of shot protecting wads and no damage was ever detected. As for the end of the shot charge you want your filler, I prefer the front for convenience and have no suspicion that my patterns will be affected. There were wads over the shot in factory loads forever, and there are over shot wads in factory loads today. These wads do not affect pattern density or regularity.

so over the shot it's gona be.

that corn sounds great maybe I could get my Dad to send me some of those chunky grits from south GA they have the chunky kind that would sprinkle right over the shot and be a great filler should the corn work then I could have a nice meal while loading em up. I'll call em my "cheese grit shots". I have heard about the adjustable charge bar but mixed reviews. If I got it for the right price what the heck I would have to give it a try. I like the Idea of being able to change the shot weight and the bushing can be changed in one bar.

Thank you guys!!!

Yes there has been overshot cards forever - thin ones. They are around .028 thick. Bill, I'm interested in who still uses a OS wad in factory loads today. About the only time they're used is for roll crimps or some use them for when they get a hole in the star crimp and want to seal it. I haven't seen or heard of any factory roll crimping today. Craig from Circlefly sells a thick OS card that is to be used in brass cases so you don't have to glue in a thin OS card. I tried them and got about a 12" hole in the center of my patterns. The same load useing a standard thin OS card had good patterns. I'm not saying this will happen to everyone - but I won't use anything but a thin card for OS from now on. Paul

Another thought, in Sherman Bells 10ga load data all the filler wads go in the bottom of the shot cup, not the top, or over the shot. Paul

Scott K. did some short ten testing. He tried putting the 16ga filler wad on top of the shot column with the idea all the shot is then inside the shot cup. Instead of a tighter pattern it blew open the patterns so much so he thought it was a good spreader wad/shell.

This is my concern.... Placing a wad as a filler over the top of my shot is going to either blow a big hole in the center of my pattern. Not giving a nice pattern.
Should I drop it in before the shot gets dropped then it should be out of the way of things when sending the shot down the range.


To keep the thread on subject that our buddy started...

I just found some dried ears of corn out back scraped off a few kernals 2 dozen or so. Put them on a piece of metal and turned them into chunks with a hammer then i took a couple of pinches and placed them in the wad before the shot. I got the desired height of my shot and held a perfect crimp. Hit the hay bails at 40 yards nicely too. I'm happy with it.

but I do want to get some 1/16 or 1/8 inch wad and use it as filler so I can load up my wads and not having the wife yelling "FIRST ITS THOSE DArN BB's NOW ITS PIECES CORN!!! YOU ARE CLEANING THIS UP!!!"

HEE HEE HEE

im glad to know that my wifes not the only one stepping on bb s in the kitchen andme getting the blame for it....ive done a lot of shooting with thick and thin wads over the shot and have not really noticed much differance in my patterns...but i willpay much closer attention now to see if it does make a big differance.... charlie

Charlie -I keep my wife doing the cooking, cleaning, barefoot and pregnet. If she was to step on some BB's in the kitchen barefoot she'd slip and fall. This would mean I'd have to do some of her duties. Moral - don't reload in the kitchen. Do it in your mancave. Paul

thanks for the advise PAUL i guess id better get that man cave cleaned out and move in...been a long time since id heard that fraze...ha charlie

i have test shot patterns with the 1/2 inch 16 ga. filler wad over 1 oz of shot in my NH 10 ga. and patterns went from 85% to 40% but they looked nice:) scott

scott you may have figured out a good quail or dove load for the old ten...mite be a good load for me on those old crows too since i need a bigger pattern..i may be able to hit something with them bigger patterns i just dont seem to shoot and hit as well as i use to.. charlie

A number of years ago while messing with some short 10 nitro loads I found that if I loaded shot on top of a plain fiber wad I ended up with a patchy pattern so I inserted a hard nitro card between the shot and the compressed fiber to keep the shot from sticking in the compressed fiber. Stopped getting shot stuck in the fiber wad and improved my patterns considerably.

sounds wright to me, i will do some test too. i will give before(plain fiber wad) and after(nitro card over fiber) patterns. scott

If a thinner card is needed, I have used a over shot card on top of the fiber wad to prevent compressing of the shot with good results.

ok, my test are in about fiber and hard card placement in the wad. i loaded 1 1/8 th oz 7 1/2's. one with fiber only and the other with 2 hard cards. used my NH 30 in .036 choked gun and the fiber shot 328 in a 30 in. pattern at 40 yds(about 87 %) the hard card shot 329 in a 30 in. pattern( pete,FYI that would be 1 more hit :rotf:)but with that said, the hard card pattern had a much tighter hit count in the center; where the other one was more even spaced over the 30 inch target. i think the hard cards would shoot tighter at longer distance targets . :) scott

thanks for the test results scott...ive patterned lots of the heavy loads in the ten but just starting to pattern the lighter loads...killed a few squirl a way out yonder this past year using some of yalls light loads recipes.... charlie

The light loads have become a nice habit. not only have they helped with stretching my bags of lead farther but I feel a heckofalot sharper with my 1ozers when I pull some of them out. I have to add that I drop the charge too so using less again stretches the tub of powders also.

I see that most recipe list have numerous primers listed. Next to Remington 209's which are the closest to them as far as reliability and consistancy???

For Remington primers are all I have used...

Interesting Scott. A 87% pattern at 40 yards is bordering on phenomenal. What a great Turkey or long range Pheasant load. I thought I was doing good to get 65% using 1 1/8th ounce of chilled #6s at 40 yards.

Keith, I substitute Winchester primers for Remington's with no other changes in the load.

Not sure about consistency, but here's some information about primer effect on pressures.


http://www.armbrust.acf2.org/primersubs.htm

winchester 209 usally lower preasures than other brand primers as a whole...this is what i use except for the old 57 rem... which i load a lot.... charlie

Tom did the testing for me when I blew up my Remington 1889. I've always used the Cheddite primers [ 115$ per 5000 - Rem 150$ per 5000 ] . They have low pressure like the Remingtons and in about 100,000 loads onlt 2 or 3 have misfired. Paul

Lead shot has been fired without polymer shot cups for a couple of hundred years with no damage to barrel steel regardless of whether the barrels are composite or fluid steel. My experience has been that if lead fouling is not periodically removed from the bores, especially in the chokes, poor pattern results can be experienced. I bought a 28 ga. VHE which had very tight chokes in each barrel but something wasn't quite right so I dry-scrubbed the bores, paying special attention to the chokes, and could hardly believe the amount of lead dust and filings that came out. I don't remember the exact measurements but the before and after measurements were significant.

I stuck with the rem's they went up in price I can get a lil over 3000 for $150. and where I found them cheaper they were sold out. that's fine i'll pay a couple pennies for quality. The Rio's I did research on looked great price wise but had plenty of bad reviews so I'm not gona get the cheapies.

Dave,
I have made it a habit reguardless of how many rounds or what size round I shoot to clean my barrels. It's a good habit.

Got up on a coyote yesterday bout 75yards and was going to wait him in another 30 yd or so to get a good kill shot. but the darn thing split on me. I wanted to take my shot but didn't wana have to chase him all over the ranch. I will meet him again one day...