Wads-HELP (What Do I Have)
 

Recently a elderly gentleman visited our shooting club and said he had shotgun wads which his father had designed. Told us they were 12 gauge cork or fiber (he wasn't sure which it was) self cleaning wads and his father couldn't make then commercially viable so he had inherited them. Wife said they had to go she wanted the storage space in the garage. So they moved from his garage to mine.
So does anyone know what these are?

I have 50,000 of then in my garage!!

I wonder what the principle of these wads is. “Self Cleaning”?? How does that work I wonder.





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Wads
 

Your are like me how does the self cleaning work? Kids was a computer nerd and said he never had interest in his dad's hobby or business, so he was no help!!

The big question is "Which end goes toward the front?" If I had 50,000 of them, I would figure out a way to use them. Are cork wads considered non toxic?

Definitely cork, non-toxic, guessing small end down....maybe....no??? Not too sure on the "self cleaning" part, never seen any like them. Seems like something would have to follow the the expanding gas and powder residue to be self cleaning.

Glue a few together and open a winery?

Assuming they go into the shell large side down with no card wad over them, I'm wondering if they aren't someone's idea of a crude "spreader" wad. They might be designed to push a bit harder on the center and spread shot a bit to the outside. Or... perhaps that smaller section serves as a bit of a cushion to reduce recoil just a little? That might work with or w/o a card wad over it. Anyone have a better idea? Regardless of what they're designed for, they'd make great kindling for a woodstove or perhaps, soaked in liquid smoke, fuel for a BBQ???.... and, no, I haven't been tipping a bottle....

I believe years ago, before the advent of the plastic wad, they were used for over over the powder wads because shotgun bores were true to size.
True, they did somewhat self-clean the soot out but you still had to scrub the lead out of the barrel. The invention of plastic pretty much led to their demise.

Huh? In my vintage 12-gauge doubles I have bores anywhere from .708" to .757"

I've been thinking about these wads. In that most 12-gauge loads used a nitro card, and then two fiber wads --

Attachment 90594

I suspect these wads replaced the two fiber wads in the column with the small ends together in the middle making a wad column in cross-section sort of like a short I-beam.