10 Gauge Wad Hack

[J.B. Books]

As many of you know the wads for Short Ten lead loads (SP10 and PT1044) are close to non-existent and when you find them the price can be through the roof.

I can't take credit for this idea, it comes from a 10 gauge Facebook page. A member of the page was using the Ballistic Products X-10-X gas seal with a 12 gauge wad on top of it. A simple but ingenious idea.

I gave it a try and it worked great but I have yet to pattern test it. I didn't have any X-10-X gas seals but I did have some old Alcan plastic 10ga gas seals. The Alcan is .219 thick and the X-10-X is .274. So what works with the Alcan may not work with the X-10-X because the wad fingers would be too tall and not allow for a proper crimp. If using the X-10-X you will want to use the red Winchester WAA12-R and some amount of filler to get a good crimp.

In the attached picture you will see an SP10 wad with a 1/2" filler wad to the left next to the Alcan gas seal under a Claybuster pink CB1100 wad. This gave a perfect crimp for 1 1/8 oz being pushed by 19gr of Red Dot. Third from the left is the Alcan gas seal under a WAA12R wad with a .200 hard card, next to it on the right is an SP-10 with a 1/4" filler wad I use for 1 1/4 ounce loads. You can see they have the same internal height.

Bottom line a 10 gauge nitro card or gas seal with a 12ga wad on top it and some filler can be used as a work around for lack of a plastic 10ga wad. I have not had this work around load pressure tested but I felt comfortable trying it because there is no significant change to the weight of the ejecta or amount of bore scrub. As always use your own good judgement and good luck to those without or running short on 10ga wads.

[ArtS]

This also looks like a great idea for light loads without pouring half the contents of a grocery store in the case.

[charlie cleveland]

good find for sure......charlie

[Mike of the Mountain]

Thanks Pete.

[Paul Harm]

Nice idea. I just went to fiber wads seeing how already had some. This is a fine example of guys making do when the going gets tough.

[Holeshot]

I gave it a try and was impressed, patterned great

[Tylermcdavid]

This was my idea, from the Facebook group. Shot a lot of them like this and it works amazingly well, better than it needs too. I’m glad to see others doing it.