Unusual Wadding

[missionary5155]

Good morning
I grew up in South Western Michigan near the Paw Paw River , town called Riverside. My dad was a .69 shooter so I got familiar with stuffing things down smoothbore barrels.
On the Wheelgun forum a feller bought a Tower replica .69 pistol and it all got me thinking of some of the ODD and Strange things that have been used for wadding over the years.
SO... What have you ever used that was out of the ordinary but semmed to work?
Ya ever tried dried out potatoe peel shavings.... or a wad of onion skins...
Mike [smilie=1:

[northmn]

I was at a BP trap shoot and got involved in a shootoff. I had forgotten to bring enough regular wads along so I went to the concession stand and grabbed a couple of napkins and used those. I thumped them down pretty hard. They kind of made an interesting graffitti when I shot but I won the shootoff. Knew some guys that used toilet paper for wadding and claimed they set a stubble field on fire hunting sharptails in North Dakota.

Northmn

[fourarmed]

I have always heard of using the "paper" nests of wasps and hornets. These are the small, honeycomb-appearing ones, not the big football-sized ones.

[Baron von Trollwhack]

Many older texts commonly speak of newspaper wadding, especially in the shotgun. Many newspapers now are only good for that. BvT

[missionary5155]

Good morning
Well I guess the Priimitiveness is gone and everybody "store buys " all the stuff they stuff down barrels. What-cha-gonna do when the store is gone...
A tuft of grass, old sock, shirt tail, wad of leaves, a wad of crow feathers( that soft stuff from the chest) .... ya ever wonder what the Beev trapers used... it still works today.
Mike

[Baron von Trollwhack]

Bar lead, RB, and cheap cloth was commonly available from the earliest days of settlement in the US and related. BvT

[missionary5155]

Good morning
Sure all those things were available... Just like today you can buy all the sabots, J thangs, pre-lubed wads, bore treatments and cleaners....
So because it is available will it always be available ? And was it available 140 miles from the nearest seattlement? Do you really think a trapper, settler, BOUGHT everything, never had to improvise, had not figured out how the Indians kept their personal smokepoles working....
I am not saying "Improvised wads" are any better... but I am convinced there are usable alternatives some have used and probably still use. I have... probably will again.
Mike

[northmn]

When I started many years ago with ML's I ahd heard of wasps nests for wadding. The big football sized ones worked but would disentegrate if carried. Wadcutters used to be common for making cardboard wads, which some made out of cereal boxes or other such things. Early ML's shotgunners used what worked. They not only had to worry about what was between the powder and shot but what was needed to hold the load in the barrels. Double shotguns were popular among the mountain man groups for night guard and other uses.

Northmn

[Digital Dan]

I heard of a dim witted fellow what wanted to use the football variety of hornet's nest for various purposes and went to a neighbor to seek advise on how to retrieve such bounty. It was explained that he should slip a pillow case over the nest then cut it free of the limb or whatnot, then soak in water overnight to kill the hornets. The fellow came back the next day looking worse for the wear with many red welts on face and arms, mostly to give the dispenser of advise a piece of his mind. It turned out the fella had attempted this during the day, rather under cover of darkness.....

This is a true story. Happened in Georgia, up near Blue Ridge back in '84. 1984. I was there.

Not all things are obvious to all minds and such conclusions to the contrary are imprudent.

[Baron von Trollwhack]

You are right Dan. One should be careful with free advice from an anonymous advisor. BvT

[northmn]

"It is impossible to make anything foolproof as fools are so ingenious". Some say Mark Twain said that some say Neitzche. One never ceases to be amazed at human foibles.

Northmn

[Grapeshot]

I tried some of the lint that gets caught in the lint trap on electric dryers. Over the course of several months you can accumulate quite a stash and it works well in my smokepole as well as in BP shotshells.

I've also used the cotton that comes in medicine bottles to keep all those pills from grinding themselves to dust.

[missionary5155]

Greetings
We had some well used dining room chairs that needed replaced. The padded seat part was filled with a "stuff" I can only describe as misc. cotton, thread, yarn, small pieces of fabric all ground together in a mush. Worked great in my caliber .80 muzzle loader 16" barreled cannon with 55 grains 3F under a 12 guage hull (rim removed) cut to 1" then filled with mortar mix.
Mike

[KCSO]

Since I take apart a few original guns I get to see what the oldtimers used too. These include Wasp nests, saddle padding, newspapers and magazines(Harpers 1862, and one from Alaska in Russian) old leather, leaves and cotten, with seeds even.

[northmn]

Since I take apart a few original guns I get to see what the oldtimers used too. These include Wasp nests, saddle padding, newspapers and magazines(Harpers 1862, and one from Alaska in Russian) old leather, leaves and cotten, with seeds even.

Sounds like what I expected.

Northmn

[Newtire]

I loaded up a bunchof modern 12 gauge shells and used dryer lint for the stuffing to take up a little space inside to get a good crimp. The guys at the range looked at me real funny when they saw all the fuzz floating in the air.

I would think that with black powder it might be a real fire hazard though. I use it to light the wood stove in the wintertime and it lights up real good.

[DIRT Farmer]

I have used tobacco leaves, when in good case (damp) it packs well. Any body remember the " leaves and grass" debate in Muzzle Blasts it got heated. Yes I have used leaves and grass. Green grass will keep the fouling soft. Then there was that batch of bad jerky.

[Good Cheer]

egg carton soaked in melted lube

[Shooter]

I have always heard of using the "paper" nests of wasps and hornets. These are the small, honeycomb-appearing ones, not the big football-sized ones.

That is real old school. The old timers used nest paper because it would not smolder and cause fires when shot.
My dad taught me this in the 50's when he gave me a ML 14Ga. SB shotgun to keep me out of his shotgun shells.

[FL-Flinter]

Good morning
Do you really think a trapper, settler, BOUGHT everything, never had to improvise...
Mike

Of course not man, they had government W.A.D. card issued by obama ... he was undercover at the time. [smilie=s:

The "stuff" in the chairs is known as "cotton waste" and it may or may not be 100% cotton anymore ... used to be but now most places grind all the trims & rags together without separating by material so there's more than a good chance a lot of it can contain synthetic fibers - oh, you'll know if it does after a shot or three when carbonized fouling starts building up in the bore. [smilie=b:

[FL-Flinter]

A few brought up fire hazards and I want to reinforce that most important word of caution!

Fire hazard is very much real with most any kind of wadding but more so with less dense highly flammable wadding. Some years ago I was testing very light powder charge & very low mass projectile experimental loads using smokeless powder that burns a whole lot cooler than black powder. I was doing the test firing inside my shop for the purpose of having a controlled environment. The nature of these experimental loads did not allow room for a standard over-powder nitro card wad as I would have normally used, in these loads I used a bearing surface lubed 0.250" thick commercially punched fiber cushion wad. A few minutes after firing about a dozen of these very light loads, I caught the smell of smoke that wasn't anything like the Alliant Blue Dot powder used in the loads. Investigating, I found several of those commercial fiber wads to be glowing red coals sitting on the concrete floor. Had these wads landed on anything flammable like dry grass or leaves, they surely would have caused a fire!

Moral of the story, beware of what your using and the environment in which you're using it! Might I also suggest that if you're hunting, please buy some nitro card wads for use over the powder to help prevent fire risks.

[RBak]

I loaded up a bunchof modern 12 gauge shells and used dryer lint for the stuffing to take up a little space inside to get a good crimp. The guys at the range looked at me real funny when they saw all the fuzz floating in the air.

I would think that with black powder it might be a real fire hazard though. I use it to light the wood stove in the wintertime and it lights up real good.

You're probably right about that dryer lint being a hazard with Black Powder...I don't know since I've never used it for that. Like others, I have found the egg carton to work awful well for me.

But I still save lint for camp, and even carry a small "tin" of it in my shooting bag for that whatever emergency.
It's a pretty good tinder and you'd be absolutely amazed how much of that 'stuff' you can 'stuff' in a zip-lock freezer bag. Always handy to have around camp.

Good stuff!

Russ

[Hang Fire]

“Give em’ Watts, boys” “Give em’ Watts, boys!”

http://www.google.com/search?q=%E2%80%9CGive+em%E2%80%99+Watts%2C+boys%2 1%E2%80%9D+&btnG=Search&hl=en&sa=2

[home in oz]

I will buy the wads.

[Newtire]

egg carton soaked in melted lube

Now those egg cartons are something that would be easy to come by. What kind of lube to soak em in? Moose Milk?

[Springfield]

A beeswax/Crisco mix should work well. Isn't Moose Milk a BP cleaner?

[flyingstick]

I used part of an old shirt I was wearing once:) I shot a nice buck with my BP shotgun but didn't have any wads so I cut off a chunck of my shirt and stuffed it down the barrel, and shot him again. He died.

[Newtire]

A beeswax/Crisco mix should work well. Isn't Moose Milk a BP cleaner?

Yeah, Moosemilk is just soluble oil (for machining) and water.

[Newtire]

I used part of an old shirt I was wearing once:) I shot a nice buck with my BP shotgun but didn't have any wads so I cut off a chunck of my shirt and stuffed it down the barrel, and shot him again. He died.

So is that what they mean when they say, He was dressed "fit to kill?"