Fillers - Wheat Bran?

[303Guy]

Anybody use wheat bran as a filler? I just had to try it and after firing just one shot with it I think has a lot of potencial. It's light, it's compressable and it shows no indication of being able to 'pack' with age.

My test was a 210gr paper patched boolit over 30gr AR2209/H4350 topped with 5.5gr wheat bran which filled to the case mouth before compression. Pressure was mild but enough to ensure proper combustion. The patch held out in the rough bore of my Pig Gun.

[pdawg_shooter]

I try to always use a powder slow enough to get near 100% load density. Get my best accuracy that way.

[longbow]

I haven't tried wheat bran.

I have used fiber wads in straight cases and cornmeal or Cream 'O Wheat in bottleneck cases.

A fellow that has used granular fillers for many years told me that Cream 'O Wheat worked better for him than cornmeal. Having tried both in my .303 I have to agree though it is still a work in progress.

What I like about COW is that it is quite fine and easy to scoop and dump through a powder funnel. Cornmeal is much coarser though it still meters well. It may be the fineness of the COW that seals better.

There is no reason I can think of that wheat bran wouldn't work. As long as it flows well so is easy to use and seals up behind the boolit it should be a fine filler.

There is another test you can run ~ the relative merits of a variety of cereal fillers!

One day I will try shotgun buffer which many recommend. I just don't have any and nowhere to buy it here.

Longbow

[Fly]

303 have you used Pol Fil.It's a real light fiber for stuffing pillows.Wal-Mart has it.It only
takes a very small amount.I found out about it, when I checking out the handgun powders.

There is a video on You Tube on it.
Fly

[rockrat]

I use grits for my filler

[303Guy]

Thanks for the replies.

I should start by saying i agree with pdawg_shooter on the slow powder 100% load density principle. My thinking is to achieve just that by reducing the case volume with a filler and the reason is to find a load that will not cause patch failure in my Pig Gun. Up till now I have found a load of AR2205/H4227 that works. Half emply cases with fast powders scare me! With AR2209/H4350, the worst that can happen is the patch will fail if I put too much powder in and of course, the measured volume of filler won't go in.

To answer Fly, yes I have used Pol Fil. It's hard to measure and get into the case and is so compressable that it gives no warning of an overload. Nor does it actually reduce the volume of the case. I do use it with AR2205/H4227.

I haven't come across Cream of Wheat in my parts and don't actually know what it is (apart from being a wheat product). Cornmeal - mmmm..... there's one I would like to try. I was looking for some but they didn't have any so I took the wheat bran instead. What is 'grits'? That's something else I could try (if it's available here).

[longbow]

303guy:

Cream O' Wheat is farina or semolina. I am not sure they are identical but according to Wikipedia they are certainly related products:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cream_of_Wheat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farina_(food)

I am not sure why COW is considered a better filler than cornmeal but that seems to be the general opinion and what I was told... and so far I guess my experience is that I have had better results with COW than cornmeal. Might be as simple as COW is a finer grind so packs and seals better. Don't know.

Grits should work fine as well and I believe is a finer grind than plain old cornmeal.

I am of the same opinion as you on load density. I prefer to have a full case one way or another. Also, I find gas checks to be a pain so have been shooting gas check shank bullets barefoot over COW with good success. Also, I reamed the gas check shanks out of my old Lyman 314299 to try it as PB over filler. If I can get the performance I want using filler instead of gas check that is the route I will go. So far it is looking good.

While I do not worry about small loads of IMR4227, I do find I get better performance using the filler over it. Pressures do increase some so work up loads from a known low pressure load.

A side benefit (at least in my opinion) is that using filler results in 100% loading density regardless of powder charge so eliminates the possibility of double charging with light loads of fast powders. The fastest powder I have used with filler is Unique and I wound up at virtually the same load of Unique in .303 as Lyman manual recommendations but with COW filler and no pressure signs.

Not sure I would use a granular filler with small charges of Bullseye or similar very fast powder though.

I think I have included this link before but David Southall talks about fillers here:

http://www.303british.com/id37.html

Well, enough rambling. It is beer time.

Longbow

[303Guy]

Thanks for that Longbow. You did indeed post that last link and I did read it.

I've doing more playing around with the wheat bran filler. It seems to be great stuff but is kinda self-defeating in that it's compressable and terrible to feed into the case and does need to be compressed at least a little. But that seems to be a good thing.

I tried out the wheat bran filler load in my two-groove, first with a hard boolit that had a tendancy to slide in the patch and then with a softer (oven annealed) casting with less powder and a compressed wheat bran fill. This is where things start getting interesting and rewarding for me. It works! I got the two-groove to fire a boolit at decent velocity without ant rifling shear. It seams that the more wheat bran I stuff into the case the cleaner the bore gets and the better the powder burns.

Take a look.

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-687F.jpgEarly days light powder charge low velocity.

5.5gr Wheat bran.
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/Two-GroovePP30grAR220957grBran.jpg 30gr AR2209/H4350 - shear!

10gr Wheat bran - compressed.
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/Two-GroovePP28grAR220910grBran2.jpg 28gr AR2208/H4350 - NO SHEAR!

I see little chance of getting good accuracy with the last loading - see the feathering around the boolit base. That one started out with a small bevel!

Notice how the last one with less powder and more wheat bran flattened more? It also penetrated less. Pressure seemed a little higher. The boolit was also annealed. The reduction in muzzle blast would indicate better powder burn.

[longbow]

Just as a point of interest here, you are using relatively soft boolits if memory serves so this might be even more significant.

Last winter I was shooting some ACWW NOE 316299 boolits barefoot over COW filler. I mistakenly seated them a little too deep so the gas check shank was below the case neck. This was with my "standard" load of 19 grs. IMR4227, COW filler to mid neck then seat a 316299. Accuracy was reasonable and I am working on comparisons between plain base, gas check and gas check shank but without gas check and over filler.

Anyway, I recovered one boolit just in front of our 100 yard berm. It had penetrated many feet of snow then must have bounced off frozen sand and was laying on top of the snow in very good condition. The gas check shank looked almost like a boattail. The filler had squeezed it and reformed it noticibly.

I suspect that the shank of any boolit will received tremendous pressures and abuse from filler or even unburned powder as pressure builds and the boolit is being pushed into the rifling. If the base extends into the cartridge by very much there is the possibility that it will be reformed some.

Now back to your post, I have never seen feathering like that! I have seen cupping adn occasionaly some lead dragged at the rifling lands but nver feathering like you have and that is with paper patch too?!?

I have to ask:

- what size is the as cast or as sized boolit before patching?
- what is the finished size at loading?
- what is the bore and groove diameter?
- how deep are you seating?

I am having trouble imagining how lead could be dragged back like that especially with a PP boolit. Maybe if the base was below the case neck it may have "mushroomed" then got reformed entering the throat.

Longbow

[303Guy]

Firstly, I seat to the base of the neck, that is the boolit base sits flush with the neck base interior.

PPCBoo dimentions;

As sized,
bore-ride section - 7.55mm/.2972"
Base section - 7.86mm/.3094"

As patched,
bore-ride section - 7.93mm/.3122"
base section - 8.22mm/.3236"

As sized,
bore-ride section - 7.93mm/.3122" (unchanged)
base section - 8.07mm/.3177"

Core size after patch removal,
bore-ride section - 7.55mm/.2972" (unchanged)
base section - 7.77mm/3059"

Not sure of the bore diameter now but think it's .303-.304
Groove diameter is quite large but again I don't remember. Maybe .316

This boolit is a little tight in the throat but does extract if neck tension is good. The bore-ride section is unsized post patching so the patch is quite compressable. It is a two-groove so there is a lot of material to be displaced to somewhere. Possibly, with the high lateral pressure and the gas pressure on the boolit base, the path of least resistance is rearward?

Just the fact that I got a patched boolit through the bore without shear is motivation to solve the dragging problem. A rebated shank might be the answer (like a gas check design - I've tried them and the base dragging is not present). I want to hunt with this rifle so zinc hardening might not be an option, but for target use....:roll:

I've jus noticed that the boolit fired in the Pig Gun has a similar cupping of the base. It's just neater.

[Fly]

303 We in the south love our Grit's.If you pm me your address I will gladly send you
a box.Maybe I should send you two boxes, for you might just read the directions & try
cooking them up?Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Fly

[longbow]

Well, 303guy I am baffled as to what would cause that drag. I mean how does lead under paper get pulled back like that?

I recover lots of boolits because I like to get what is left so I can check for gas cutting, skidding, etc. (I do lots of berm mining) but I have never seen feathering like that. Maybe its a New Zealand thing. You guys are upside down after all!

I have shot bare lead boolits up to 0.318" in my .303 with a 0.315" throat and not got feathering like that. Just a slight cupping of the base.

Having said all that, the softest alloy I have used is about 50/50 wheelweights to pure lead when I paper patched. Is it possible that with your soft alloy that the patch is hanging up in the rough bore and the boolit being pushed forward so dragging fins back?

Have you tried using a harder alloy then examining recovered boolits to see if they feather too? If so then maybe that is the problem. You could use the BruceB method of casting soft nose or use two ladles ~ one with hard alloy for the base and one with soft for the nose. Either that or your cast on gas check idea would solve the feathering if it is due to paper drag in the barrel and the core trying to slip on through.

Not sure if that helps or just opens up more questions.

Longbow

[303Guy]

Not sure if that helps or just opens up more questions.More questions!:mrgreen:
That's a good thing because I hadn't being paying attention to it. Looking at other samples, this one is not unique. Nor does it happen only in this bore. It happens in my mint bore five-groove as well.

I'm not sure of my alloy hardness or specifically, how it compares to 50/50 WW/pure. The alloy that slipped and the one that 'dragged' are quite tough but the annealed one dragged while an unannealed one did not. (Correction - dragged less!) That one sheared or slipped instead.

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/Two-GroovePP30grAR220957grBran.jpg Look at the 'tail' next to the rifling. It's a 'drag feather'.

Is that cupping/feathering/dragging actually going to be an accuracy problem, do you think? I was planning on bevelling the boolit base to try to solve it. I thought of the g/c base too but that's much harder to do - the g/c's have to be hot to form the boolit properly.

Fly, PM sent. Thank you kindly!

[bcp477]

The danger with most granular fillers, especially of the cereal type....and there IS a danger....is that they will absorb moisture over time, THEN become a plug (esp. in bottleneck cases). So, if you plan on using these fillers regularly, PLEASE bake the filler before use, to lower the moisture content....and if you store any rounds loaded with such for any length of time, wrap the rounds in plastic or plastic bags, to exclude air (and the moisture in it).

These fillers can be used safely, but one should follow these simple guidelines to ensure the safety margin we all wish to have.

[303Guy]

Thanks, bcp477. The danger of forming a plug is what decided me on the wheat bran in the absence of corn-meal on the shelves. I intend to test wheat bran for moisture absortion and the effects thereof. I never thought of baking the filler. Good idea!

[Elkins45]

Thanks, bcp477. The danger of forming a plug is what decided me on the wheat bran in the absence of corn-meal on the shelves. I intend to test wheat bran for moisture absortion and the effects thereof. I never thought of baking the filler. Good idea!

Even if it doesn't make a good filler, you'll still be able to enjoy some tasty toasted bran muffins!

On a serious not, I'm surprised Cream of Wheat isn't available in New Zealand. Maybe it's sold as Farina, as others have suggested. I know from personal experience that it makes a good case forming filler. Just wear a hat if you ever use it for that purpose because if you don't your hair will be full of it after 2-3 rounds.