Adhesives that bond strongly with plastic wads

I'm trying to work out a good way to make some kind of either tail drag stabilized slug load (a la Longbow's fascinating hot glue screwed to a Lee slug), or Ajays simpler, but presumably effective "non-discarding sabot". I like the idea of gluing the slug into a standard wad and calling it good enough. But I've tried JB Weld, regular 2 part epoxy, Shoe Goo, and RTV, and none of them have a really good bond with the wad. I was shocked, on this last batch with RTV, that when I squeezed it on the sides, you can literally see the RTV pop off of the wad. Maybe it doesn't matter--it's possible that the bond, while not very strong, is strong enough.

From what I have been able to gather, modern plastic wads are made of (biodegradable) polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA). Is there a good adhesive for that? (something that doesn't require any weird treatment like plasma etching)? From some reading, DAP makes a product called "Rapid Fuse", claiming it's for "hard to glue plastics"--but with the variability in plastics, I'm not really sure what that means either!

Maybe there is a way to pre-treat the wad with something, that woud allow standard epoxy to bite into it? Or maybe you could drill tiny holes in the base of the shotcup so there could be a good mechanical bond between the wad and the slug?

I'm also thinking maybe the best way would be to get unslit wads from BPI, cut them down the the proper length, and at least not have any chance that the high wind drag would grab the petals and pull the wad loose.

Sorry for all the questions, I'm just curious if anyone had worked out a good method to really weld things to wads. I'm not sure what sorts of G-forces these things experience, but going from 0 to 1200FPS over 20" of barrel, it's a pretty brutal environment.

The problem is the wad. The plastic doesn't like adhesives. What you might try is 3M Scotch Weld PR100 with Scotch 62380408302 3M Weld Instant Adhesive Surface Activator. BTW: grab your wallet! :)

There is nothing you can use that will glue a normal plastic wad onto a slug. It's hard enough to keep a plastic wad made just for a slug to stay in that slug. This idea will never work.

Getting a slug to stay in an unslit wad has a better chance, but again, I'm really doubting you will be able to make it work. Lead shot wads are so thin they are mangled by the time they leave the barrel. Some are better than others. Something like the CLBC steel shot wad would give you a fighting chance. Would it be accurate? I'm not sure.

I've been down this road before, as have others. My opinion is that it is a dead end.

Greg Sappington has used 0.662" round balls and solid slugs from a mould I made for him pressed inside unslit CSD wads. He said they made a pretty good non discarding sabot round. That is doable. I have a few CSD wads he sent me and sure enough 0.662" RB's are a good press fit. I put 3 or 4 nitro card wads inside then set the cup length to suit the RB, just past the equator, then trimmed the wads.

Cylindrical slugs of a little under 0.660" press in nicely too. I have not shot any of these though.

I can post pics if you want.

As said above, gluing would have unlikely success. Better to follow the Russian's lead and use a screw down through the nose to attach a brush wad. That seems to work well for the Russian slugs like Zveroboy and Twister. Easier than gluing too.

https://i.postimg.cc/NjNvTgbZ/Fly-un...llet-Slug.webp
https://i.postimg.cc/HkWCVJ0Q/pulya-12-kalibr.webp

My thoughts.

Longbow

It is incredibly hard to glue anything to polyethylene. It's almost like trying to glue something to wax. Back when I was working for the University, there was this environmental professor that wanted to experiment with bacteria that would eat hydrocarbons. The goal here was to find a way to treat all the gas/diesel/brake fluid/transmission fluid/grease/etc. that comes off cars on the freeway from going down the storm drains when it rains and polluting all the creeks and rivers. He wanted to find germs that would live in the soil and eat this stuff. That way (supposedly) you could direct the run off to a holding area and the germs would eat the bad stuff out of the water.

The professor wanted me to construct about a dozen "tanks" with all kinds of plumbing attached to each one, so he could try out several types of germs simultaneously. I told him that building the tanks out of PVC sheet and plastic welding them would be the best construction method. Unfortunately professor's know everything, so he insisted that I build these tanks out of plastic 55 gallon drums to "save money". There was no explaining it to the guy, so I had to CNC hundreds of plastic manifolds so that we could try to attach threaded fittings to the curved surfaces of the barrels. The barrels and the manifolds were polyethylene - pretty much the same plastic that most shotgun wads are made of. It's easily injection molded into everything from barrels to kayaks, but it's almost impossible to glue anything to it.

This project required special adhesives and prep chemicals. The surfaces to be glued needed to be chemically etched, then the adhesive applied, then a UV cure. The whole project took almost a month, and the joints between the manifolds and the barrels weren't very strong. It probably cost 4 times more to "save money" than it would have cost to have made everything from pvc. In the end, the professor decided to keep saving money by having a student do the experiment with no training or oversight. The kid promptly decided to compact the soil inside those barrels by ramming it down so hard that he broke all the pipes and fittings right off all the barrels and ruined all the equipment.

The moral of this story is that it's expensive and difficult to glue anything to polyethylene, and the bonds will be really weak anyway.

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Originally Posted by John in WI

I'm trying to work out a good way to make some kind of either tail drag stabilized slug load (a la Longbow's fascinating hot glue screwed to a Lee slug), or Ajays simpler, but presumably effective "non-discarding sabot". I like the idea of gluing the slug into a standard wad and calling it good enough. But I've tried JB Weld, regular 2 part epoxy, Shoe Goo, and RTV, and none of them have a really good bond with the wad. I was shocked, on this last batch with RTV, that when I squeezed it on the sides, you can literally see the RTV pop off of the wad. Maybe it doesn't matter--it's possible that the bond, while not very strong, is strong enough.

From what I have been able to gather, modern plastic wads are made of (biodegradable) polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA). Is there a good adhesive for that? (something that doesn't require any weird treatment like plasma etching)? From some reading, DAP makes a product called "Rapid Fuse", claiming it's for "hard to glue plastics"--but with the variability in plastics, I'm not really sure what that means either!

Maybe there is a way to pre-treat the wad with something, that woud allow standard epoxy to bite into it? Or maybe you could drill tiny holes in the base of the shotcup so there could be a good mechanical bond between the wad and the slug?

I'm also thinking maybe the best way would be to get unslit wads from BPI, cut them down the the proper length, and at least not have any chance that the high wind drag would grab the petals and pull the wad loose.

Sorry for all the questions, I'm just curious if anyone had worked out a good method to really weld things to wads. I'm not sure what sorts of G-forces these things experience, but going from 0 to 1200FPS over 20" of barrel, it's a pretty brutal environment.

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I would suggest trying one of the glues in the gruella glue family. ( poly propylene glues I think they are called ) When I have used this type of glue, the only thing, I find it won't stick to, is johnson past wax ?

Thanks for all the thoughts. I haven't tried everything--but I was shocked that RTV simply pops off without any resistance. CA glue pops off, JB pops off... When I tried to do some reading on the subject some really difficult preparations were required. One using hydrazine plasma pretreatment followed by some really toxic UV-curable glue...

It probably is a dead end. I just thought I'd ask if anyone had cracked that nut before I start randomly trying different glues and welding agents. I'll focus my effort on a mechanical connection and a drag tail. I'm onboarding for a new career this week, so it might have to be on the shelf for a little while.

They got tiles to stick to the space shuttle with epoxy. Try wiping the wad with acetone and then sanding it. There is a super glue available today that’s still in a tube, but thick enough to not run out everywhere. I prefer it. After you get it stuck on, you will have to worry about it staying on. Plastic and lead have very different coefficients of expansion. Fixing it mechanically would be best, but you can try a glue. It might work.

I guess it would be possible to use unslit wads, perhaps steel shot types as they are thicker - and then "crimp" the slug in place by heating the rim of the wad.
With some simple tooling, the wad could be shaped with a "semi-rim" and the slug then pressed in with a snap-fit.

I've also tried every adhesive I could find, with no success. An unslit wad will work, but all the types I've found are too thick to accommodate a Lee slug, Lyman-style slug, or a .690 RB. I have made some approx. 5/8" slugs with home-made molds and put them into a C-LBC unslit wad from BPI with wax filling, and those worked fine. They held together out of a rifled or smooth bore for 100 meters, but they weren't as accurate as regular slugs in a wad, so just not worth the effort. The fit seems to be critical, as is the case with all slug loads.

I think we used MEK to glue together polycarbonate to make aquariums, it melts the pieces into into each other. With that thought, center drill the slug, rough up the hole, and epoxy a plastic wall anchor into it. Put a few drops of MEK on the back of the anchor and press the wad onto it.

No idea if it’d work, but the first thing would be to put the wad and anchor together with a drop and see what happens, no need to waste the slug.

For advise on gluing, go to: https://thistothat.com/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by John in WI

I'm trying to work out a good way to make some kind of either tail drag stabilized slug load (a la Longbow's fascinating hot glue screwed to a Lee slug), or Ajays simpler, but presumably effective "non-discarding sabot". I like the idea of gluing the slug into a standard wad and calling it good enough. But I've tried JB Weld, regular 2 part epoxy, Shoe Goo, and RTV, and none of them have a really good bond with the wad. I was shocked, on this last batch with RTV, that when I squeezed it on the sides, you can literally see the RTV pop off of the wad. Maybe it doesn't matter--it's possible that the bond, while not very strong, is strong enough.

From what I have been able to gather, modern plastic wads are made of (biodegradable) polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA). Is there a good adhesive for that? (something that doesn't require any weird treatment like plasma etching)? From some reading, DAP makes a product called "Rapid Fuse", claiming it's for "hard to glue plastics"--but with the variability in plastics, I'm not really sure what that means either!

Maybe there is a way to pre-treat the wad with something, that woud allow standard epoxy to bite into it? Or maybe you could drill tiny holes in the base of the shotcup so there could be a good mechanical bond between the wad and the slug?

I'm also thinking maybe the best way would be to get unslit wads from BPI, cut them down the the proper length, and at least not have any chance that the high wind drag would grab the petals and pull the wad loose.

Sorry for all the questions, I'm just curious if anyone had worked out a good method to really weld things to wads. I'm not sure what sorts of G-forces these things experience, but going from 0 to 1200FPS over 20" of barrel, it's a pretty brutal environment.

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Someone makes a shotgun slug mold that looks like a match grade air gun pellet, If I remember correctly, I think it is Lee ???

Both Lyman and Accurate make that mold. The Lyman is intended for use in a shot wad, the Accurate is a full bore design, IIRC.

There are designs available that snap "into" the full-length wad. The example shown below is available from Buchanan Precision Machine, our own W. R. Buchanan, and uses a brass insert. It is certified for use in California where lead projectiles are banned. There are other companies whose names escape me at the moment who sell similar items using lead"cores". Uncle Dino over at Fury Bullets has his own version also:
https://www.furycustombullets.com/pr...shotgun-slugs/

The Trap Commander wad cab be used as a non-discarding sabot (I've done this myself), just use some super glue or one of the other "wonder" adhesives to glue the ball/bullet in place. I hope this is helpful to some of you. It is sad to say, but the Idea of bonding the basewad just isn't practical for us at home, thats probably what led Wilhelm Brenneke to develop the slug we all love so much way back in the 1800's.

Attachment 309590
Attachment 309587Attachment 309588Attachment 309589

I've used aircraft grade heat shrink tubing to hold everything together.

I think the Wad you mean is the CSD, Cushioned Steel Driver. It does work, but still has some wall concentricity issues for use in Rifle bores.
I use it a good bit, and it is decently accurate. I have slugs in different designs for use, Solid, 678Gr, Hollow point 625 Gr, and Hollow base,475 Gr.
Accuracy is pretty good at 50 yards with full power loads, 1500 tp 1625 FPS.
I haven't tried too many slower ones for off the Bench accuracy.

Greg
AKA 12 Bore

I don't know if they are for sale in the US but Jocker Bio wads are fiber and would be much easier to glue to your slug. Drop a cork or felt wad inside, and it may have enough tail, which is what you're after, right?

What's the base of your slug look like?

As mentioned before, post #2, acrylic adhesives with activator is where I'd go first for bonding the traditional plastic wad.

Have you tried PC7? I remember seeing this at the local hardware store when I was kid (many years ago). It had all sorts of things glued together, like a golf ball to the top of a 7-Up bottle and an ecliptic assortment of typically difficult items. I don't know if this is still available, just driving down memory lane and took a side street.