RB in a rifled barrel

[161]

.http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/sl...NAME=snapfish/

http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/sl...NAME=snapfish/


690 RB Claybuster AA12 Wad 2 1/6th homemade cork wads. Poor picture quality I know but what do you think?

[longbow]

Well, my thought is that even one nitro card wad without filler will not be adequate to support the bottom of the shotcup and cork is less stiff than nitro card wad so I doubt it will provide enough support. Add some filler though and it might be okay.

The proof is in the testing. Recovered wads will tell the story. I have lots of blown gas seals and extruded wads telling me stories!

Longbow

[161]

OK
I'm a little slow on the uptake. The Nitro wad gives strength and the cork just takes up room in the load so the crimp is right? Also if I bought a roll crimp tool will it work on hulls that were star crimped or do they need to be new?

[longbow]

Sorry, I should have been more specific so yes, the bitro card wads are hard and help support the wad when pushed really hard against the base of the ball, of hollow base slug, or finned slug or about everything I have tried slug!

There is a pile of pressure under that wad and the wad tries real hard to get around the ball. I find that without some form of stiffening, the bottom of the shotcup or gas seal almost always fails.

Of course flat bottom solid slugs solve this problem as they provide a solid flat surface. Balls however, need some help.

In general, I have found that a solid hard card wad column works best for me. Next is shotcup with enough nitro card wads in it to keep it flat which is usually two or sometimes one plus filler.

Filler alone seems to work not bad but I am guessing that the trip between hull mouth and forcing cone allows some "swelling" of the filler and distortion of the shotcup.

In any case, shotcups with round balls and no support under have a very high failure rate in my experience.

My roll crimper is Home made and a little crude but it works well and puts a roll crimp on used star crimped hulls so I would say that a factory roll crimper should work fine. If not then you can get a hull mouth conditioner that is just a cone that is spun in a hand drill or drill press to open up and warm the hull mouth to reshape it for roll crimping. I have not found the need for one yet but BPI sell them.

Personally I think roll crimps are a little over rated. They work well but I have also had good results with star crimps. In fact when I use undersize balls or slugs in shotcups I tend to star crimp. I think the roll crimp is hard on the shotcup petals as they are what are opening up the crimp. Not a problem with bore size balls or slugs or tight fit balls in shotcups if petals are trimmed.

In your case with tight fitting ball the roll crimp should be fine but it wouldn't hurt to try a star crimp.

Longbow

[161]

Just came back from shooting the 21 gr of Unique pushed the .690 RB 1040 FPS and the Lee 7/8 1080 FPS. The Lee with 2 cork wads under the slug is starting to shoot descent. I had four that touched at 50 yards and a one flier. The RB had 4 of 6 touching with filler. I found some 1/16th fiber gasket paper. I'm going to try 4 of them they seem pretty stiff. What are Nitro cards made of?
thanks
161

[SuperBlazingSabots]

Hello 161, they are made of cardboard and the darker nitro card from BPI are suppose to be even more stiff and I like them in .170 inch thickness in 12 gauge, besides the regular ones!

By the way the mold was cut on a simple drill press ( Full bore heavy slug to break the shooter's shoulder )
AJAY
Video Memories
www.PreciousVideoMemories.com

[longbow]

To be honest, I don't know what nitro card wads are made of but they appear to be laminated paper and are very stiff and hard.

The nitro card wads work better than anything else I have been able to find or am willing to make so I order them in bags of 1000. 20 gas. is probably best for 12 ga. shotcups. I ordered 16 ga. last time and they are a bit big in some shotcups.

Another option may be to use an inverted gas seal on top of the cushion leg. The cup should help center the ball if it is close to ball diameter (many seem to be) and if it is cut off cleanly it will sit flat on the top of the cushion leg (bottom of shotcup with petals gone).

Longbow

[SuperBlazingSabots]

Hello Longbow, you are right its made with laminated cardboards like in the picture of 1/4 thick cards from Circlefly, but I did not like the fact that they did not glue them very well!

Ajay
Video Memories
www.PreciousVideoMemories.com

[161]

VdoMemories
Looking at your homemade slug made me wonder if the LEE slug could be machined out to a full bore slug? Also where do you get those sabots? I like to make things myself, I'll find something to make Nitro cards out of. Or I'll mess around for a week or two then order them anyway.

[SuperBlazingSabots]

Hello 161, the sabots are from BPI and are known as BLS-12.

Ajay
Video Memories
www.PreciousVideoMemories.com

[longbow]

Just adding some more shotcup petal thickness info.

I get:

- Winchester ~ AA Red + 0.027" base/0.026" tip; soft plastic
- Pacific Versalite ~ 0.032" base/0.026" tip; stiff plastic
- Claybuster WAA12SL ~ 0.022" base/0.020" tip; stiff plastic
- Winchester WAA12F114 ~ 0.026" base/0.021" tip; stiff plastic
- Winchester WAA12 ~ 0.026" base/0.021" tip; stiff plastic

Of course these are not precision made varying some from petal to petal and will likely vary a few thou from batch to batch but these should be close.

Longbow

By the way, nice photos Ajay!

[BAGTIC]

I load the .735 RB using plastic wads with the shotcup petals trimmed back. Where I differ is in the fillers. I use the foam packaging 'peanuts' under the ball. It usually takes two. Just be sure not to seat the ball too deep as the 'peanuts' are not resilient and if crushed too far they will not rebound. No! They don't litter. I have never been able to find one after firing and I have looked.

[BAGTIC]

It seems to me that the hard nitro cards are most important when using cupped/hollow base projectiles to keep the wadding from becoming wedged in the cavity. With a flat solid base or a convex RB projectile there is no place for them to wedge, In the days before plastic shotcups we used them to prevent shot from becoming embedded in the felt wads.

[longbow]

BAGTIC:

I find I get best accuracy using 0.735" RB over a hard card wad column ~ at least my loads in my guns. I have tried shotcups with petals cut off but unless I use a nitro card wad or two under the ball the base of the shotcup tries to extrude around the ball and often fails by tearing or the gas seal gets messed up and fails.

A scoop of cornmeal or COW also helps solve that and I am guessing your packing peanuts do the same by providing a nice cup for the ball and supporting the base of the shotcup.

I got best results using both a nitro card wad and scoop of granular filler so have just kept on doing that as it is easy. Probably filler alone would work.

Flat based slugs don't require that and I am now using flat based attached wad slugs in shotcups. Quick and easy to load and they seem to work pretty well but testing continues!

Also, I am using smoothbore so a little different situation than rifled bore.

Longbow

[TRG3]

Yesterday, in my H&R USH 12 gauge, I got a one inch group at 50 yards off a bench with sandbags using the following load (use at your own caution):

New Fiocchi 2 3/4" primed hull
27.0 grains of Herco
Over powder/shot thin card
Federal S3 wad with one 20 gauge .125 hard card below .690 pure lead round ball rolled to remove sprue
roll crimped

I was going to add COW as a buffer if the load did not prove accurate, but with the one inch group, that's an effort for another day. The recoil from this load was less than from a commercial slug. I might add that I had previously gotten 3" groups from the Lee Key Drive slug and 2" groups from the Lyman 525 sabot at 50 yards, both used to take whitetail deer.

[plumberroy]

I got some .625 round balls off of Turbo1889 and got around to trying them today . My load started at
B.P.I. 3" multi hull preprimed
24 grains of blue dot
gas seal
nito card
2- 1/2 hard waxed wads
1/4 felt wad
roll crimp first group at 25 yards

A 50 yard group of just under 3 inches was fired on the next loading with the bluedot bumped up to 26 grains . I forgot my camera that trip . I am terrible at paper targets, shots at bit of clay birds on the bank 20 foot behind the target stands resulted in hitting 80%
I can't shoot a consistant group for anything, but can hit neco wafers bottle caps penny suckers all day long????
Don't miss many breathing target either
Roy