Your Favorite Wad For Buckshot

[Blair]

What is your favorite wad for buckshot?

Length of hull you are using it in and how many grains of buckshot you use?

Then why do you like that wad?

[6pt-sika]

I have four "favourite" wads !

SP-10
SP-12
SP-16
SP-20

Might help if you state a gauge !

[Blair]

Might help if you state a gauge !

I did forget that.

12G both 2 3/4" and 3 "

[Greg5278]

Try the LBC wads from BPI. They limit the bore contact, and allow for rows of 2 in the larger pellet sizes.
They come unslit, so you can cut them to change the patterning.
Greg

[Greg5278]

Try the LBC wads from BPI. They limit the bore contact, and allow for rows of 2 in the larger pellet sizes.
They come unslit, so you can cut them to change the patterning.
Greg

[220swiftfn]

I use the Claybuster replacement of the discontinued Winchester WAA12R, because it lets the shot column sit deep enough to get the full weight of buckshot with a star crimp. #1 Buck stacks in layers of three inside the petals, and about 1/8" 20ga fiber wad in the base of the cup under the shot gets me a good crimp in 2-3/4" shells.


Dan

[FullTang]

Gualandi Super G, otherwise known as BPI's MG42 or STS wad. Related to the LBC series, but it's a preslit 2 petal design with lots of internal capacity, and it can also be used for steel shot. Great gas seal gives tremendous performance, and this thing is tough---impossible to overload.

[FullTang]

Try the LBC wads from BPI. They limit the bore contact, and allow for rows of 2 in the larger pellet sizes.
They come unslit, so you can cut them to change the patterning.
Greg

Love the C-LBC wad from BPI/Gualandi; it has just a short cushion section, and it's surprisingly soft-shooting, even with super-heavy loads.

[RMc]

So what is the stack pattern and within wad capacity of .30" caliber, (#1 Eastern / #5 Western), buckshot?

Update: By actual test, Gualandi Super G, otherwise known as BPI's MG42, holds 14 thirty caliber pellets in a 2 pellet per layer stack.

[Blair]

So what is the stack pattern and within wad capacity of .30" caliber, (#1 Eastern / #5 Western), buckshot?

BPI'S Buckshot manual #3 lists MG42 with #1 buck as 3x5 stack

BPI's Buckshot manual #4 lists MG42 with #1 buck as 3x4 stack

MG42 with 1/8 20g cork wad in bottom, I get a 2x5 stack of BPI's nickel plated 00 buck. Comes level to top of wad.

[turbo1889]

Anymore almost all of my buck-shot loads do not use a modern plastic wad but rather old school type loads with hard nitro cards and felt and fiber wads and hard-cast buckshot well buffered. Some of my loads I even use a strip of brown paper rolled into a tube with the bottom of the tube folded in on itself to cap off the bottom and then depending on the load the top mouth end snipped just a little bit to get the tube to tear itself open upon muzzle exit.

On most conventional size buck-shot (not big ball tri-ball loads) using the old school wads and buffer and occasionally a brown paper wrap has given me the best tight, consistent, and even patterns.

As to what size and how many pellets I load (and thus the total weight of the load) well that would depend on what gauge since I load buck for every thing from 410 to 10ga. But for the 12ga. specifically everything from 2" shorty less then an ounce tactical spreader loads (un-buffered) all the way up to up to full 2+oz. loads in 3-1/2" shells. Primary sizes I load are #4, 0.310" (approx 1.5-O), OO, OOO, and then 0.395" (super size and off the scale above quad-ought buck and basically about OOOOO size if such a size existed) in 410-bore all of which more often then not I do not use a modern plastic wad of any type but instead use the old school wads with sometimes my own addition of a rolled brown paper tube wrap around the pellets (just like the teflon wraps some of the BPI buck-shot loads use only way cheaper).

I do get some ribbing about the way my loads that use the brown paper wrap technique produce a cloud of brown paper confetti strips a short distance down range from the muzzle but the patterns I get as a result I don't get no ribbing about.

I've also experimented with loading non-toxic waterfowl shot the same way, which requires the use of two rolled brown paper tubes that aren't just dry rolled but rather glue rolled and thicker and stronger that slip one inside the other and you snip petal slits in them and offset the slits on the inner tube from the outer tube and then hard cap off the bottom with a double inner and then outer glued nitro card. Also produces excellent pattern results but is way too time consuming to do beyond the initial tests to confirm that it does work for that as well. Buck-shot loads its a simple dry roll often only two wraps thick with a simple fold over on the bottom and no gluing involved and is worth it for me since I do it assembly line style just cutting a whole bunch of same size strips to make the rolls and do them quick and easy with only a couple seconds of time added per loaded shell to quickly roll the tube by hand fold over the bottom and insert before stacking the buck-shot inside.