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Thread: Looking Towards a Softer Shooting Load

  1. #21
    Boolit Buddy
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    Brent, these are .060" fiber wads from John Walters. I don't know how long I've had them because I normally use .030" fiber. I was talking to Mike last weekend and he said that when he doubled up two .060" polywads that he had case stretching. Have you ever noticed that? I think I'm going to stick with the fiber wads for now but I know I'm in the minority there as you and Jim both use them with great success.

  2. #22
    Boolit Master
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    Never had a problem with poly and stretching. I use 0.06" almost exclusively.

    I just threw a small handful of them in my box to give you in a couple of weeks.

  3. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by BrentD View Post
    ... Recently, John made up some tooling to cut smaller LDPE wads and sent me 5000 of them earlier this summer. They work like a dream in my very skinny brass. I don't know their diameters, but I'll check. But you need John's smaller wads. You might give him a call.

    Brent
    i use a fred cornell .45 press wad punch that creates LDPE's at .460 and since we're running the same PPB chamber with reformed brass that .460 is a BEAR to get down past the case mouth. what diameter are john's smaller LDPE wads and do they seal as well as the .460's? if so, i might see if fred could make a smaller diameter press punch. i was thinking perhaps a .455 diameter.

  4. #24
    Boolit Master Lead pot's Avatar
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    I stopped using .06 polly wads because my chambers are on the tight end. If I feel I need .06 wads I just use two .03's and I have no problems with case mouth bulges.

  5. #25
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    RFD, you can use one of Cornell's .45 Colt wad cutters to get that diameter, or thereabouts. I have cutters that do 0.450", 0.454" or so, and 0.459" or so. My rifles ( with Dan Theodore's 0.474" chamber mouth diameter ) work best with the bigger LDPE wads. I actually bought the 0.450" cutter from Dan, I think he had it custom made by Fred. I recovered a few bullets with minor gas cutting using those wads so I've gone back to the 0.459" ones.

    Chris.

  6. #26
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    chris,

    i just talked with jim who builds the press wad punches for fred, or used to now that fred's retired. jim still build the punches for sale at BACO. he told me about .454" punch and it's offered by BACO. they're in stock and i'll give it a try, it's got to be better than the current .460" punch for .45's.

    thanx,
    rob.

  7. #27
    Boolit Master
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    I would want my wads to be at least groove diameter.

    I think the new Walter's wads are about .460ish, but who can measure rubber?

  8. #28
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    dropping to 78.1 grains makes it easy to press in a .460" diameter x .060" LDPE wad. 80 grains is tough, 82 grains is impossible. for the 80 or more, i typically need to resort to using a .020 card wad in order to compress and make room to push in the LDPE wad. this is all for reformed or fire formed .45-70 brass for a PPB chamber and for wad that sits .1" below the case mouth. i need to see how the 78.1 shoots.

  9. #29
    Boolit Master
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    RFD, is this the same Jim that makes their molds I wonder.

    I also find LDPE a little tricky to measure accurately. The wads I cut with their ".45 cal rifle" cutter certainly are easier to get into the case than their pre-cut wads are.

    Chris.

  10. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gunlaker View Post
    RFD, is this the same Jim that makes their molds I wonder.

    I also find LDPE a little tricky to measure accurately. The wads I cut with their ".45 cal rifle" cutter certainly are easier to get into the case than their pre-cut wads are.

    Chris.
    chris,

    no, this jim (and his son david) are PA machinists who have always made the press mounted wad punches for fred cornell. fred retired and sold the rights to his press punch design to jim, who makes them and wholesales directly to BACO.

    i've had a number of fred's press wad punches, they're superb. the .45 rifle punch creates perfect .460" wads out of most any material.

    my problem with LDPE wads and fully charged cases is that attempting to initially push in a stiff and near inflexible .060" LDPE wad to a case that's fully powder charged to near its rim, the LDPE just won't "give" to that full up stack of powder, thus making it near impossible to finger or dowel press in and get it ready for press plug compression. if i can get one of these wads to get inside the case mouth, it can get skewed by the compression plug and "smear" inside the case and/or one portion of the case mouth can shear off a "thread" of LDPE. the whole process is time consuming, annoying, and at times frustrating - and i would normally have an unusual amount of patience for most unruly happenings.

    this is compounded by one or two other factors - the slightly lower powder capacity of a PPB case (reformed or fire formed) and if the powder itself is a lot that is less dense than any previous powder (as some of us have recently discovered).

    dropping down the powder charge weight fixes the wad entry problem, but might create a shooting problem. i'll see.

    rob.

  11. #31
    Boolit Buddy
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    Rob, that's the problem I'm having right now with a full case of black in the 45-90. If you get the wad started, it wants to tip and then it will not level out when you try to push it flat. I'll see Brent in a couple weeks and he'll be bringing me some smaller diameter wads that I can try. I'm taking the rifle to the range again this week and get a little more range time with it and then I plan on shooting it on our practice day at the Harris long-range match to see how it holds up at a thousand yards.

  12. #32
    Boolit Master Lead pot's Avatar
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    Bob, maybe I'm misunderstanding this wad tipping. Does this happen after you compress? If so you might have compressed air pushing the wad back up. I see this quite often with my tight chambers.
    I get around this by leaving the press handle weight on the compresses load while filling the next case with powder. That short timespand lets the compressed air escape from under the wad.

  13. #33
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    Kurt,
    No, it's the fact that I get the wad started by having to push on one side to get it to go into the case and then that side is tipped down on the powder but the other side doesn't want to go down flat. It seems like the whole wad wants to go in tipped. When I use the compression die it will go flat but after I have to compress it quite a bit. I don't like to compress more than .050 - .070" with Swiss and that's not enough to make the wad level out. I'll have to work on that here in the next few weeks and find a way around it. I'm hoping a little smaller diameter wad will be the answer to the problem.

  14. #34
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    No, .050 - .070" compression is pretty soft to flatten a tight wad.

    I use .030 and .040" wads cut from ice cream buckets. The ice cream bucket resen is very soft and it will dome in a tight case over light compressed powder. They will seal the groove and hold the gas behind the wad a lot better than a .030" lopd or fiber wads.

    Loading up the new Axtel 77 2.6 cases for the Harris weekend. See y'all unless something drastic develops or I cant find the range gate. I just have to see if this rifle holds up at long range

  15. #35
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    the problem i have is that a full reformed or fire formed starline case of powder, nearly to the case mouth rim, will be a bear to finger set a .060" LDPE wad. the reason is that the LDPE is attempting to *compress* the powder. in the process of trying to do that with fingers and/or a dowel, the LDPE always gets skewed, and then there's a 50/50 chance that will further screw up whence under the compression plug. it's a real PITA, lemme tell ya.

    the quick solution is to drop less powder, therefore making more room for the wad. in my case, i went from 82 grains of swiss 1-1/2f down to 78 grains. this yields the necessary room to finger push in the .460" plastic wad, get it fully past the rim and reasonably level (important!), and then into the press for a compress that leaves the top of the wad .1" from the case rim. this process works perfectly every time. but will it shoot?

    a thing that worked for me with 80 grains (not 82 grains) is to first push in a .025" milk carton wad, compress that, then there's room to push in and compress the plastic wad to .1" under the case rim. i shot some of those last friday but i have not clear consistent accuracy results and more testing is required.

    brent brought up a good point - going with a smaller diameter wad might not be a good thing if it can't seal a .458" or .459" rifling groove.

    i need to test out the 78.1 grain charge with the jim453530e slick, prolly this friday.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check