felt wads in sixguns

[frank505]

Has anybody tried felt wads in a sixgun load to zero out air space and reduce/eliminate gas cutting?

[Ohio Rusty]

Yep ..... I have cutters for both .36 and .44. I use an old thick felt hat I boght at the thrift store and punch out the circles. I grease them so there is no chain fire. It is alot less messy than covering the end of the cylinder with grease. Grease covered cylinders make a real mess in your holster on a hot day ......
Ohio Rusty ><>

[frank505]

yes I have shot a 36 Navy Colt and a Ruger like that. Works just like Elmer said.

[MtGun44]

For BP revolvers it is absolutely THE way to go, just like Elmer said. The silly crisco over the
ball trick is the WORST possible messy nasty way to shoot a BP revolver. The reality is that
chain firing is more likely due to sloppy cap fit on the nipple than to flashing around the
ball. I use a .002 or .003 oversized ball that cuts off a nice thin ring of lead as I seat it.

Bill

[Three44s]

I was not trying to beat gas cutting but I tried a wad that was already lubed .......... the Wonder Wad.

Not a good mix with smokeless powder. After a real hot spell, I had a bunch of squibs.

I have always vowed to go back and try my own wads with a lube better suited to smokeless powder because I found that I got point of impacts right with my bear loads with light loads. Also the bore was CLEAN as a hounds tooth! I did not fill the space between the boolit base but rather kept the wad against the slug.

Seating the wads I used was a little trick until I worked out a sequence with the right homemade tools.


Three 44s

[StrawHat]

...Not a good mix with smokeless powder... Three 44s

Apparently we are talking apples and watermelons.

What are you loading with smokeless? Obviously, not a cap and ball revolver so give us all the information.

The felt wad is a grand thing in a C&B.

[Jim]

To me, the term 'six gun' descibes a single action revolver that shoots metallic cartridges. That's certainly not absolute, that's just what I think of when I hear that term.

If there's a problem with gas cutting, I think I would try to find the root cause and address that. The 'let's try this' approach might very well produce a solvent to the problem, but one can spend a lot of time in that manner without any progress and/or success.

Pacing a felt wad under a projectile in a cartridge charged with smokeless powder might very well reduce or eliminate the problem. However, I would be concerned that this might raise chamber pressure significantly. I believe the conditions would be similar to a 100% case density charge even with the original charge not being increased.

I'm not a ballistician, I'm just a dumb ol' retired pipefitter. I know there are those here that are much more knowledgeable than I that could help with this.

[MtGun44]

OOPS. I assumed a black powder sixgun. I'd avoid the lubed wads with smokeless.

What is the problem that you are addressing with this idea?

Bill

[frank505]

I am trying to eliminate air space in the 500 Linebaugh. I do not/ will not use fast burning powders for medium loads with lots of air space. Tha cartridge at 1.4 is just a bit long, yes I ahve discussed it with John Linebaugh. It is too late so we move on. I can about fill the case with 5744 or 4759 and get about 1100 fps which isnt too bad. My beloved WC 820 must run at 1300 fps with a 450 Keith for low deviations and that is way too much.
The wads I have are unlubed felt, we have tried corn meal to fill the case with outstanding results, but that adds another step in loading and there is all that corn meal exiting and getting in our eyes. Tried PuffLon also, same results.
We need a bulky powder like Trail Boss but a much slower burn rate like Unique. Guess i am gonne step off the deep end and give her a try.

[subsonic]

I have not tried the felt wads, but it might work if you don't lube them. A lot of people use dacron.

An idea I had that might help would be to load with Blue Dot, 800-X or Longshot. These are all fairly bulky flake powders that light easy and are slower than Unique. You'll have to look at some data for similar cartridges and compare bulk densitites on something like a Lee powder measure chart to find out which might do the best job of filling things up. I know Ross Seyfried liked Blue Dot in his .475 with cut down .45-70 cases for "reduced" loads moving in the 1200fps area with 385gr boolits.

Why do you want to fill up all air space? Is it just to avoid overcharges? To increase accuracy?

[MtGun44]

A small fluff of dacron or kapok is often used to keep a small charge of powder in position,
but many folks use powders that are position insensitive, such as Unique. Do you consider
Unique to be to fast to use? It works extremely well in .44 Mag and .45 Colt.

Bill

[bearcove]

I don't know the problem with "air" space. I've shot 10's of thousands of loads with mostly air space and a little powder. Doesn't matter as far as I can tell.

[bcp477]

I tried dacron fiberfill (filler) in a load I worked up for my 38 spl. It worked - it may have even enhanced accuracy - but I didn't like the dacron fibers flying about my head after firing. Unlike my paper-patch rifle loads, which also contain such filler, the fibers didn't travel far from the barrel (in the 38). Instead, they created a cloud just in front of the muzzle, which drifted back into my face.

Perhaps with a more powerful cartridge, like the 500 Linebaugh, this would not be a problem.....I don't know.

[frank505]

I am thinking of abandoning the felt wad idea, works well in a cap and ball revolver and black powder catridge rifle. Not real sure it is a good idea in a sixgun. Gonna just keep working with different powders and primers(mostly Rem 2 1/2). The PFF stuff is just to variable when a box of ammo may rattle around in the Jeep for a while before it gets shot up.

[subsonic]

What problem are you trying to solve?

I also looked at those powders above that I mentioned, and 800-x is the most voluminuous for most uses. It meters like **** though.

[frank505]

zero airspace. I do not trust any powder to burn correctly in cold temps with airspace. I also do not trust a small charge of powder in a big case, like Unique in the 45 Colt or 500 Linebaugh. Just have a listen to Mike Venturino about this. I know everybody has shot 8 or 9 grains of Unique in a 45 for years with no problems, I have seen three guns blown to bits by "normal" charges on Unique. Slower powders like WC820 in very cold weather can have some problems like the night we were shooting at buffalo turds across the pond and half my bullets skidded across the ice at 200 fps. It was around zero maybe less. That was our realization that primers and loads must be tested more thoroughly than we have. been. Like putting ammo in the freezer overnite and shooting them first thing in the morning. Or videotaping muzzle flash with different primers and loads out the door at midnite. Good thing the closest neighbor is 6 miles away. There is a huge difference between primers with Rem 2 1/2 being our favorite, CCI 300 next.

[frank505]

Been doing some work with 4759 in the 45 and 500. I rather like it in the 500, have to look at notes but load with very low SD was close 1100 fps but I do not remember what kind of accuracy I got. I have gotten ok results with WC 820 and a CCI 350 but some leading and lots of gas cutting. Load was 1075fps and kills buffalo well, very difficult to recover a bullet in an animal(450 grain Keith). We have tried a 510 grain modified Keith, and yes it will make a nice load at a thousand or so but it sure kicks more. Just took the old 470 grain NEI bullet and machined our Keith nose on it.

[35remington]

"I do not trust any powder to burn correctly in cold temps with airspace."

Then you need more experience with powder. A great many will burn just fine with airspace in the case at cold temperatures as long as you are reasonably fast in burn rate. As long as pressures equal or exceed shotgun levels, most medium to slow flake powders commonly used in shotguns will be fine as long as they are also recommended for handgun use.

Airspace in the case is the normal condition with most pistol powders in most pistol cartridges. Some of them have quite a lot of airspace and no problems result.

Perhaps a little less imagination would serve you better. The idea of using a filler entails risks of its own, including deactivated powder and dislodged filler materials causing ignition problems. Here I'm thinking of wads.

Select a bulky flake powder like Herco instead and prosper.

This is the first I've heard of anyone accusing Unique of "blowups" in 45 Colt....but then you can get too much powder in a case and cause problems all by oneself.

I have never seen where Mike Venturino has accused Unique of "blowing up" 45 Colts. Why don't you send him a PM? He posts here sometimes, and you can get that from him, not me.

I will strongly suggest the blowups you saw may have been too much powder. Unique is fine in the 45 Colt. Always has been. There's too many guys using it successfully for your observations to be valid. Usually the simplest explanation is the most likely, and the simplest explanation is that they got too much powder in the case.

Fast powder "detonation" theories are among the least credible to be found anywhere. Accusing Unique of blowups with normal charges in 45 Colt seems quite paranoid given about 100 years of successful use in that caliber.

[johniv]

I agree about unique not being a problem in 45 colt, I have burnt a lot in that cal. However I have no experience with the slow powders in the very large cases like the 500. I have used the IPCO grease wads in 357 and yes it does require a reduction in charge weight and so defeats the purpose as stated by the OP . The IPCO wad was to reduce leading, FWIW.
John

[MtGun44]

"I have seen three guns blown to bits by normal charges of Unique."

I am very confident what you saw was three human errors of DOUBLE charges of Unique.
This is THE REAL issue with small charges in a large case. The boogie man of small charges
is IMO total bull hocky. The REAL issue is double charging. Too many folks are unwilling
to admit their own human error, would rather blame it on some mystical property of powders.

I call hogwash.

Bill

[frank505]

brand new 45 cases loaded one at a time by a very experienced shooter. Topstrap gone and three cylinders. The usual look of a ruined sixgun. We could very clearly see the line on the inside of the case where the powder sat. It was not a double charge. you shoot what you want and so will i. why was trail boss put on the market????????????????????