Federal flight control wad

[barsik]

does anyone know if these wads are available for reloaders? I watched a youtube clip by buffalo's outdoors, he was testing 3 different buckshot rounds and the federal personal defense rounds were hands down winners. so good in fact that these rounds patterned tight enough to make it competitive with a slug. from what I understand, these wads were first available from alcan as the flightmax wad but they have long been out of business, and the wad lives on. I don't know why every shotshell manufacturer doesn't use have a buckshot load with this type of wad. simply an outstanding design, here is the clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKxsrw5kqMI&ab_channel=Buffalo%27sOutdoors

[megasupermagnum]

No, Alcan had nothing to do with the flite control. The Alcan flite max was a primitive plastic wad from before plastic wads were popular, and nothing similar has been made since. It's been too long now, but the original flite control wad was invented by a private company in what I recall being Salt Lake City, UT. I'm sorry, I can't remember the name. They were not called flite control then. They sold those wads to reloaders for maybe 5 years (never loaded ammo) before Federal bought the design in the early to mid 2000's, and started loading them. Federal has never offered the wads to reloaders as a component. The flite control wad today is actually slightly different than the original, but the principle is the same. They do work really well, and it is strange that no company has ever sold a similar copy to reloaders since. I've tried in the past to make my own. The magic to a flite control wad is the large gas seal that opens up like a shuttle cock. Without that, you can't copy them. While a really good design that often shoots great, there's guys on this board who have loads that pattern tighter yet.

[W.R.Buchanan]

NO, and I have been pounding on Federal to release these as Components for Reloaders with no success. They want you to buy their loaded ammo, not parts of it.

Why isn't BPI getting something made like them? I'm sure the Italians would like them? It is doable, but I don't know if there is a patent on them or not?

My Vang Comped barrels both pattern 00 tighter than FC Ammo so it can be done other ways.

Randy

[megasupermagnum]

There's no way it is a patent issue. It's been 15 years since Federal bought the design for sure. Now a couple companies make their own. Browning has been loading their own version as the BDX wad for a while. Winchester kind of makes their own with the blindside wad, but it's a little different, not really a clone. I have successfully made a wad nearly identical to Winchesters about 15 years ago. It didn't do anything a normally slit wad did. One could even argue that Federal is now copying the Browning BDX, not the other way around. The original Flite-control had tiny petals that opened when fired. Brownings BDX only had slits, and they don't open. The current Federal flite-control only has slits as well.