So am I doing this filler thing right ?

[Wolfdog91]

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220222/4dbc9398541f35c9c88a2a1a4f1ac424.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220222/e1429185380395a5e38a31e55174b120.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220222/1221d1923e6eed863e1c5b9f8a86cc3e.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220222/cc50e3e466a679819273f4cf6389090b.jpgSo am I ? I read Mr.Gipsons post on the proper usage of case fillers a few times and I think I got that right but I'm a visual person so text only does so much. Used poly fill batting cut it into strips then Lil chunks then fluffed them out some and lightly stuff them in just past the neck making sure not to push on to the power it's self. So is this right oooor am I about to blow my face off lol [emoji23]?
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220222/7bc6bb14da28943c12f9add801e3710f.jpg

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[unclemikeinct]

Big Thumbs Up on your technique. IDK about this "Poly fill" of which you speak. Plastic, of some sort ? I could not find "Kapok" I used dryer lint , I'm not kidding , The stuff you pull off the screen filter. Only caveat is I like the dark clothes lint. Be careful of any grains of sand/dirt in those little fluffs. Cool with that ? Uncle Mike

[unclemikeinct]

Ps. I only need filler w [66% of Max.] in reduced loads of 4895 in large cases.

[414gates]

There are different things you can use for case filler, your material is one of them. It looks like the dacron sheets I first bought when I started using a filler.

Since then, I found the polyester fill - also called hollowfill fiber - in cushions and pillows is easier to work with. You take a piece, weight it to make sure each piece is the same, roll it tight into a little ball, and put it over the powder. It will expand to fill the space.

I weigh mine and use the same mass in each case. Your 3 pieces look like they might weigh less than one grain. The material I use needs two grains worth to completely fill a 308 case.

It must not be fully compressed, it just needs to replace the volume of air, and importantly - keep the powder from moving around.

The important thing is that all the air left in the case is replaced by the filler. Tapping one or two pieces of filler down below the neck, and leaving the rest of the case empty is not the right way to do it.

Tap the filler down to the powder level, but don't compress it. Let is expand for a few seconds, and see if there is any air below the case neck. If there is, repeat.

[Sasquatch-1]

I have used Poly-fill in 44 mag cases just to see the difference. Using 7 grns. of Unique and a 240 grn. bullet it seemed that the round was a little stouter with the Poly-fill. No scientific bases for this but I would approach max loads cautiously with the filler.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

I have used it to keep the powder consolidated, or to provide some compression for bpcr loads. Have not done any testing to determine any benefit.

[GregLaROCHE]

Why are you adding filler, reduced load?

[Larry Gibson]

Wolfdog91

Your technique is essentially correct with the exception of "lightly stuff them in just past the neck". I prefer to stuff the dacron (poly) into the case leaving in inside the neck not past the neck. Then the bullet, when seated, pushes the filler the rest of the way in slightly compressing it between powder and bullet leaving no air space.

[Electrod47]

Its always helpful to weigh your filler to get a baseline. As an operation goes on while loading ( In my case, at least) I tend to pull bigger and bigger clumps. So, I always measure at the beginning for consistency and safety. I see you have pre-prepped and have your material and cut to size. That's good. Keep up the good work. There are a whole lot of us here following your progress and wish there were more young people like you.

[Char-Gar]

You are good to go!

[unclemikeinct]

I did not see anyone caution you about the use of fillers when using small doses of Fast Burning Pistol Powders. Not Needed & can be dangerous. I never use filler in rifle cases when using "Red-Dot" or "Unique" . My charge weights are small in comparison to case volume. Say 5 to as much as 14 grains of either powder. The rifle cases I use Are 7.62 x 39mm Smallest, 308W. 30-30, 30-06, 35Whelen, 35Rem, & the Giant 375 Ouch n Ouch. uncle mike

[unclemikeinct]

Please tell us the Cartridge, Bullet & powder you are using.

[NSB]

Wolfdog91, listen to Larry on this. He’s the resident expert. Just one thing to add: not every load benefits from adding fillers. You might want to try some with and without. I’ve found some that improve and many that make no difference.

[MT Gianni]

Get your filler from a stuffed animal from Goodwill.

[waksupi]

Big Thumbs Up on your technique. IDK about this "Poly fill" of which you speak. Plastic, of some sort ? I could not find "Kapok" I used dryer lint , I'm not kidding , The stuff you pull off the screen filter. Only caveat is I like the dark clothes lint. Be careful of any grains of sand/dirt in those little fluffs. Cool with that ? Uncle Mike

If you want kapok, go harvest some of last years cattails and shred them. Free kapok.

[405grain]

Your doing great. With medium burn rate powders in a larger case like 30-06 a filler can improve shot to shot consistency. An important thing to remember is to never "pack" the filler down. The filler's job is to take up the air space between the base of the bullet and the powder charge and to hold the powder column so that it's more uniform inside the case. If you pack down the filler hard against the powder, especially in a necked case, as the powder ignites and expansion pushes this "wad" forward into the reduced diameter of the case neck it can act as a restriction, which may cause a pressure spike. If the filler is fluffy and not compacted this will not happen and the cartridge will fire normally (and most likely will have better uniformity and accuracy than if the powder charge was laying horizontally in the case).

While on the subject of fillers I'll get off on a little bit of a tangent and bring up the cousin of poly-fill, which is cream of wheat. If you know what your doing with this one it can work great, but if you don't it can get you into trouble. Cream of wheat (cof) is used sometimes to fire form brass when doing cartridge conversions. A small charge of fast pistol powder with a little cof on top of it, point it up at the sky, and when you light the round off, presto! the shoulder on that case matches the chamber & now your standard case is an Ackley Improved (or whatever). Cof is handy for blowing out brass, but DON"T use it as a filler in ammunition. Cream of wheat might work OK in straight walled cases like 444 marlin or 45-70, but you'd be asking for trouble using it in any bottle-necked cartridge. At the moment that the powder ignites it will compress the cof until it has the constancy of particle board. This slug of "wood" is going to have a bit of a time compressing itself as it goes through the case neck, especially if it has to push a bullet that's ahead of it. The pressures inside that case could get pretty high. As the slug of cof exits the barrel the forces of shock and aerodynamics acting on it just blast it back to powder. Because of this; you put grains of cof into the case, and grains of cof come out the barrel, it's easy to assume that it stays grains of cof throughout the firing cycle - but it doesn't. The instant you pull that trigger it might as well be a chunk of wood inside the case.

Small tufts of polyester fill work the best. You should only need fill on medium burn rate powders like IMR-4895, IMR-3031, etc., where the powder charge leaves a lot of air space in the case. filler is not necessary for faster burning powders like 2400 or AA5744, on any double based powder, or on pistol powders. If a powder is described as "position insensitive" that means that it will ignite normally even if the case isn't all the way full, and doesn't require any fillers.

[Larry Gibson]

I did not see anyone caution you about the use of fillers when using small doses of Fast Burning Pistol Powders. Not Needed & can be dangerous. I never use filler in rifle cases when using "Red-Dot" or "Unique" . My charge weights are small in comparison to case volume. Say 5 to as much as 14 grains of either powder. The rifle cases I use Are 7.62 x 39mm Smallest, 308W. 30-30, 30-06, 35Whelen, 35Rem, & the Giant 375 Ouch n Ouch. uncle mike

It's all covered here; https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?109280-The-proper-use-of-fillers

[unclemikeinct]

It's all covered here; https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?109280-The-proper-use-of-fillers

Great Post Larry Thank You Sir !

[Wolfdog91]

Please tell us the Cartridge, Bullet & powder you are using..223
Lee 55gr RF ( PC GC sized to .225 sorted to 57.3gr with GC)
16.9gr accurate 2015https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220222/0a977e8793e16511c766f2c2e79d834f.jpg

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[Wolfdog91]

Welp can't really say it helped any [emoji848]
Same load powder and everything just the k ft target was without a filler and the right was with the fillerhttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220223/13a40793f411f6473a8e62fff8fe19ce.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220223/3fee8e5f03fb8f65ad4f584398b153a0.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220223/c9f82cd5c01563dd0ba54bd8d5a55c89.jpg

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[gwpercle]

After looking closely at your targets ( post # 20) ...
The Left target seems to be better ... I would go without the filler .
All 5 boolits are touching an area 3 squares X 3 squares .

On the right target ...the holes are twice that far apart.

Time to rethink the filler ?

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Gary

[Wolfdog91]

So a side note a reloading buddy on my trapping. Forum mentioned to me. Using a filler take up case space making the pressure fo up so I'm probably making this bullet work harder then it would without. I think imma try with less powder again and see what happens

[Pirate69]

Now to show my ignorance. It has been my understanding that the use of a filler may or may not improve accuracy. And, if it does, it is a secondary benefit of its intended use. The primary use is to eliminate the potential for "the phenomena of Secondary Explosion Effect (SEE)". Assuming the 2015 powder used is Accurate 2015BR, is Accurate 2015BR is certainly slower than 2400, which I use as a guide, and the use of a filler is a major consideration.

Anyway, those are some good looking rounds.

[Larry Gibson]

Wolfdog91

Yes, the pressure and velocity can be a bit more when using a filler with a given load vs without. How much will depend on the burn rate of the powder, the charge of the powder and the case volume. If you have a load without a filler and want to try it with a filler i suggest reducing the powder charge 10-15% and working back up to the same velocity, then compare accuracy, ES and SD between the two loads.

I your load without a filler is a hundred or so fps less than the RPM threshold then just ry the filler. Cast bullet loads almost always are "reduced" loads having way less pressure than jacketed bullet loads in the cartridge.

[Larry Gibson]

"Now to show my ignorance. It has been my understanding that the use of a filler may or may not improve accuracy. And, if it does, it is a secondary benefit of its intended use. The primary use is to eliminate the potential for "the phenomena of Secondary Explosion Effect (SEE)". Assuming the 2015 powder used is Accurate 2015BR, is Accurate 2015BR is certainly slower than 2400, which I use as a guide, and the use of a filler is a major consideration."

Pirate69

The use of a filler with cast bullet loads has nothing to do with the prevention of an S.E.E. with very few exceptions. Those exceptions are usually when using inappropriate powders for the bullet weight and case volume.

The puropose of using an appropriate filler is to improve ignition and burn making both more consistent giving more uniform internal ballistics and velocities. Secondly the use of a filler also reduces or negates "powder position sensitivity".

Again, as in my post on the appropriate use of fillers, the use of a filler should be restricted to instances where the powder is appropriate [in burn rate and ignition sensitivity] for the cast bullet weight and the volume o the case capacity in use. A filler is not needed nor is it necessary in many instances.

[popper]

I tried the dog chew toy filler in 30/30 PB cast years ago using unique, didn't find it made a difference. You are near 50% fill on your loads so position shouldn't make much difference. And evidently doesn't make a difference in ignition? My advice - get some Zep root killer (12$/bottle) and dump 2 table spoons on top of your melt. Process as described in cu added alloy. PC and WD in ice water. Size, load and shoot. IF your COWW doesn't have tin, add a little to the alloy first. It will toughen your bullets to take the spin and give better accuracy. Your mould looks similar to my BO mould - I push it 2k PB and MOA @ 100. I could push faster but run out of powder space. 22 is just too small for my old fingers. A 2015 (BR, AA - all the same) is a single based extruded powder so shouldn't have downloading ignition problems.

[Pirate69]

As I said, "Now to show my ignorance." LOL.



"Now to show my ignorance. It has been my understanding that the use of a filler may or may not improve accuracy. And, if it does, it is a secondary benefit of its intended use. The primary use is to eliminate the potential for "the phenomena of Secondary Explosion Effect (SEE)". Assuming the 2015 powder used is Accurate 2015BR, is Accurate 2015BR is certainly slower than 2400, which I use as a guide, and the use of a filler is a major consideration."

Pirate69

The use of a filler with cast bullet loads has nothing to do with the prevention of an S.E.E. with very few exceptions. Those exceptions are usually when using inappropriate powders for the bullet weight and case volume.

The puropose of using an appropriate filler is to improve ignition and burn making both more consistent giving more uniform internal ballistics and velocities. Secondly the use of a filler also reduces or negates "powder position sensitivity".

Again, as in my post on the appropriate use of fillers, the use of a filler should be restricted to instances where the powder is appropriate [in burn rate and ignition sensitivity] for the cast bullet weight and the volume o the case capacity in use. A filler is not needed nor is it necessary in many instances.

[PAndy]

I use filler as per Mr Gibson's instructions to reduce vertical spread in groups, in hope of making the velocity more consistent . I "think" it is working for me. Mostly use with 4198 in 30-30 loads. I don't use any with faster burning flake powders.

[popper]

Evidently didn't save or else mark any targets from using poly fill. Anyway IMHO you aren't using enough. 1/2 your case is empty. For the 30/30 I stuffed it in until I filled the case and neck, then seated the bullet. Not tamped down but pushed in with a pencil till it overflowed the neck. I think that is what Larry alluded to. I used dog toy (he chewed them up fast to eliminate the squeaker) and didn't measure, just tore out some and stuffed it. I haven't seen what I would call vertical stringing on your targets. If you shoot 20 or so you get the 'cone' of impact, vertical will show up for sure. You will get a decent group, shotgun pattern or oblong (stringing). This is a 30/30 145gr cast using unique. I watched the shots cross right to left (me and recoil) and up and down, single loading and no 'cool down' time. Later shots were down, probably barrel heating or bore getting dirty. Bullet is PB & PCd. If it were a big fps change, I would see them bouncing up and down. Oh, top is on left. And it is a lever gun with x16 scope so I can see each hit. No spotter needed. Day was 40F and 15 mi left wind. I've follower some of the 223 cast adventures. You said 1:12 twist IIRC but you still need a good tough alloy and Sb doesn't cut it. Even PC may be a problem, if you can get some BLL, 2 coats and try. Balance of that small bullet is critical.
296825
This is 22lr same day. Going a bit slower but old fed match stuff. Marlin 60 S.A. Wind does come into play. About 50-60 rnds. I got tired. Point is just a couple shots doesn't tell you much.
296826

[243winxb]

Kapok or any filler are dangerous & most times, do NOT improve accuracy. As you testing shows.

[Larry Gibson]

Wolfdog91

What is the velocity of your AA 21015 load with and without the filler?

Also, did you just shoot one load or did you work back up with the filler?

BTW, contrary to some opinion the proper use of a filler is not dangerous. In many if not most cases accuracy is improved.

[popper]

He's about 2k fps, 25k psi, 60% fill.

[Shopdog]

I'll say that the proper use of fillers is safer than not..... with the caveat;

If a shooter feels that the use of reduced charges is "going off the reservation", not using "book" loads.... then any discussion of the tools required,would obviously have a negative,therefore "dangerousness about them.

I use loose,bag dacron. Not,the flat compacted kind. Just how I roll,not an indictment. The fluffier the better meaning,DO NOT PACK. The looser the better.

Dacron fillers "can"(don't mean has to or will) cause issue with the lube spray or atomization at certain pressures. This isn't a hard science. As the load goes up the pressure ladder,you most likely will run into a zone or range that filler accuracy can go out the window. Meaning,at lower pressure(lube ain't being blasted out,well before the bullet) your filler loads are behaving nicely. You'll be seeing good,positive feedback on accuracy with,or without. But keep going up the pressure ladder and things aren't so clearly defined. Good luck with your project.

[Sasquatch-1]

In line with this thread but a little off tangent, has anyone tried using fillers with H-110 and W-296? These are supposed to have problems if there is not enough powder in the case. With the filler pushing the powder against the back of the case do you think the lighter loads would be safer? I am not looking to try it, I use Unique for light loads, just interested about opinions or actual experience.

[Larry Gibson]

He's about 2k fps, 25k psi, 60% fill.

If his barrel is a faster twist, then the filler use probably pushed the velocity above the RPM Threshold for his bullet. That's why, with that burning rate of powder, when using a dacron filler I suggest dropping the charge to 14 - 15 gr and working back up. Altering a reasonably performing load in any manner by simply adding the filler can mess up the accuracy. Sometimes it works well improving accuracy, sometimes it does what it did here. That's why, when using the dacron filler it's best to treat it as a new load, start low and work back up.

[Larry Gibson]

In line with this thread but a little off tangent, has anyone tried using fillers with H-110 and W-296? These are supposed to have problems if there is not enough powder in the case. With the filler pushing the powder against the back of the case do you think the lighter loads would be safer? I am not looking to try it, I use Unique for light loads, just interested about opinions or actual experience.

Not here but at the behest of franknore (?) I did some testing of H110/296 in the 8x57 with cast bullets. Without the filler pressure spiking became evident at the level he suggested. With the dacron filler the pressure spiking stopped but the pressure curve rose very quickly. I suggest the use of a more efficiently ignited powder.

[Wolfdog91]

Wolfdog91

What is the velocity of your AA 21015 load with and without the filler?

Also, did you just shoot one load or did you work back up with the filler?

BTW, contrary to some opinion the proper use of a filler is not dangerous. In many if not most cases accuracy is improved.

Sorry it took me so long to get back with yall.
Ok so without filler I'm running around 2100fps. However my chrono has been acting up and wasn't able to get a reading with the filler. And no I didn't even think about working back. I just added some to the original load not considering that the filler talking up case space would increase pressure and velocity. Rookie mistake I know.lol. and yeas this is a different gun . 24" 1-12 twist though it's very temperamental when it come to barrel heat

[Forrest r]

Interesting that no one has brought this up. Not my pictures but they clearly show the bullet bases.
https://i.imgur.com/fTgTqfa.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/b4GplaC.jpg

Both bullets cast from the same alloy/pot at the same time, same firearm shot them, same load, same yada-yada-yada.

When looking at both pictures which bullet base looks normal/flat??? Which bullet base would be better for accuracy??? One of those bullets had filler in the case, the other didn't. Anyone care to speculate on which bullet had filler in it's case???

The other thing that comes to mind is what kind of gc's are you using Wolfdog91??? And what type of material are they made out of???

[Sasquatch-1]

Not here but at the behest of franknore (?) I did some testing of H110/296 in the 8x57 with cast bullets. Without the filler pressure spiking became evident at the level he suggested. With the Dacron filler the pressure spiking stopped but the pressure curve rose very quickly. I suggest the use of a more efficiently ignited powder.

I only have one pound of H110 and I don't use it right now. I prefer to use Titegroup for magnum loads. I was just curious as to the affect of a filler with less then suggested wieghts of powder.

[unclemikeinct]

I'm still learning. I've been trying this cast bullets in rifle loads on & off for better than 40 years. The Smaller stuff seems the most difficult. {under 30 cal. } Thank you all for sharing. Wolfdog keep posting, we are all learning & refining this art. uncle mike