Cork wad acting as gas check?

[PeterB]

45-70 Ruger #1.

I have a pb HP bullet (LEE 405) I want to use for hog hunting.
The idea is to load the case with a healthy dose of Norma 200 (48gr) and a 0.12 thick cork wad firmly against the base of the bullet.
Alloy is WW 12-14 bhn. Lube Alox 50/50.

Anybody have experience of this?
Will the cork wad protect the bullet base like a gas check?

Peter

[Tom W.]

It would seem that it would, unless it got shredded in the barrel, or crumbled....Try a few and see. And be leery of debris in the bore.

[Leftoverdj]

Peter, no.

That's far too weak, porous, and thin. I've tried almost every idea that's come along for GCing that bullet over the last 20 some years. Cork does not work at all. The wax sheets popular at one time helped a very little bit. So did reinforced rubber disks. (I cut mine from an offset press blanket with a shop made punch.) Those two may have raised the velocity at which I still got accuracy by 100 fps, but not more.

Filling the space over the charge with corn meal did help, but I was young, foolish, and shooting an immensely strong Siamese Mauser when I did that. Lord knows what the pressures were, and I would not do it now.

I believe a plastic gas seal similar to those used in build up shotshell columns would work, but I got nowhere cutting that portion off muzzle loader sabots. They were undersized for .45-70. Someone with plastic injection experience and equipment might make that work, but I have neither.

Inverted GCs showed some promise, but about that time I gave up and went to proper GC bullets that I HP in a lathe. That definitely works.

[243winxb]

No cork, you need a gas checked bullet for that powder charge.

[44man]

You need to remember the gas check is made to take the rifling and maintain a seal at the boolit base while imparting spin at the critical base section. Putting a wad behind a boolit will not stop a too long skid and a seal will be touch and go.
Working loads with a PB for accuracy with a lower velocity will give you plenty of punch for hogs and might even give you better penetration.

[wallenba]

Teflon maybe, if you can find it in sheets, might take the heat.

[44man]

Teflon maybe, if you can find it in sheets, might take the heat.
The heat is so fast even a tuft of Dacron will not melt. Even a wad of newspaper can survive.
The only protection a boolit base needs is from pressure, not heat. You can make a boolit base flow but never melt.

[Char-Gar]

Cork wads go back a long, long way and have never been a substitute for a gas check.

You might want to try some PSB filler on top of your powder. You want enough to give light compresion with your bullets. The PSB will compress and flow into the grooves and according to some folks will give decent protection to the bullet base.

I have used lots of PSB with gas check bullets, but not with plain base, so i am speaking from theory and not experience.

[45 2.1]

The only protection a boolit base needs is from pressure, not heat.

Not so..............A soft boolit can be pushed very fast provide you separate it from the heat of the burning powder. The burning powder, which produces both heat and pressure will gas cut the base and sides of an unprotected boolit. You put a freechec, gascheck, filler or wad on it and it can perform quite a bit better. I've done this with all the above many times to prove this to myself.

[clintsfolly]

with a charge load that is compressed you can flip a GC over and set your pb on top of it. clint

[leftiye]

Remember, hot = soft. Hot lead will give in to pressure way before cold lead will (just like high speed cutting tools last so much better when kept cool). Another alternative to consider is a felt wad impregnated with grease, of lube, etc. Forms a hydraulic gas seal and keeps the flame off of the boolit base. Won't help any with pressure though, and how that boolit base takes the rifling is very important. I would suggest the slowest burning powder that will ignite at the resulting low pressures and also give you your desired velocity.

[Bob Krack]

Just got a new Nomex suit so here goes.

The heat that could be transferred to the base of the boolit is nil. Just for kicks, add a little tissue paper to the charge and after firing, you might find white powder (the tissue) but no burnt tissue.

You will NOT melt the base of the boolit, and we have no way to measure the temperature of the boolit but the gas WILL flow past and carry atoms of your alloy with it (without a perfect seal).

The damage is done by gas cutting. ANYTHING that can seal the base to bore/groove interface of the boolit from the gas leakage is what ya need to prevent gas cutting.

What I'm trying to say is, keep the gas behind the boolit and ya won't get leading.

Bob

[JeffinNZ]

I shoot a 300gr plain base bullet in my .38-303 using a heavy card wad (0.060 inch) over 37gr W748. BHN 8 bullet at 1670fps with blistering accuracy. Just make sure you use a wad that is a little big than the groove. LDPE is also very good.

[WHITETAIL]

I have used wax paper from milk
cartons for gas checks.
This is on a plane base boolit.
And I got better groups for it.:-D

[Jim]

The heat is so fast even a tuft of Dacron will not melt. . ....

With all due respect, I beg to differ. I've used many square FEET of dacron as powder positioner and, whether the charge is light or heavy, the dacron burns. Not completely, but it will burn almost to a crisp.
Dacron is fibrous and serves only to position the powder. It serves no purpose as a seal. If a seal is the desired result, a solid, sheet like substance is required and it must be virtually nondestructable under pressure AND heat.

[44man]

With all due respect, I beg to differ. I've used many square FEET of dacron as powder positioner and, whether the charge is light or heavy, the dacron burns. Not completely, but it will burn almost to a crisp.
Dacron is fibrous and serves only to position the powder. It serves no purpose as a seal. If a seal is the desired result, a solid, sheet like substance is required and it must be virtually nondestructable under pressure AND heat.
I use a lot of Dacron for a powder positioner and have picked a lot of it up in front of the gun. It is dirty but not melted. Most of the time it is hard to find because it just blows away. Now using it for a seal with a skidding, soft boolit shot too fast will make the escaping gas force the Dacron past the boolit and burn it up. It will not fill gas vents. If you burn Dacron, something is wrong elsewhere.
I used to shoot through a few 55 gal barrels to cut noise and the front barrel would be full of LDPE wads. None were ever burned or melted and I used some again. Paper wads never burned either. In one rifle I put a newspaper disk over the primer before loading the powder. I have to flush the paper out with hose after shooting. It is still paper!
I have never seen a melted or gas cut base. Gas cut around a boolit-YES. And gas squirting alongside the boolit will heat the boolit sides from restricting flow, mostly mechanical like putting high pressure air through a very small nozzle, but not the base. The right wad can help prevent some of that and LDPE is most likely the best. But it or any other wad MUST NOT FALL DOWN ON THE POWDER.
Thinking about wads of any kind can ruin a gun unless the wad is supported against the boolit.
The best way to shoot PB is to shoot it at the point it works for the alloy you want to use. Why this silly search for more and more velocity when the boolit will kill about anything at the proper speed?
If you want faster, harden the boolit. For faster use a gas check boolit. When using faster, harder boolits, you can REDUCE killing power.
You hunters have to learn to ignore muzzle energy figures and make the boolit work instead.

[elk hunter]

With all due respect, I beg to differ. I've used many square FEET of dacron as powder positioner and, whether the charge is light or heavy, the dacron burns. Not completely, but it will burn almost to a crisp.
Dacron is fibrous and serves only to position the powder. It serves no purpose as a seal. If a seal is the desired result, a solid, sheet like substance is required and it must be virtually nondestructable under pressure AND heat.

Jim,

My experience with dacron has been that it is ejected unharmed by combustion. I've spent a great deal of time picking the darn stuff up off the ground after shooting trying to keep the range clean. I wonder what the difference is between your loads and mine that would make such a difference in the condition of the dacron?

Quite a few black powder shooters use the "Walters vegetable wads" between the powder and bullet. I've not used or even seen them in person, but from the pictures I've seen they appear to be cork. Perhaps someone that uses them can clarify what they are made of and how they work.

[felix]

Sounds like what the professional florist arrangers use to center their fake veggies and flowers. If a flower arrangement appears outstanding more than for one or two days, that arrangement was made with plastic goodies. ... felix

[longbow]

I used to load .45-70 for both a converted Siamese Mauser with 26" barrel and an 1895 Marlin with 22" barrel (if memory serves) using full jacketed loads for the Marlin using Lyman 457124, 457125 and 457193.

I got no leading in the Marlin but I got leading in the last 2 to 3" of barrel in the Siamese Mauser. At the time, I concluded that the heat must be getting to the boolits in the longer barrel so decided to use .410 fiber wads under the boolit. That solved the problem.

Now I doubt it was heat getting to the boolit, more likely running out of lube or something else and I am also more aware of pressure increases due to the added filler so would be approaching this with more caution if doing it now.

However, the fact is that using ACWW over full loads of powder with .410 wads did work and there were no pressure signs. Accuracy was certainly good enough for hunting and I used to cast soft nose bullets as BruceB describes.

Longbow

[leftiye]

The issue comes up time and again. And the arguments against heat being transferred to boolits seem to have some merit. Not enough time is the main one. And the pillow stuffing does or doesn't melt/burn. But every "caught" (Felix) bullet I've ever heard of burned the hands. Without exception. Air becomes hot when compressed, what does lead do? Fart maybe. Frankly, for the present purposes, I don't care one way or the other. Protecting the base from the explosion universally seems to help. Fillers and card wads don't stop pressure, but they help for some reason. Where I am interested is in the possibility that the surface of boolits may be hot, and cause or contribute to furthering boolit deformation. Boolits seem to act as being weaker than their BHN would lead us to expect for some reason.

[44man]

The issue comes up time and again. And the arguments against heat being transferred to boolits seem to have some merit. Not enough time is the main one. And the pillow stuffing does or doesn't melt/burn. But every "caught" (Felix) bullet I've ever heard of burned the hands. Without exception. Air becomes hot when compressed, what does lead do? Fart maybe. Frankly, for the present purposes, I don't care one way or the other. Protecting the base from the explosion universally seems to help. Fillers and card wads don't stop pressure, but they help for some reason. Where I am interested is in the possibility that the surface of boolits may be hot, and cause or contribute to furthering boolit deformation. Boolits seem to act as being weaker than their BHN would lead us to expect for some reason.
Bore friction heats a boolit much faster then powder does. Most is at the surface and is why I don't care when I size a boolit. Surface hardness goes away at the instant a boolit is fired and squeezed into the bore.
If you pick up ejected brass, it is hot, the boolit will be hotter but it sure is not hot enough to melt the boolit or deform it. Running out of lube can rub off lead on bare steel.
Shot fast enough and maybe the surface does melt from friction.
Have to think that hard alloys melt at a lower temp then soft lead too. They also have more friction.
Just maybe a soft boolit started gently and pushed to max might be better then hard lead.
Too many things to consider and is the reason some make things work that should not work.
None of us here has the answer for all conditions.

[EDK]

Go to www.buffaloarms and look at their selection of wads. The black powder cartridge rifle (Sharps, Remington rolling block; think buffalo hunters) use various types of wads on top of a compressed charge of black powder.

There is also a product called PUFF-LON(www.pufflon.com) that is a filler for both black and smokeless powder.

:cbpour::redneck::Fire:

[windrider919]

I shoot 458 Win Mag Pb bullets for 98% of my shooting which averages 150 rounds a month. I started with traditional cast grease groove, gas checked bullets but tiring of all the steps drifted into Paper Patch. Even there there were too many steps so I have done a LOT of experimenting to see what is necessary and what is not.

I experimented with fillers, positioners and wads made of just about anything that was not obviously abrasive. NOTE: chamber ringing and extremely high pressures can result from improper use of the above. It mostly applies to reduced or low charges but in the case of close to max charges the weight of a filler MUST be added to the bullets weight and the powder charge checked to see its not too much. Filler counts as projectile weight that the powder has to push! You would not substitute a heavier bullet in a reload without backing off the powder charge and this is the same thing. Note2: According to testing done by duPont when it was running a testing lab for ballistics back in the early '80s, Dacron should burn up in the barrel and not leave any residue. If any is leaving the barrel then too much is being used, as use as a filler was discouraged. Positioner use in small fluffed puffs up to 0.5 grain was fine, but not as dense wads. But then you have the air space problem to deal with.

The subject is wads. I tried wads made from many substances, including cork and found that I could shoot un-lubed, un-gas checked bullets even up to 1800 / 1900 FPS if the wad worked to seal the bore behind the bullet. I am shooting in a match barrel with very narrow rifling lands and wide grooves, not the best for cast bullets but I expect and get, repeatable, less than 1" groups, from the bench, sandbagged. Disagreeing with some previous posts, cork wads were used in shotguns for decades before modern plastic shot cups and did a fine job. They did not break up or burn up. Cardboard wads were also used to seal the bore. The NRA allows wads in BPCR match shooting and recognizing that they do not burn up and so requires that they be bio-degradable. In testing in rifles I have used materials like: notepad back cardboard, picture backing cardboard, 5/16 thick foam from a meat tray, roll linoleum, neoprene rubber sheet (1/8”), wax milk carton, cork (1/4”), commercial vegetable fiber wads, old felt hat both waxed and unlubed and polyethylene from plastic milk jugs(+-0.030) and dollar store PE cookie rolling sheets (+0.060 to 0.070). Testing, not just with 20 or 50 rounds but shooting up to 200 rounds for each wad type or mix of wad type let me really test and not just guess what was working and what was not.

First of all, I now use wads {the correct material ones} because I proved to my own satisfaction that they DO work to seal the bore. I still even use a PE wad under one of my paper patched bullets because even though PP works use of the wad brought my groups down 1/2” average. Because powder positioning is very important in accuracy I found that instead of several card wads or thick vegetable fiber or cork wads under the bullet if I used one PE under the bullet and then up to 3 each 5/16” foam wads [depending on the charge and the airspace it left] between that and the powder I got good results. If you can find one downrange it is smashed flat but unburned. Usually however they seem to disintegrate from muzzle blast at the muzzle. The notepad cardboard worked but worked better if dipped in molten bees wax and drained. The frame store picture cardboard (waxed too) worked better but mostly because it cuts a cleaner edge wad I think. I did not have as good of accuracy from the vegetable fiber wads I store bought so do not use them for smokeless powder. Cork was dropped because although it sealed the bore ( I got no leading up to 1600 FPS) it had poor accuracy. Linoleum wads worked VERY well and I got some of my best groups but I found out on researching its manufacture that it is probably significantly abrasive in this use as to forbid its use or ruin a barrel. Shooting 'soft' wads like waxed felt worked on flat base bullets but when shooting gas checked-less bullets it failed utterly and leading was bad. Adding a hard wad between bullet and felt wad worked but why then use the felt wad at all? Waxed milk carton worked but not as well as the PE wads. Neoprene, well, all I can say is “Neoprene bad, no cookie for you!” and I will never use it again!!!! I like to shoot, not clean fouled barrels. I note this differs from Leftoverdj in post #3 but that is what happened to me.

WARNING! Never leave a gap between a wad and the bullet!!!!!! Chamber ringing and blown up guns have occurred doing this. Anything on top of the powder charge should NEVER be able to travel forward and impact on the bullets base!!!! The wad OD should be such that it holds itself stationary in the case and cannot slip down, opening a gap. That is why I use the foam as a filler to a) position the powder against the primer [for better accuracy], b) eliminate air space yet not add much to projectile mass.

Finally, I just have to say this. For best accuracy which I feel should trump power because it does not matter how many foot pounds of energy your bullet carries if you miss. I used to shoot Mag everything which I loaded hotter and hotter till I reached max. There were times I was absorbing 90 to 100 Ft/Lbs of recoil. But then I noticed that I was not hitting the target very well and left the range with headaches, blurred vision and sore all over, not just my shoulder. To me, you might be afflicted with the same desire I once had, Magnumitis. For what you are hunting you could back way off which would not punish you as much, still have huge lethality and would let you shoot with better accuracy (and probably more enjoyment too).

[44man]

Windrider, great post! :Fire:
That answers everything and kind of follows things I found. I now use just thick paper for my BPCR so the powder is easier to compress. My friend just seats on the powder and gets great accuracy because his boolit fits the gun.
I tried all kinds of wads and some will ruin accuracy while others do not change or improve it either.

[badgeredd]

windrider919,

Great post! I have to say that you just saved me a ton of work experimenting with wads. This is the best thing about this site, everyones willingness to share their experience and those who have taken the time to really evaluate their experiences when experimenting/testing an idea.

Edd

[Echo]

My guess is that the heat of the fired boolit mostly comes from the friction between the boolit and barrel, combined with the effect pressure will have in heating the boolit, and not so much from the heat of the burning powder. Take a lead boolit, set it on a concrete floor, whack it hard with a single jack, and pick up a hot boolit. Just my guess...

[softpoint]

Now, If I had a nearly straight case like the 45/70, I wouldn't be afraid to try a filler.
This is another controversial subject, but I have done it, and it worked. Cream of Wheat. from the top of the powder charge to the base of the bullet with light compression. Weigh the charge of cereal, add to the weight of the bullet. Of course if you are already using a charge of powder that very nearly fills the case to the base of the bullet, you may have to change powder, or load. The loads that seemed to work best for me had at least about a 1/4 inch of cream of wheat on top the powder. The cream of wheat seems to compress into a solid, or semi-solid slug upon firing and acts as a gascheck. I don't know if cornmeal or another substance would do the same thing or not. Elmer Keith used cream of wheat many years ago. you would need to work up your load from start again and take into consideration the extra weight of the COW. In some plain base bullet loads it will stop leading completely. :drinks:

[longbow]

I have been using COW filler for pretty much all my .303 loads. So far it seems to give the same results for plain base boolits as I get with gas check boolits.

I might be reluctant to use a granular filler in a large bodied cartridge with steep shoulder and small bore like .243 Winchester or 7 mag. but I have an article on using PSB shotgun buffer for filler in a .308 Win.

As softpoint says, loads have to be worked up and filler weight has to be taken into account.

I have had no problems so far and no leading so the COW obviously protects the boolit base.

Longbow

[DonH]

45-70 Ruger #1.

I have a pb HP bullet (LEE 405) I want to use for hog hunting.
The idea is to load the case with a healthy dose of Norma 200 (48gr) and a 0.12 thick cork wad firmly against the base of the bullet.
Alloy is WW 12-14 bhn. Lube Alox 50/50.

Anybody have experience of this?
Will the cork wad protect the bullet base like a gas check?

Peter

If a soft lead bullet (30-1 or 40-1) of that weight at black powder velocity is capable of penetrating (or nearly so) a buffalo then a WW bullet of that weight at a velocity reasonable for the alloy should have no trouble on a hog. In many cases we have been sold a bill of goods regarding the need for speed.

[PeterB]

This place is a goldmine :-D, a lot of guys sharing their experience willingly.

It seams that there is plenty room for experiments here. I think I'll try three different configurations.

-Cork wad only. 100% loading density.

-0.08 PE foaming wad only, 100% loading density

-Cork wad over PE foaming wad, 100% loading density.

I will add the weigh of the wads to the boolit weight and always keep 100% load density or slightly compressed charge to prevent ringing the chamber. Diameter of the wads .460.

a few Q from a guy living outside US:

What is cream of wheat??

PSB filler, whats that?

Maybe I'm affected by Magnumitis :-Dbut it's in the human nature to explore the limits. Anyway my current hunting load is a 350 hornady RN @ 2100fps, quite stiff recoil in the shooting bench but I have never noticed the recoil in a hunting situation.

Thanks guys, Peter

[303Guy]

The burning or scourching of fillers has been touched upon earlier in the thread, with folks disagreeing with one another. I have seen fillers burn and not scourch. All in the same gun! Some folks have set fire to range grass - with cotton wool. I have used wool filler and found it to scourch and shrivel. I'm just saying that differnt load conditions produces different results. I like cotton wool because it is a good bore cleaner. But, I have been told it can cause fires and I did indeed get a smoulder once. But mostly just dusty.

Flame cutting does not seem to be heat related as such. It appears to be 'mechanical abrasion' of the boolit surface where the hot and high speed jets of gas pass between boolit and bore. That is to say, high velocity gas and/or larger molecules strike the soft lead surface and erode it away.

[44man]

The burning or scourching of fillers has been touched upon earlier in the thread, with folks disagreeing with one another. I have seen fillers burn and not scourch. All in the same gun! Some folks have set fire to range grass - with cotton wool. I have used wool filler and found it to scourch and shrivel. I'm just saying that differnt load conditions produces different results. I like cotton wool because it is a good bore cleaner. But, I have been told it can cause fires and I did indeed get a smoulder once. But mostly just dusty.

Flame cutting does not seem to be heat related as such. It appears to be 'mechanical abrasion' of the boolit surface where the hot and high speed jets of gas pass between boolit and bore. That is to say, high velocity gas and/or larger molecules strike the soft lead surface and erode it away.
I think you are right and a thought came to me. Burning powder generates it's own oxygen, could it be some powders will light off the filler?
Or does the filler ignite when it clears the muzzle into oxygen?
Powder flame duration and where it ends in the bore might also have a bearing on whether a filler will burn.
How much powder flame reaches the filler before it leaves the bore must have an effect.
So even though my Dacron does not burn, I have to change my position and say "it depends." There are too many things that happen in the gun, too many powders and loads and that makes everyone's opinions and experience correct.
We have to agree, everyone is right! :drinks:

[Jim]

44,
Actually, the conversation between you and 303Guy makes me think "Well, I'm not wrong after all". I know dern good and well I ain't crazy(questionable?[smilie=1:). Bottom line, however, is it works for me, dacron cindering or not. Heck, it's an expendable filler to hold the powder in place. I don't care if it burns to nut'n honey!:-D

I love this forum!

[longbow]

Cream O Wheat is a fine ground cereal similar to cornmeal but finer and "sandier" in appearance. Cream O Wheat seems to work better as filler than cornmeal ~ maybe more compressible?

PSB is a spherical plastic shotgun buffer. I have never used it, just read about it as a buffer and as use for filler in bottleneck cartridges:

http://www.surplusrifle.com/shooting/castfiller/index.asp

Fillers are a very controversial subject. Some love them, some hate them. I think they have their place and I use them with no problems and I think several benefits.

If you decide to use filler of any sort start with a known low pressure load and work up with powder and filler together.

Longbow