Card stock for a gas check?

[put]

It may sound crazy but what do you think of card stock such as playing cards glued on the base of a boolit for a gas check? Will it work?

Just toying with any idia for a poor mans gas check. My goal is to get a 45-70 PB boolit up to 1800 fps or a little higher.

What else might work?

[AZ Pete]

I don't think you would need glue, if you are limiting yourself to trying this on straight walled ctgs.

[405]

I've tried it with the 40-70 SS cartridge and it "seems" to work. If you intend it's primary purpose to be to increase velocity AND maintain accuracy... dunno? I did it in an attempt to only increase accuracy with plain base bullets over smokeless. I could measure a small but real decrease in group size comparing loads with and without a .030" card wad glued to the base.

Since even straight walled cases are tapered there is no guarantee that the wad without a good glue bond will stay on the base. I'm particularly cautious possibly even paranoid about having any possibility of a "hard" object sitting on top of the powder where there is air space between the powder and the bullet base... including card wads, gas checks and the like.

[pipehand]

I do this with the 45-70 using the press mounted wad punch from Buffalo Arms. Being frugal, I don't but playing cards to make the wads out of, I use the cardboard from beer 12 packs. The glue thing is unnecessary as lond as the wads are a bit bigger than the base of the boolit. I tried sandwiching two card wads with a bit of loob in between them, but it was not worth any effort- my boolit cary more than enough lube for smokeless loads, but it might be worth a try for BP cartridge shooters to keep the fouling soft.

[w30wcf]

put,
I don't know about the card stock (it seems a bit thin to me and will it obturate?).
I do know that a .06" thick poly wad will do it.

w30wcf

[put]

Thanks for the replys,

w30wcf-
What is a "Poly wad" ?

[HABCAN]

Put, cut 'em from supermarket meat trays.

[armoredman]

Then your shooting will smell like barbeque! Sorry, couldn't resist.

[mooman76]

I like BBQ!

[John Boy]

w30wcf-
What is a "Poly wad" ?

Put - since w30wcf is a good friend of mine, figure he wouldn't mind me answering.
Poly wad is Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) plastic. The Black Powder Cartridge Rifle shooters use it quite frequently as wad material - including w30wcf and myself. Works great in straight wall cartridge cases

Look at the plastic containers that are used as packaging material. It will be stamped LDPE. I buy it from a supplier in sheets ... 0.030 and 0.060" thickness.

Other containers will have a HDPE stamp on them

[beagle]

I'd think the card wads wouldn't obturate enough to give much of a seal. I could be wrong but that's my thinking. I know the BP guys have been using poly wads for years so they should work. The poly should expand a bit after cutting and give afriction fit in the neck as well. The card wads, especially from playing cards might not expand that much. For sure, you'd have to anchor them to the bullet some way and glue's probably the best course./beagle

[put]

Good info! I think I will try the Poly. I hope to shoot in a few weeks and I will let you guys know how they do.

[NickSS]

I tried a card wad and teflon tap recently in a 30-30 load. I had some 165 gr PB 309 sized boolits I bought from a local bullet caster and they did not shoot in my rifle with several differnt loads. So I experimented with them I sized them down to 308 diameter and glued a card wad to the base. I then wraped two layers of tefflon tape around the slug and applied heat with a butain lighter to shrink the tape in place. I then loaded it in my 30-30s using 32 gr of H335. Results were that I got 2425 fps velocity and better accuracy than I did with a much milder load. I may even try it for deer this fall.

[Wayne Smith]

Instead of cards cut your wads out of waxed cardboard Orange Juice type boxes. Works well for BPCR and worth a try with smokeless.

LDPE is the stuff of which the tops of Chinese food containers are made. Punch wads from these.

Both sources are free and we are recycling!

[NoDakJak]

About twenty five years ago I read an article about using Teflon Plumbers tape to patch bullets with. I believe that it was in Handloader! I was having problems with H&Rs version of the Trapdoor carbine. Was using a Lee bullet and Pyrodex. Very poor accuracy and had to run a brush through it after every shot as it left strings of lead that looked like coarse steel wool. Two wraps of tape and a trip thru the old Lyman 450 was it. It took care of the problem and turned the little carbine into a decent shooter.
I left the base exposed but it is important that you wrap just far enough forward over the ogive that it doesn't catch on the edge of the chamber. It is also very important that you have a decent chamfer on the lip of the case and a bell large enough that it doesn't catch and tear the tape. Worked for me then and I intend to test it some more now that I am back into casting.
By the way; I was kicked out of a match for using the tape rather than paper patching!

[Boerrancher]

I have used card stock wads cut from beer/soda case/cartons for years. I don't glue them to the base of the boolit, as I worried about the glue throwing off the balance of the boolit. I only want that card wad there to keep the powder gases off the base of the boolit long enough for it to clear the barrel. Once that happens I don't need a gas check anymore.

For those of you who worry about a small air space between the wad and the boolit, that is easy to solve as well. Take and pack your case with toilet paper over the powder. This works well for bottle neck cases as well. Set your wad over the toilet paper and use the boolit to compress the entire contents of the case.

I have always managed to squeeze an extra several hundred FPS out of my plain base boolits by doing this. Another advantage to this is that if you live in a hot climate or forget your ammo in your car on a hot day, the excess lube on the boolits doesn't run down into the case and foul your powder. If it gets past the card stock gas check, it is soaked up by the toilet paper.

Best Wishes
CPT T.