Gas seal 12 gauge plastic hull

[Wolfmanjack]

Looking for some good around the house gas seals to load 12 gauge bp shells. I was looking for alternatives to store bought products. Plastic wads work well for me and seal the bore. I use various plastic shot shells. What are you guys using these days?

[rancher1913]

Good question, would like to know this too

[country gent]

A lot of bpcr shooters are using LDPA material ( coffee can lids), Napa rubber fiber gasket material, and cork in various thicknesses for wads to protect the bullets base maybe something like this under the felt wads would provide the gas seal. Cut to fit snugly in your hulls it should do what you want. Other wise leather may be punched to fit the hulls and provide a seal

[Wolfmanjack]

I tried that gasket material from the auto parts store and it doesn't seal the bore very well. The bottom of a modern plastic wad flares upon ignition, does corkcompress when fired to seal the bore?

[2152hq]

I've used old stock factory made over powder wads and filler wads I find at gun shows. Alcan, Federal, Winchester seem to be the most common and they are usually priced to sell fast. If not they are priced like gold,,but then you know the seller hasn't carried them around very long!

I find plastic wads melt when BP or any of the BP subs I've tried. Same for plastic shot shells leaving strings of melted plastic up and down the bore.
The one exception to that is the Black Remington 12ga hulls (Game Load or some such name)) Usually sold on the cheap at big box stores and I pick up the emptys around the skeet and SC range for nothing.
They for some reason don't melt when used with BP or subs. They do singe from the extreme heat of the burn and are useful for only about 3 reloads,,but that's more than I usually get from any paper shells, usually Federal, I could find.

For reloading on the cheap,, as a teenager I used to cut over powder wads for waxed cartons & packaging using a home-made punch. Nothing more than a piece of tubing of close-enough dia sharpened to punch the discs out of the cardboard.. I loaded two of those over the powder. They were a little(!) oversize but being thin they conformed to the hull easily enough with my wad plunger tool (dowel). Then the wadding was nothing more than a strip of newspaper wadded up and again tightly pushed into place.
A scoop of shot and a crimp applied with my Lee Loader hammer it together tool and I had my shells.

I'd rather use the surplus commercial wads now and crimp the shells on my MEC,,but could revert back to the old days if I had too.

[Col4570]

In the UK Builders use a Concrete Expansion joint Strip.It is a fibrous product and we cut Wads using a rotary cutter.When the Wads are dipped in a mixture of Cooking Oil and mainly Beeswax you have a good seal.I always put a Card wad each side of the own made wad.