Vegetable Fiber Wads, Smokeless Powder and the 45-70 Cartridge

[Just Duke]

After a GREAT! and lengthy phone call that came from Lumpy yesterday I was told that if you use vegetable fiber wads on top of your powder it helps make the loads more consistant in velocity. COOL! I am using 4198 and not sure if it position sensitve or not but the wad would eliminate any doubt.
This makes sense.
Where can one get these and or make them? I would need some where around 7000 to 10,000

[Johnw...ski]

When I had the wrong barrel twist in my 45-70 vegetable fiber wads didn't work for me. Not that they were horrible groups but it was just a bit better without them.

With my new barrel with a 1 in 18" twist and boolits that didn't fit right it was the same results, but a custom mould that produced boolits with the right dimensions
was just the opposite, the groups improved with the vegetable fiber wads. Don't expect miricles, it improves my groups at 100 yds. 1/4" to 1/2" but it's just enough to get me to MOA.

Please excuse the capitals but DON'T PUT THE WADS AGAINST THE POWDER, THE WADS GO AGAINST THE BASE OF THE BOOLIT.

Wads against the powder with an air space between the wad and boolit can make the boolit an obstruction to the wad and ring the barrel or worse.

But wads can help accuracy and are worth a try.

Good luck,

John

After a GREAT! and lengthy phone call that came from Lumpy yesterday I was told that if you use vegetable fiber wads on top of your powder it helps make the loads more consistant in velocity. COOL! I am using 4198 and not sure if it position sensitve or not but the wad would eliminate any doubt.
This makes sense.
Where can one get these and or make them? I would need some where around 7000 to 10,000

[Johnw...ski]

Buffalo Arms has em.

If you need that many it may be worth buying a press or die to make your own.
Buy the thickness of gasket material you need from your local auto parts store or Buffalo Arms also has material in bulk as well as the punches and dies.

[Just Duke]

OUCH! Ringing the barrel. Bill Bagwell said that happened to him once. Didn't know that would cause it.

What happens if the wad slips down from vibration or something?

.

[Johnw...ski]

The experience I have had is they fit pretty tight, they won't slip down.

OUCH! Ringing the barrel. Bill Bagwell said that happened to him once. Didn't know that would cause it.

What happens if the wad slips down from vibration or something?

.

[Doc Highwall]

If you push the wad down to the powder it becomes the primary projectile and the boolit now becomes a bore obstruction causing the boolit to obturate and ring the chamber right where the base of the boolit sits of your loaded round.

[Just Duke]

I was under the impression the the wad was thick and it would hold the powder in one place. Huh? How thick are the wads?

[bobk]

DUKE,
For absolute safety, any sort of filler should take up ALL available space between the powder and the boolit. This eliminates the chance of any airspace causing a ringed barrel. Now, using 4198, this would take a lot of fiber wads, so a secondary filler, such as COW, might be the answer. Or, you could just forego the fiber wad, and use the COW entirely. Please note that none of these techniques apply so simply to any bottlenecked case. The only filler BELOW the neck should be something light and fluffy, so that it doesn't cause a blockage at the shoulder. Personally, I would use a slower powder as a filler, so that I never needed anything but the vegetable wad. The idea that I had for loading my .405 was to determine the volume of power that I needed to fill the case with some compression (and I'm going to use a wad because of my plain-based boolits), and start with slow powders and keep trying faster powders in the same volume until I get the ballistics that I want. In theory, this will give slightly more recoil that using a lesser charge of a faster powder, but the effect of the slower powder on recoil is not as bad as the recoil effect caused by boolit weight.

An alternative filler, mentioned by Al Miller years ago, was to finish filling up the space with black powder. Hmm. It cost more than COW, and doesn't have the bore-scouring effect of the COW.
Bob K

[Johnw...ski]

They are usually either .030 or .060 thick.

I was under the impression the the wad was thick and it would hold the powder in one place. Huh? How thick are the wads?

[pincherpartner]

Looks like you have your choice of about .030" or .060"
http://www.buffaloarms.com/browse.cfm/4,3360.html

http://www.buffaloarms.com/browse.cfm/4,3359.html

[wbwizzard]

I think fiber wads are not the best to use because of the chance of it becoming a secondary projectile. In my trap door I use a light charge of 4198 held in plase by a dacron wad .75'' square and about .125'' thick. It does not act as a projectile it melts from the hot powder gas. I believe it also acts as a lubricant and prevents leading. Better yet, try using Trail Boss powder, no wad is necessary as it nearly fills the case. I use 15 grains under a 300 grain RCBS.

[DonH]

A tuft of cotton or dacron or something like a 1/4 sheet of toilet paper is all that is needed to hold 4198 against the primer. The only caveat I would add is that dacron is a "plastic" and some have reported ringed chambers when using it. The claim is that when driven against the bullet base the dacron under pressure has a hydraulic effect. MANY still use it without incident but Col. Harrison and CE Harris ceased to recommend it. I have used cotton and TP successfuly with 4198. FWIW, BP requires no filler!

[Just Duke]

Well I am running 30 grains of 4198 with a 485 grain cast NEI bullet (graciously sent to me per the Nyack Kid) and and pretty well fills the case.
I also will be casting a NEI 405 grain and it doesn't have quite the same case capacity so I am going to pick up some Trail Boss today and give it a try.

[Boerrancher]

I have used fiber wads for years in all of my strait walled cases. I just cut them out of cereal boxes or shoe boxes. If the powder does not fill the case to where I get a slight compression I use toilet paper as a wadding between the wad and powder. Whether it be powder that fills the case or toilet paper I always use the cast boolit to seat the fiber wad. I try and make my wads a few thousandths bigger than the boolit, by doing this, I get a bit better seal against the boolit. If properly sized and seated the fiber wad can work almost as well as a gas check.


Best Wishes from the Boer Ranch,

Joe

[35remington]

"In my trap door I use a light charge of 4198 held in plase by a dacron wad .75'' square and about .125'' thick. It does not act as a projectile it melts from the hot powder gas."

I think you would be fascinated to find that the dacron exits the bore intact, especially over light powder charges at moderate pressures. Use a case full next time with your 4198 load. You'll find dark gray dacron tufts out front of the muzzle approximately 12 to 17 feet away, given enough shooting. Very small volumes of dacron are disassembled by the turbulence of their high velocity, but your light charge of 4198 will definitely not melt dacron into nothingness.

How do I know? BTDT. Charges of fast burning powder will produce some fusing of the dacron. In some cases, the dacron assumes a disk shape that corresponds to the base of the bullet. The long dacron fibers are somewhat broken by the action of going up the bore.

I highly doubt there is anything to choose between cotton or dacron and kapok, and the last two are lighter than cotton when taking up the same space in my tests. I have not yet heard any compelling reasons why one should be "safer" than the other if all are properly used to fill all airspace.

[Just Duke]

I think fiber wads are not the best to use because of the chance of it becoming a secondary projectile. In my trap door I use a light charge of 4198 held in plase by a dacron wad .75'' square and about .125'' thick. It does not act as a projectile it melts from the hot powder gas. I believe it also acts as a lubricant and prevents leading. Better yet, try using Trail Boss powder, no wad is necessary as it nearly fills the case. I use 15 grains under a 300 grain RCBS.

Oh my! 971 fps with Trail Boss and 405 grain bullet. I woud require 1250 to 1300.
http://www.imrpowder.com/data/rifle/...ss-oct2005.php