Plastic wads vs Natural/Card wads: My big summer test

[megasupermagnum]

Finally I got to finish the project I wanted to do way back in June. My shoulder feels about as good as ever, and I was able to handle the 1 1/2 oz baby magnums with no issue. I think I have some interesting results to report. Some are real eye openers. Some leave more questions than answers. Also the RP12 wads were donated by a member here. It has been so long I can't remember who it was. So thank you if it was you.

This test took the entire day. I started in the morning, got shooting by about 11 and didn't finish until about 6. I've been counting holes in paper for the past few hours. This picture is my pickup after I finished shooting. That's quite the stack of pattern paper. I tried to do 5-shot averages, but a number of them had to be 3-shots due to issues with the chronograph or pressure gun.

First just a disclaimer. This is not to be considered load data. Only two of the loads listed come from a published reloading manual. The rest are wild cats. Use at your own risk. You will also note the pressure appear high in one, and low in another. You have to keep in mind I did not calibrate my test guns The 16 gauge I just put a new strain gauge on it yesterday. The 12 gauge should be fairly close, but I did not run any of my calibration loads to check it. Weather was quite warm, about 85 degrees and I was out in the sun. I had no way to shade the ammo. This is not a laboratory, I'm testing in the outdoors. Instead just focus mostly on the A to B testing, which is what this is all about.

I'll start by listing the loads. I'll be referring to them by their letter farther in the post. This is how I organized all the patterning too. All loads had both the shot and powder weighed. I used Lawrence #5 magnum lead for every load.

12 gauge

A:
2 3/4" Federal Paper
Federal 209A
34gr Bluedot
RP12
1 1/2 oz lead
fold crimp

B:
2 3/4" Federal Paper
Federal 209A
34gr Bluedot
(2) 1/8" 12ga nitro cards + (1) 1/4" 12ga felt wad
1 1/2 oz lead
fold crimp

C:
2 3/4" Federal Top Gun gen 3 with plastic basewad
Federal 209A
18.5 gr 700X
Downrange clone 12S3
1 1/8 oz lead
fold crimp

D:
2 3/4" Federal Top Gun gen 3 with plastic basewad
Federal 209A
18.5gr 700X
(1) 1/8" 12ga nitro card + (2) 1/2" 12ga lubed fiber wads + (1) 12 ga overshot card (under the shot)


16 gauge

E:
2 3/4" Fiocchi
Fio 616
15.5 gr American Select
Claybuster CB0078
1oz lead shot
20ga overshot card
fold crimp

F:
2 3/4" Fiocchi
Fio 616
15.5 gr American Select
(2) 1/8" 16ga nitro cards + (2) 1/4" 12ga felt wads
1oz lead shot
20ga overshot card
fold crimp

G:
2 3/4" Fiocchi
Fio 616
15.5 gr American Select
Claybuster CB0078
1oz lead shot
fold crimp (no overshot)

H:
2 3/4" Fiocchi
Fio 616
15.5 gr American Select
(2) 1/8" 16ga nitro cards + (2) 1/4" 12ga felt wads
1oz lead shot
20ga overshot card
roll crimp

A quick note on those loads. That's not a typo on the 16 gauge, I used 12 gauge felt wads, and yes those are CB0078 wads with 1 oz loads. In the 12 gauge fiber wad loads I used lubed wads and I lubed them myself with bear grease. I did not soak them, I only lightly rolled the sides of them in it. I was hoping to only lube the edges, but it soaked in, so they are very lightly lubed. I have no idea how much the lube effected the test, if at all. My thinking at the time was to create a "worst case" scenario with a ton of lubed cushion, and minimal sealing nitro card. You will see how that turns out later.

Here is the pressure testing data using my Pressure Trace II. For the 12 gauge I used a Mossberg 500 with a 28" barrel, the same I've been using for a few years. The 16 gauge is a Stevens 530A with 28" barrels which I've also used a long time, but the old strain gauge got damaged in the gun safe. I glued a new one on yesterday, and never calibrated it. I did run some published loads through it to check function, and they appeared normal pressure, but it could be off 1000-2000 psi. Note that loads A and C are published tested loads.

Pressure Data
12 gauge

A: 13,239 psi
B: 14,015 psi
C: 10,631 psi
D: 11,279 psi

16 gauge

E: 6,141 psi
F: 5,449 psi
G: N/A (saw no reason to test)
H: 5,124 psi

I tested velocity with 3 guns in 12 gauge, and 2 in 16 gauge. I had a lot of trouble with load B for some reason, I'm not sure I would trust it. I only got a couple good readings. I'll number the guns. The guns in 12 gauge were the same (1) Mossberg 500 with 28" barrel, a (2) Winchester 1897 with 30" barrel, and a (3) Benelli Nova with 28" barrel with an extended choke which brings it to 30" total. In 16 gauge I had the same (1) Stevens 530A with 28" barrels, and a (2) Remington 11-48 also with 28" barrels.

Velocity data
12 gauge

A1: 1286 fps
A2: 1326 fps
A3: 1266 fps

B1: N/A
B2: 1262 fps
B3: N/A

C1: 1216 fps
C2: 1238 fps
C3: 1218 fps

D1: 1175 fps
D2: 1204 fps
D3: 1184 fps

16 gauge

E1: 1110 fps
E2: N/A

F1: 1066 fps
F2: N/A

G1: N/A
G2: 1110 fps

H1: 1038 fps
H2: 1034 fps

Next up is the real meat of the testing, the pattern testing. Again I'll number the guns. For 16 gauge I used both the (1) Stevens 530A and the (2) Remington 11-48. In the Stevens I used the left barrel which has a modified choke. The Remington also has a modified choke barrel. In 12 gauge I intentionally chose two guns as opposite as I could. I chose the (1) Winchester 1897 because it has a 2 3/4" chamber, and it was built when natural/card wads were all there was. I have not measured the forcing cone length, but it does not appear to be any different than a modern shotgun. It has a full choke barrel. The (2) Benelli Nova I chose for the 3 1/2" chamber. It is also about as new as a shotgun gets although the forcing cone appears no different than the Winchester. I used a Carlsons extended full choke for all tests.

Pattern testing was done at 40 yards, measured with a tape. I then counted pellets inside of a 30" circle. I centered the circle on what appeared to be the center of the pattern. I shot mostly 5-shot averages, although some are 3-shot. The results I will list as averages. I added up the pellet counts, then divided by the number of patterns. 1 oz of my #5 Lawrence has 174 pellets. 1 1/8 oz is 196 pellets. 1 1/2 oz is 261 pellets. I'll list the average pellets inside a 30" circle first, followed by the calculated pattern percentage.

Pattern results
12 gauge

A1: 200 pellets 77%
A2: 203 pellets 78%

B1: 169 pellets 65%
B2: 117 pellets 45%

C1: 153 pellets 78%
C2: 142 pellets 73%

D1: 160 pellets 82%
D2: 148 pellets 76%

16 gauge

E1: 126 pellets 72%
E2: N/A

F1: 116 pellets 67%
F2: N/A

G1: N/A
G2: 126 pellets 73%

H1: 118 pellets 68%
H2: 126 pellets 73%


That's a lot to take in. Conclusions to follow...

[megasupermagnum]

One thing I built for this test was a new patterning board. My old one was literally a board that I stapled paper to. I never would have done what I just did that way. Instead I built this one which uses a roll of rosin paper on a shaft, which I used 3/4" EMT since that is what I had. I made brackets from scrap steel, but wood would work just as well. The stand is about 48" x 60", and I made the feet removable so it is easy to transport. It is very slick to use. I pull the paper up and over the top of the stand, and clamp it with the spring clamps. I then clam the bottom and that's it. I followed up with a sharpie to mark what the load was, then used a fillet knife to cut the sheet off at the bottom. Rinse and repeat for hours.




Velocity and pressure somewhat go hand in hand. In this case what stands out to me is that changes are insignificant between the wads. The tests of plastic verses natural/card wads are 12 gauge A vs B at 776 psi raise, C vs D at 648 psi raise, and in 16 gauge E vs F with a 692 psi reduction. I don't think this is nearly enough tests to draw any firm conclusion, but it appears to me that pressure is not effected in any meaningful way between a plastic and natural/card wad. Sometimes it raises, sometimes it lowers. Note that all three included cushion wads. If you went with a full stack of hard nitro cards pressures will raise, and sometimes dramatically. As for velocity again I'm not seeing a giant change. We will ignore A vs B this time since there isn't enough data. I'll average the velocities between the 3 12 gauges. In 12 gauge C (1224 fps) vs D (1189 fps) has a 35 fps average reduction. In 16 gauge E (1110 fps) vs F (1066 fps) has a 44 fps reduction. So will natural/card wads always see a minor reduction in velocity? There's no way to know based on this little bit of data. A 40 fps reduction isn't worth hardly anything anyway.

Conclusions on the patterning are much more interesting, although subjective. What I really wanted to see was how a 3 1/2" chamber effected things. All shells tested were 2 3/4", so assuming a 3/4" long forcing cone, there could be a 1 1/2" jump from the case mouth to the bore. I don't think there is much doubt a plastic wad seals that area well enough. I had no idea what to expect from a nitro card wad which has no ability to expand to chamber diameter. I saw nothing irregular in pressures. Velocities appear to be normal for the most part. I don't know if it means anything, but the Winchester 1897 with 2 3/4" chamber was the only one that I could get any velocity measurements from load B. All the other loads seemed happy in the 3 1/2" chamber of the Benelli Nova.

Continuing with that thinking, Load B appears to be a dud no matter how you look at it, but it is REALLY bad in the Benelli Nova. Normally when I get such dramatic failures I find issues such as wad failure. I have no explanation. I double checked my work, those numbers are correct. A 1 1/2 oz lead shot load with 261 pellets only managed to land 117 of them on average at 40 yards. The amazing thing is all the patterns were consistent. It's not like I'm seeing one blowing out, then the next being great. The individual patterns were 116, 115, 121, 109, 122. It is one of the most consistent patterning loads I tested today. Load A varied more than that in the same gun. It's a great load if you want your full choke gun to perform like a cylinder bore.

As a polar opposite was load D. This was my "worst case" load that I intended to pattern poorly. Instead it just might be the most impressive 1 1/8 oz load I've ever put together. It patterned 82% from a plain old full choke, no buffer, no shot wrapper, and it did it consistently with stuff we've had for way over 100 years. 160 pellets of #5 in a 30" circle at 40 yards! Are our shells really better today? The plastic wad isn't shabby either, but I'm loading more of these natural/card wad loads for this 1897. I think I've found this years pheasant load. Just baffling is the Benelli Nova which patterned only slightly less, but still more than the plastic wad. What on earth is going on here? Why did load B epic fail, and load D dominate in the Nova? I'm at a loss. It definitely seems that a 2 3/4" shell is better in a 2 3/4" chamber, but with a 3 1/2" chamber who knows.

In 16 gauge the only conclusion I can draw is that these two shotguns just don't care. There's no difference between plastic and natural/card wads, and there's no difference with or without an overshot card. In fact E and F had 20 gauge overshot cards, and H had a full 16 gauge overshot card. Only G was loaded without an overshot card. That's 20 patterns shot with overshot cards, and not a single one of them had the mythical "blown pattern". They were all consistent within normal variation. There was no odd distribution of pellets on target. These guns just shoot good no matter what. These are modified chokes too, and I'm getting around 70% patterns with them. That's not good or bad, just depends what you want.

One last thing on the 16 gauge loads. For some reason a lot of 16 gauge shooters online are drawn to 7/8 oz loads. There is a certain mentality to be different in that community I'm not thrilled about. So many have shunned 700x as too fast (despite 700x saying it is great in 12 and 16 gauges right on the bottle for decades). There's even red dot data out there. There's a fair amount of the slower burning American Select data out there for 7/8 oz loads, all fairly high velocity. Yet American Select in the standard 1 oz load, people wont touch it. Some of these guys think Green Dot is too fast! These AS loads are fairly light although from what I see American Select isn't just a good 16ga powder, it might be the best 1 oz load powder there is. In the future I'm probably going to go up to 16.5 grains American Select which should put me in the ballpark of the 1165 fps (2 1/2 dram) territory of the standard light 16 gauge load. I saw no issues at 15.5 gr AS. Hulls and barrels were clean, but keep in mind it was hot today. I have no way of knowing how they would perform when it gets cold.

[megasupermagnum]

Questions, comments?

[ozonebob]

Wow! What a huge amount of work! Very informative thank you!

I especially like your rolling paper target stand.

Bob

[centershot]

So much for the "superiority" of plastic wads! Those of us that shoot yesteryear's shotguns have asked the question for years, "Is today's ammo so much better than what my gun was designed for back in 1900?". When comparing today's inexpensive "promotional" loads to something like RST's offerings, is there any difference? Probably not, but, the pattern board os the only way to tell for sure. To be sure, we know the RST loads are safe in our old guns and if you pattern a few of them, you'll see they are fine hunting loads for upland game. It's not high pressure or high velocity that kills game, it's full, even patterns! The old style cards and wads can obviously provide this.

Your pattern percentages are really interesting to me. I was one who always thought that the plastic wad would provide a superior pattern. Your data shows that this is a "maybe", depending on the gun and load combo. This was a very interesting study, MSM, thank you for devoting your time and energy to accomplish this!

[Agent1187]

It's both awesome and awful that you went through all this effort to find things were generally similar down the line.

Did you happen to pull your card wad loads from a book, or just sort of substituted what felt safe?

And as a kid who grew up sniffing the federal paper hulls but now only has 5 in my possession, I'm somewhat jealous of you old-timers who still have a garbage can of them around.

[Nobade]

I think a lot of it comes down to how your particular shotgun is built. The modern barrels are quite different from the older ones, and are designed for modern plastic wads. I have long been advocating using card wads in guns that are built for them as they give better patterns.

[HWooldridge]

I always figured the ammo makers went to plastic wads because they were cheaper to load. Less components to handle but not necessarily “better”. Plastic wads don’t degrade - we quit shooting birds here several years ago but I still find them in the pasture.

Many thanks for your work on this; I will use your ideas to load some 12 gauge loads in my old double barrel full choke gun.

[W.R.Buchanan]

When we talk about a gun being "designed for" a certain type of ammo I have to ask what exactly is the difference between gun barrels then and gun barrels now?

Maybe a new thread on this subject?

Randy

[Squid Boy]

Mega, that was a lot of work and I appreciate your posting all that effort. I do have two questions. One, are you roll crimping or fold crimping all these loads? I don't know if I missed your mentioning it in your text. Second, are you using a strain gauge to measure pressures and if so which one? I have a Pressure Trace available from a friend and use it occasionally. Thanks again for doing all the heavy lifting. Squid

[longbow]

What Squid Boy said! Yes, thanks for doing all that work and posting results.

I am surprised to see that with the 12 ga. tests, both the card wad loads gave higher pressure than with the plastic wads. That is surprising to me at least with Blue Dot for loads A & B. I have mentioned a few times to watch out if replacing a cushion leg wad with a solid wad column because I believe pressure can go up considerably due to less volume just after ignition because of no crush. At least that explains a couple incidents with sticky extracxtion I ran into and looking at load data for 2 3/4" hulls versus short hulls it appears that the short hulls develop same pressure with less powder but that is generally with fast powders.

Your results show load B with 34 grs. of BD developing 14,015 PSI under 1 1/2 oz. shot (656 grs.) where the load A is running 13,239 PSI for same charge and payload. 1 1/2 oz. is a bit more than 610 grs. but Precision rifle listed a load for their Piledriver 610 gr. slug with up to 44 grs. BD using a plastic gas seal and that ran 12,500 PSI. Different hull and primer and your payload is a bit more but that seems like a lot of difference in pressure for a smaller charge. I guess there is a difference in payload too in that you are using shot versus Precision rifle's slug which according popular belief should develop less pressure than a shot load of equal weight but again that is quite a difference.

Also, I have assumed that leakage past nitro card wads was significantly higher than with a plastic gas seal. Maybe not looking at your results!

I suppose the short story is that one (me) shouldn't assume! Shotshell reloading has more than a little bit of mystery to to it regarding results when there are changes in components! I may have been treading on dangerous ground... again.

A little off topic since you are testing shot patterns but looking at pressures you have posted I am going to do a little rethinking about some of my slug loads.

Thanks again for putting in all that work. It is very informative and enlightening.

Longbow

[Nobade]

When we talk about a gun being "designed for" a certain type of ammo I have to ask what exactly is the difference between gun barrels then and gun barrels now?

Maybe a new thread on this subject?

Randy

If you look down the barrel of a modern made shotgun and compare it to an older one say pre 1960 you can see the difference. The older guns had comparatively short forcing cones and the bores were the same diameter all the way down until the choke. Also the bores were usually what they are supposed to be i.e. a 12 gauge was .729" or close to it. The newer guns made for plastic wads have a very gentle forcing cone going into usually a much larger bore, often with a taper toward the muzzle. They work fine with modern wads which expand and seal the bore, and the less abrupt forcing cone and large bore work together to lessen recoil and provide a more gentle passage of the shot. They also drop the chamber pressure quite a bit. It is similar to having a long throat in a rifle, which allows the bullet to get a running start before hitting the rifling. The short forcing cone allows the card wads to seal almost immediately and continue to do so as they travel down the barrel. This is why modern loads will seem to have more recoil in older barrels than they do in newer ones. And to take this to an extreme, many competition guns come with "back bored" barrels, something that customers also like having done to their own guns to lessen recoil over shooting hundreds of rounds in a day.

[ackleyman]

ON your B load, I had a variation that I will tell you about that gave me great success.

I used a federal gold metal hull, same charge but used a Ballistic's product Gas seal, then hard wad. I then used a Tyvec wrap inside the hull. Patterns were absolutely the best I have ever shot. Then I took clear Mylar, and made a sleeve from cutting pieces of plastic, they worked as well as the Tyvec wrap at a small fraction of the cost. We were shooting Pigeons and copper plated 5's were the norm as shots were 55-70 yards on birds flying 50+ mph.

If you want to lower the pressure a tad, trim the hull and roll crimp the round.

Federal Gold metal, Fiochhi hulls have great case capacity, and you are one lucky rascal if you can find any of the older Active hulls.

[Geezer in NH]

Finally got to read this. Great post of research and testing results. Great invention for patterning!

Shows to me if I have the plastic 1 piece wads use them quicker to load and no downfalls but if I cannot get them I can make it up otherwise.

All in all a fantastic post and endeavor. Thank You MSM!!

[Geraldo]

Very thorough testing. Thanks for posting all your data.

[Markopolo]

nice Work MSM!!!!! Evaluating!

[megasupermagnum]

Hey everyone, sorry for the long delay. This is turning into one spectacular year, both good and bad. I'll try and answer any questions I see. There is one minor typo I found. In load H, I used a 16 gauge overshot card.

@Agent1187, it's not awful at all. It's actually about what I expected. The only real surprise to me was that a 3 1/2" chamber has minimal if any effect. Of course this is too small a sample size to draw any hard conclusions. There is a load very similar to load D in old manuals, except the Federal 209A did not exist then. Load B I tested at an earlier date, as I did load D. None of the 16 gauge loads are published. No need to be jealous of my paper hulls. They still make them and sell them. I bought this last batch, a 500 ct box from BPI back in the spring. They will come back for sale soon enough.

@Nobade, I am not finding any real difference in the shotguns. In this test my model 97 was built in 1929. My Remington 11-48 was I think 1953. I have no idea when the Stevens was made, likely post 1970. The Mossberg is a frankenstein, but the barrel is likely 80's. The Benelli Nova is from about 2002-2004 ish. At some point I plan to take some chamber casts, but by my simple methods of measurement, there is next to no difference between any of them. The chambers, forcing cones, and bores are all pretty much the same. The Benelli is a little smaller in bore diameter, but not by much. The forcing cones look the same, and the bores are all straight until they get to the choke. No tapering at all. I've never seen such a barrel. As you can see I was not able to find any significant difference between plastic and natural wads as far as pressure and velocity are concerned. Even in a 3 1/2" chamber velocity is not effected.

@Squidboy, all of that information is in post #1.

@Longbow, my current lot of Bluedot is slightly faster than average. Along with that, it was a very hot day, and I was shooting out in the sun. I wouldn't worry too much about the higher pressures, although one theory on why load B failed is because the wads could not handle that level of pressure like a plastic wad could.

@Akelyman, I load a very similar load to yours with 1 1/2 oz of F buckshot for coytote.

[BLAHUT]

I learned one thing years ago. About my grouse gun, 18" cyl bore. I got a bunch of high base Rem 12 ga 7.5 size shot shells, All of a sudden, I could not it a straight away bird, took a while, finally I went to the pattern board, At grouse range it was shooting a donut shaped pattern, was blowing the center out of the pattern, only like 1 or 2 pellets in the center void. Went back to AA trap loads in 7.5 and no more problem.