Cornmeal filler question

[rich pierce]

I’m thinking that somewhere I have read about using cornmeal as a filler to take up space in a load. It may have been for pistols of a type we don’t discuss here.

My relic rifle still has an extended eroded breech despite growing 2 calibers during re-cutting of the rifling. It’s s .36 and I need about 45 grains of FFFG to fill that up, and coincidentally that charge gave me the best accuracy in first trials. I am getting vertical spread which could be velocity or my eyes.

Ok, that is the background. Questions:
1. Can a filler be used above the powder in a round ball gun?
2. If so, is a wad needed between the powder and the filler?  And is another wad needed above the filler and below the ball?  If wads are used, what are they made of?  Hard card wads like over powder for a shotgun?

If I’m imagining all this just say so!

I could keep going with the re-cutting and turn this into a .38 but it seems promising for accuracy right now.

Oops just did a search for cornmeal. Looks like SCLoyalist is the cornmeal evangelist and uses if without any wadding between main charge and meal. I will give it a try.

[DICKH]

   Don't remember what year but there was a piece in Muzzle Blasts about using Cream of Wheat
as a filler if I remember right said to use half of your powder charge as filler .If using 40 grs. of
powder use 20 grs. of Cream of Wheat.

Richard Henderson

[Daryl]

If using or wanting to get past the problem area, Rich, I would suggest Grex  by Winchester, or Puff-lon, as these are designed for the purpose.
Corn-meal, cream of wheat and flour have been used in the past but are products that will compress into a solid, hard plug under the pressure of firing. This may not be good.
When loading  make sure you get the slight compression needed on the powder.to ensure consistent pressure and velocity, both needed for accuracy.
Keep us I.formed of your findings, please.
Remington also makes a filler.
Something else that might work  if using cards as well, is the foam backer rod used for sealing windows. The 3/8's size would be perfect. The "guys are using it for smokeless loads in huge English but Express ctgs.

[Flint62Smoothie]

In India-region Toradars with their special, elongated ‘firing chambers’ that narrow down (bore restriction) right below where the ball sits, some use fillers of corn meal or even cheap oatmeal to fill up that lower space. This is needed for 2 reasons, as (1) the powdah back then was mealed and wasn’t as dense as 18th century or modern mixes and it needed to be tightly packed (hence the bore restriction/chamber ‘ring’) but (2) also “to be kind” to an old original where one wants to shoot it, but using a lesser charge.

If you have a straight bore, I offer 2 other suggestions, perhaps even used in tandem. You could try a good 1/2” thick fiber wad (lubed) above the powdah to take up some space and/or use 1Fg powdah. Now my flint smoothies tend to have long barrels (up to 60”) and bigger bores (65 to 75-cal) and on a suggestion, I recently tried Goex 1Fg and the results, for me, were phenomenal!

I took the big 75-cal 60” barreled club butt to a recent woods walk and not only won the smoothbore contest, but was only a couple points way from the highest rifle bore score, using French type paper cartridges and 90-grn loads to boot! Not only was the accuracy outstanding (placed 2nd in smallest group contest) but I shot it 30-times or more without swabbing the barrel once.

[Standing Bear]

I haven’t used a filler in a Rifle but regularly use cream of wheat in my Old Army to position the ball closer to the forcing cone when shooting reduced loads for targets. No card or other just CoW on top of the black powder.

[rich pierce]

Looking forward to a test this weekend.

[Robin Henderson]

The late, great Charlie Haffner was a champion pistol shot at Friendship. He always told folks that he used self rising cornmeal as a filler in his revolver....said it would help prevent a "dropped shot" in a match.