Grass and natural wads

[rich pierce]

The Bevel Brothers have an article about primitive over the powder wads in a shotgun. Huge loss of velocity. They often do interesting tests.

[Bob McBride]

The Bevel Brothers have an article about primitive over the powder wads in a shotgun. Huge loss of velocity. They often do interesting tests.

It always seems, even though I feel all NDN, to just Pfffsst when I use leaves or Tow but I certainly use it when I’m experimenting or run out of cards in my bag... I'll look it up. Thanks.

[walks with gun]

   I still prefer wasp nests for wadding,  we had some years we stopped shooting our muzzleloaders because of finding wads and patches smoldering.  Wasp nests for some reason seem to be very fire resistant.  Hate to have a brush or grass fire because of wadding flaring up.

[Mike Brooks]

Having spent many years shooting skeet I spent alot of time at the pattern board. Even minor changes in the shot and wad column could radically change the shot pattern. I found It is critical to always be very precise about your loading procedure. In my opinion, stuffing random debris that are at hand down your bore is not going to be conducive to good shot patterns.

[Pukka Bundook]

Mike,
Good tough leaves seem to work as well as 'proper' wadding.
I have shot lots of ducks using leaves, (and shot, )  Ivy leaves mainly, rolled into a ball and rammed down.
This was so we didn't set the grain fields alight when shooting over laid crop, prior to harvest.

Grass is only good for holding the shot in place.
I have mentioned tough leaves on here a few times, (ivy leaves) but only because they work.

Load in a 15 bore was 2 1/4 drams No 6 C+H powder, and 1 1/4 oz No 4 English.  (No 5 US)

Cleaning up feral pigeons in the farmyard, I shot a 7, a 10, and 14 birds with a single shot for each lot.  This wouldn't have happened with a pfft load.   :-)

Best,
Richard.

[rich pierce]

I think the experiment was done with dry grass and dry oak leaves. Makes sense they would blow apart and tough ivy would not.

[577SXS]

The only time I'd use something like grass or leaves would be when I didn't have anything else. Just messing around for fun have at it. If hunting use a good wad. I've done a lot of muzzle loader shotgun shooting and its hard to beat a lubed felt or fiber wad over the powder and a thin card over the shot.

[Daryl]

I've never seen Track's commercial wads take fire or smolder.  Am I missing something?
Kinda like paper ctgs. in rifles. If they are tight and seal, there  is no blow-past flame and no fire.

Last fall at Hefley Rendezvous, during the quail walk, there must have been 500 shots fired altogether
yet not a single smoldering wad. Everyone was loading normal card and cushion wads. It was dry, also.

[walks with gun]

     I don't think Track of the Wolf was selling wads or such in the glory days of the flintlocks.   He's looking at natural material one can find along the trail I think.

[bob in the woods]

If "back in the day " means the mid 1700's, I have seen documentation for both brown paper, and leather wads being used in the sport of wing shooting if that helps. I have used folded brown paper to good effect.

[rich pierce]

It seems likely that the wing shooting gentleman  the sportsman, the market hunter, the frontier farmer, and the native Americans far from supplies used varied wads. I’ve seen swan shot and such in trade lists. Not recalling seeing wads but it could be. I’d be very surprised if the sportsman or market hunter did not have well fitting punched wads even in the 1700s.

[Pukka Bundook]

A wad punch was supplied when a gun was purchased new in the 18th/19th century, and sheets of pasteboard were available at the gunshop.
Many punched their wads from these sheets, buy hard loading was possible after a  while and the gun was often washed if possible.
Many used the felt from old saddles, or brown paper as mentioned above.... or Spanish moss . 
(The old books will tell you all this)
I was told as a young lad about the ivy leaves, in about 1970,  as a way to avoid setting fire to the fields or marshes.   With homemade wads, I did get smoldering at times, or fire when using newspaper. 

BACK Then, We had No Track of the Wolf wads. We used Paper, or home punched wads of some sort.
I Do get a bit sick when folks here tell us that there is no need  for alternative wadding. No there Isn't Now, but we had No choice back then.

I wish I'd never mentioned the flaming ivy wadding.
It works.   It's not needed these days. But it Still works.

PS,
The old books like Hawker give clear instructions how to remove your rammer when it gets jammed in the bore when ramming down Paper.
Please read some of these old books and we can then cut out the surmising about what was used.

Best,
R.

[Daryl]

Some random opinions on wads, shot and shooting.
I do not know if these products, wad punches or paste board were available in the States - likely not until the mid 1800's.
I suspect most hunters used "whatever' was handy.  Grasses, leaves, etc. I also suspect that most bird shooting was done on the ground or on the water with very little aerial
shooting done at all.
I also suspect that aerial shooting of birds was done rarely until the percussion period, anywhere - though more likely in England with higher quality locks, than in the Americas
Yes, the Americas did some get decent locks from England, they were still 'commercial' locks.
Aerial shooting would not have been practical until round, dropped shot was available, which at least in larger centres like St. Louis and other larger centers it was by the mid 1800's.
Earlier, I do not know.  However, good shooting/patterning characteristics without proper wads was likely a rare occurrence.

[Mike from OK]

What exactly is pasteboard?

At first I was cutting a small square hunk of leather to wad the loads in my smoothie... They worked fine. But recently I punched out a bunch of leather discs with a 5/8 arc punch. They seal very well... So well that if I don't cut a tiny notch on the edge you fight compression when loading... Which concerns me some... Will BP "diesel" and ignite?

Mike

[Darkhorse]

When testing turkey loads in my .40 caliber rifle I noticed I was occasionally having slow or erratic ignition. I suspected the wet patch was  wetting a portion of the powder column. I ran some tests with clean wasp nest.
I poured my powder down as usual them tore small pieces of the wasp nest on top of the powder. Then the patch and ball were seated on top of the wasp nest pieces. My hope was the wasp nest would absorb any excess lube from the patch.
I have now shot around 100 shots loaded like this with no more slow or erratic ignition.
I don't think I would use wasp nest as a patch but it does have it's uses.

[Mad Monk]

   I still prefer wasp nests for wadding,  we had some years we stopped shooting our muzzleloaders because of finding wads and patches smoldering.  Wasp nests for some reason seem to be very fire resistant.  Hate to have a brush or grass fire because of wadding flaring up.

Simple one here.  When the wasps chew up wood to make the nest material something in their saliva acts as a flame retardant in the resulting wood fibers used to construct the nest.  Man sort of copied this idea when scrap newspaper was used to make a composition used in ceiling tiles to flame retard them for use in offices and homes. We learned from the wasps.

[OldMtnMan]

I've read using tow for a wad and I don't get it? We use tow to start fires. Why would anybody want that for a wad?

[rich pierce]

A wide variety of natural materials and fibers have been used for wadding. Spanish Moss is one that’s been found inside relic trade guns. Imagine a frontier or wilderness situation.  What are you going to use when shooting shot or to keep your ball down on the powder?  Most anything can be used as an overshot wad. But an over powder wad needs to hold together and fibrous materials like a wad o& tow will hold together.

Some of those natural fibers are going to be flammable. Obviously they are not appropriate for uncontrolled situations today. At the range over a hundred yards of short green grass?  Fun to try what our predecessors used.

I’ve used corn husks experimentally. They smolder too. Not for hunting.

[Panzerschwein]

Does greased tow have a lot of velocity lost? Seems like it wouldn’t but not sure.