Homemade Poly Wad question

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  • Last Post 19 July 2012
pat i posted this 12 July 2012

To the guys that make their own poly wads have any of you ever glued a piece of newspaper or something to the material to prevent the wad from sticking to the bullet and to be able to orient the wad into the case? I was thinking of giving it a try using 3M #77 spray adhesive.

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Dale53 posted this 12 July 2012

I have shot thousands of poly wads with my black powder cartridge rifles and was never bothered with the wad sticking to those soft bullets (30/1). Poly is slick stuff. I would think they would be less likely to stick than most any other wad material like newspaper.

I have also shot those in my Schuetzen rifles without issue.

I have several Fred Cornell press mounted wad punches that I use to make my wads.

FWIW Dale53

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Tom Acheson posted this 12 July 2012

Since about 1983 I have been using poly (LDPE 0.060” thick) wads in my straight wall handgun loads. I also was using them in my BPCR (but may be switching over to veggie wads). For many years I used a homemade punch but a few months ago I bought a Cornell press mounted punch. Some rabid BPCR shooters put a newsprint or waxed paper wad (thin disc) on top of the poly wad before inserting the plain base cast bullet, hoping to prevent the poly wad from staying on the bullet's base during its ride downrange. But I can't recall seeing any commentaries about recovered fired bullets with the poly wad still on the base of bullet.

One thing that some of the BPCR shooters do is start the wad at a slight angle rather than parallel to the bench top. This helps reduce the volume of trapped air under the wad and above the compressed powder column, which can cause the wad to migrate back to the top of the case mouth before the bullet can be seated.

Tom

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pat i posted this 13 July 2012

I wouldn't expect the wad to stay on the bullet all the way down range but think it might be good if it released from the bullet base as soon as it left the barrel which maybe it does. Guess the best thing to do is try it and see if there's a difference. I don't think I have the patience to try to put individual little pieces of newspaper in the case all by themselves so will try glueing the newsprint to the poly before punching the wads with the Cornell punch.

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Tom Acheson posted this 13 July 2012

They'll drop in a little quicker if they are slightly smaller in dia. than the poly wad. I put a wax paper wad (thin disc) over the primer (inside the case) before the powder goes in. That disc is lighly smaller in dia. than the ID of the case. They just fall into place without much tweaking. Before I had a punch made just for the wax paper wads, I used the same punch to make them as the poly wads and they had to be pushed in with a dowel to make sure they didn't fold over or end up staning on edge.

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pat i posted this 13 July 2012

The pictures below are what I'm talking about. The bullet base was wiped really well on a towel and firmly pushed against one of the poly wads I punched out yesterday. As you can see it does stick to the bullet. How long it would stay attached to the base after leaving a barrel is anyone's guess but it does stick.

The picture of the wads are one's I punched out just a few minutes ago after spraying the PVC with 3M Super77 Spray Adhesive and attaching it to a piece of newspaper. There's no way the bullet's sticking to the paper no matter what you do and the poly and paper bond very well.

Will it make a damned bit of difference? Who knows but I guess I'll be finding out.

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Dale53 posted this 14 July 2012

Pat; I benched my BPCR with a temporarily installed 20 power scope and shot it at 500 yards. It routinely made groups at that distance of 6"-8” (6” when I did my part and 8” when I screwed up). Those were ten shot groups with witnesses.

Frankly, I don't care what the wads were doing when that gun shot that well on demand (in good conditions, of course).

That was with the holy black, of course (Swiss).

FWIW Dale53

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pat i posted this 14 July 2012

Dale as I said I don't know if it will make a bit of difference one way or the other but this is one of if not THE easiest thing I've ever done cast bullet related to find something out. If it helps that's a good thing if it doesn't I'm out a ten spot for a big a can of spray glue, I'm sure I could find other uses for, since I had the poly and an old newspaper laying around already. If I didn't try it I'd be wondering about it the rest of my life.

Everybody's different and to me shooting cast bullets has to be one long continuous experiment or it gets boring.

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Dale53 posted this 15 July 2012

pat i. No criticism was/is intended. Just a comment.

I admit that I am not really an experimenter at heart (but I thank the Good Lord, for those experimenters out there who pointed the way for me).

I DO try different methods and compare but when I find a combination that works, I spend most of my time trying to improve MY skill level. Before my vision went south, I was a rifleman, particularly, and shot various disciplines (smallbore, big bore, BPCR Silhouette, smallbore sillhouette, varmint hunting, etc..

After my vision loss in the right eye, I went back to handguns as my sole effort (I had dabbled in handguns my whole adult life). Now, my efforts are directed at improving my lot with my handguns.

On the other hand, if I can help someone with my experiences, I am happy to do so.

Again, my efforts are now mostly in shooting (of course, I cast all of my own bullets and reload - OF COURSE (:>))

Keep up the good work!

FWIW Dale53

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pat i posted this 15 July 2012

I never took anything you said as criticism Dale.

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303PV posted this 18 July 2012

What is the purpose of a polywad? Has it the same function as a gascheck? Any information is welcome. Thanks. PV

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Tom Acheson posted this 18 July 2012

Several years ago Precision Shooting magazine had a series of articles by Merrill Martin. I think I have copies of them somewhere in a file cabinet.

He focused on using a soft alloy so that the bullet's lube grooves collapsed, extruding the lube out of the groove to do its job. But to protect the bullet base he used 0.060” thick poly wad.

That might not be the complete snapshot but its as good as I can recall. If you'd like me to look the articles over to get a better interpretation let me know.

Tom

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303PV posted this 19 July 2012

I would appreciate it if you could look the articles over. Thanks. PV

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nimrod posted this 19 July 2012

Me too!

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John Alexander posted this 19 July 2012

I too have copies of all of Merrill Martin's cast bullet work. Tom is right Martin believed that bullet lube is really a lubricant (instead of something else as other experimenters have proven to my satisfaction) and his experiments were to achieve the lube being squeezed out of the groove as it collapsed lubricating the back end of the bullet. He ignored the fact that the front end of the bullet seemed to get along just fine without any lubrication, even on the first shot, as do air rifle pellets.

In spite of this fallacious idea of what bullet lube actually does (I don't know either but I know I don't know) he achieved great results with plain base bullets with poly wads.

If I remember correctly (a shaky assumption) he finally concluded that wads weren't needed for gas checked bullets but I should go back and look at that because others have found that they do in certain situations.

Martin had all sorts of instrumentation and fancy machining capability at his disposal and did some very interesting cast bullet work.

John

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Tom Acheson posted this 19 July 2012

Merrill also is one of the guys that developed (and sells?) the NECO case/round/bullet measuring tool. My wife got me one for Christmas a “few moons ago".

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