shot cup dowel size...

Yes they are lubed
Yes the ones without the tail get opened up that's why I put the tail on the one to make it easier to open
Yes they all have a felt cushion wad under the shot

Oh and that's the first time I've been called "fancy" :rotf: :rotf:

Bryon said:

Can u use an is card over the powder?

Click to expand...

I tried going with just 1/3 of a lubed fiber wad between the powder and shot cup and wasn't killing anything. I shot it at cardboard and the pattern circle at 30 yards was almost empty. I added an overshot card between powder and lubed 1/3 wad and it was the same crappy void. I finally went to a thick overpowder wad, 1/3 lubed wad and then shot cup with shot and an OS card. That did the trick and my patterns returned.
I think the gasses were escaping past the OS card and wad and there was no oomph to propel the shot. When I sealed it good, the results improved dramatically.

Now if I could only get those quail to cooperate again. :redface:

Yes, if only someone would develop Kamakaze birds that would fly into your pattern.......yeah, that's the ticket! :haha:

Patocazador said:

Bryon said:

Can u use an is card over the powder?

Click to expand...

I tried going with just 1/3 of a lubed fiber wad between the powder and shot cup and wasn't killing anything. I shot it at cardboard and the pattern circle at 30 yards was almost empty. I added an overshot card between powder and lubed 1/3 wad and it was the same crappy void. I finally went to a thick overpowder wad, 1/3 lubed wad and then shot cup with shot and an OS card. That did the trick and my patterns returned.
I think the gasses were escaping past the OS card and wad and there was no oomph to propel the shot. When I sealed it good, the results improved dramatically.

Now if I could only get those quail to cooperate again. :redface:

Click to expand...

You will likely find that a single O/S card is too thin to seal even in a perfect bore, as is even a full 0.5" cushion wad by itself. When Iron Jim first wrote about simplifying life by carrying only O/S cards, he found 2 over the powder sufficient in his gun(s?). My 16ga has somewhat rough bores and I've found I need to use at least 3 and preferably 4 to seal reliably (brown burn streaks on recovered paper shot protectors are very distinctive). This is using firm .020-.025" thick commercial or home-made cards at least .020" larger than bore diameter; with thinner materials like milk cartons, it is 4 minimum and 5 preferred. Softer materials like cushion wads, packed tow or bark fiber, etc. appear to need a minimum thickness of between 1x and 1.5x the bore diameter to seal, depending on the material. Materials with intermediate hardness, like hard felt, appear to have thickness requirements in between the two, as one would expect. I haven't seen anyone work out what the minimums are when using combinations of materials to seal over the powder, e.g 1 O/S card + 1/2 of a cushion wad.

Regards,
Joel

thick leather makes a great gas seal ....think old bicycle tire pump..leather seals