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Plastic wads and cups

PostPosted: Sat Nov 24, 2018 9:17 am
by Hugha2003
Good day, all
I trust you're a few pounds heavier now! Time to take to the field and walk it off.
I was wondering when the shotgun ammo makers started switching to plastic wads and shot cups?
I have a Remington model 10 with a Lyman compensator. I was told that a plastic wad can get hung up when it hits the hit the choke (which mounts on the end of the compensator).

The gun was in use up into the 60's. Was that pre-plastic wad?

I'm looking at RST as they make a few shells with fiber wads.

The other option is to take the choke off and see what the pattern is with a non petal type (hope that's a proper term) cup that holds the shot together a bit longer.

I'm new to this level of detail in shotguns. When Grandfather took his gun out I don't think he was too concerned about the details.

Thanks,
Hugh

Re: Plastic wads and cups

PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 11:22 am
by Scorpion8
Plastic shotgun wads really took off in the 70's with the reloading craze and the availability of components and new polymer compounds. Before then, folks reloaded using home-made shot or wad cards made from cork or felt (and many other items) but the manufacturing boom created an availability of new plastic wads as well as after-market wads as people always sought to improve on a load. In theory a 4-petal wad holds together longer than an 8-petal wad, but actual firing tests have shown very little difference in practice.

If you take the Cutts Compensator off, you basically have a "cylinder bore" choke. You could always remove the device and have the barrel bored for after-market chokes, either Remington or Mossberg probably.