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duckdup
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2022 9:05 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 12 Feb 2018
Posts: 258
Location: West-central Missouri

FYI - American Rifleman Jan 2022 issue has a spreader recipe for WAA16 wads, AA CF hulls, and home made spreader insert. Clay Buster wad C010016 is listed as an option for the discontinued Winchester wads.
Page 72 (Maybe also on-line)

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castnblast
PostPosted: Wed Jan 05, 2022 5:40 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 28 May 2008
Posts: 84

Do tell... I'm almost out of spreaders from Polywad, and don't expect to see them in stock anytime soon.
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nj gsp
PostPosted: Wed Jan 05, 2022 6:10 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 09 Aug 2007
Posts: 437
Location: WI

castnblast wrote:
Do tell... I'm almost out of spreaders from Polywad, and don't expect to see them in stock anytime soon.


Precision Reloading has them in stock.
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3drahthaars
PostPosted: Wed Jan 05, 2022 7:54 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 21 May 2015
Posts: 127

I've been doing some patterning in my F/IF Merkel.

I have duplicated the RST spreaders and Polywad loads with their inserts and BP, 16ga LPG and Shooting Times Magazine published recipes.

If you just want "spread" the factory loads are fine. But, for good distribution I used a SG16 with no petals, 1oz #7.5 (Lawrence Magnum), 17gns UNIQUE, 2.5"Fiocci hull / Chedite primer, roll crimp and got 85% hits in a 30"+ circle at 25 yards (no holes in pattern). It's a 6kpsi/1200fps field load...

I'm just a newbie reloading 16s, but petals on wads seem to have as much effect as inserts.

Fiber wads and cork spacers have the same effect. Spacers anecdotally create holes in patterns.

Just my $.02...


Last edited by 3drahthaars on Wed Jan 05, 2022 2:47 pm; edited 1 time in total
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hoashooter
PostPosted: Wed Jan 05, 2022 10:18 am  Reply with quote
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I agree w/cutting the petals off rather than using an insert.
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nj gsp
PostPosted: Wed Jan 05, 2022 8:33 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 09 Aug 2007
Posts: 437
Location: WI

https://www.precisionreloading.com/cart.php#!pp=90&l=PW&i=S16GA

Also in stock in quantities of 500

https://www.precisionreloading.com/cart.php#!pp=90&l=PW&i=B16GA

Apparently you'll have to copy and paste the whole line, I can't get the BBCode to work with this URL string.
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putz463
PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2022 2:13 am  Reply with quote
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Posts: 2343
Location: West MI

I also de-petal the wads for spreaders. Kinda ironic that BP has a brush wad for just about all common gauges and even some for the 24 but not the Queen of the uplands....

When removing petals usually the crimp suffers, I find the need for a filler to make up the added space in the stack height OR just put the same recipe in a shorter hull.

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stevesavage
PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2022 7:32 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 13 Apr 2017
Posts: 150

Any reason fiber wads wouldn’t work as well as cutting off petals?
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MSM2019
PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2022 7:33 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 04 Mar 2019
Posts: 1819
Location: Central ND

Question.

I understand why cutting off the petals of a wad can create a spreader effect, but why would you want to scuff up a bunch of shot? Once in free flight it will disperse and be gone and therefore useless if that first shot is a bit farther than you planned on.

When you leave the petals on the wad you protect the shot, adding the spreader (talking polywad) opens the pattern but in a much controlled way. Since there are a few different ways to use a spreader you have a lot more options than deforming a bunch of pellets just to get them out of the effective pattern.

I have also found that many loads that you use card and fiber wads with, can pattern pretty good with an unprotected shot column.

As the example earlier in this thread an 85% pattern at 25 yards, that is a heck of a tight pattern and if you were to center pretty much any upland bird with it......ain't much left to eat.

I realize I am not taking into account what these loads are being used for but, I think if you really do some work with spreaders you are going to be much better off in the long run.

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MSM2019
PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2022 7:52 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 04 Mar 2019
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Location: Central ND

To take this a bit further.

When you deform the outer pellets, of a load that you have removed the petals from the wad, yes you are going to move the majority of the deformed pellets to the outside of the pattern. You are not addressing the the core or effective part of the pattern. That is why card and fiber wad loads can be so effective at a lot farther than 30 yards. The core of the pattern has nice round pellets in it and they stay in the effective pattern.

With a spreader, you are opening up that core so that you aren't hitting a bird with a lot of pellets. That's the point of a spreader load for hunting. Yes at shorter ranges a spreader gives you a bigger pattern, but that isn't particularly what you need. You are looking to drop the pellet count in the 15" to 20" center of a pattern that you actually do the work with. Since they are round pellets, a spreader gives you the benefit of an effective larger pattern should you not center the bird.


Last edited by MSM2019 on Thu Jan 06, 2022 8:14 am; edited 1 time in total

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3drahthaars
PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2022 8:04 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 21 May 2015
Posts: 127

MEM2019,

Note that my 85% pattern is 30+" in diameter and from a barrel choked F/IF.

Google choke patterning and you'll see diagrams that pretty much show that IC should put 80% ± of the charge in about 32"circle at 25 yards. Also, bear in mind that the pattern sheet is 2D and some of the 85% of the pattern are strung out, too.

And, note that I saw "holes" in the Polywad and X-spreader patterns, whereas the petal less patterns were evenly distributed. Rule of thumb is to have 3 pellets on the bird for lethality. the holes were the rough size of a quail with 0-1 pellets.

Also to consider, I'm patterning a a 64 year old German gun, and those chokes (pre-plastic wad era) are really tight which may be the case for the OP wanting spreaders....

At any rate the name of the game is bringing birds down efficiently. Most upland shots are straight away or quartering away offering the back and wings up (not the breast), and sometimes it's better to work one's form at the range than compensate with a pattern the size of a garage door.



3ds
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MSM2019
PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2022 8:37 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 04 Mar 2019
Posts: 1819
Location: Central ND

So let's address the length of the shot string. That is a nothing. Shot string, even with chilled lead has no effect on a pattern or the shooter until you get to 40 yards. Not my opinion, that is direct from the findings of Ed Lowry and Bob Brister.

Seeing holes...... to solve that at 20 yards and farther and using a Polywad Spred R you need to put about 1/8 oz. of shot on top of the Spred R, that will increase the amount of pellets in the core at longer distances.

There is no such thing as a 30" effective pattern let alone a garage door size pattern. On a good day you might have a 20" effective pattern with or without a spreader.

Again the point of a spreader for hunting isn't to make the pattern larger, it is to reduce the pellets in that 15" to 20" core.

The funny part about this....your shotgun was made to shoot card and fiber wad loads...... by taking the petals off the plastic wads, you are not shooting spreaders you are effectively shooting the ammo that your shotgun was designed to shoot.

You are completely missing the point of spreaders.

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stevesavage
PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2022 9:35 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 13 Apr 2017
Posts: 150

I always thought the purpose of spreader loads was to increase the effective width of the pattern. Thanks for the info.
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MSM2019
PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2022 10:10 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 04 Mar 2019
Posts: 1819
Location: Central ND

stevesavage,

At short range a spreader will make the effective pattern larger, probably up to about 20 yards. Once a pattern gets to 20 - 25 yards the effective pattern size stays about the same at 15" to maybe 20". Any pellets outside the 20" starts to get into the golden BB part of the pattern. That is where you chip and chunk targets if you are lucky or maybe wing a bird and they run off.

We are talking 16 gauge here. But even a 12 gauge pattern isn't much outside 20" and nothing you can rely upon to effectively break a target or kill a game bird. Not saying that you absolutely can't but the percentages really start dropping off once you get to 18" or so. and the farther downrange you get the more that is true because the pellet energy drops off also.

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MaximumSmoke
PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2022 11:03 am  Reply with quote
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Interesting. We have it all going on here in this thread.

Removing plastic wad petals (the "shot cup") or using conventional wads results in more shot contact with the bore. It also shortens the shot column and reduces set-back damage. Does this compensate for the additional pellet scrub, keeping roughly the same amount of shot in the pattern at normal upland ranges (15 to 35 yards)?

Do "modern" plastic wad and cup units, however, cause a more dense core in the pattern than do conventional wads (card and filler) or other "cup-less" loadings by largely eliminating bore scrub, and then holding the shot "more together" regardless of barrel choke, possibly to the point of making choke almost irrelevant?

Do obstructive types of pattern modification (e.g. Spred-R, Dispersor-X, X-Stream, homemade X-type or layered cards) create significant holes in patterns? What can be done about that? To that end, where the hell is Mike Campbell? . . . Dang! He did some really informative pattern work. His stuff on ways to use the Spred-R was especially noteworthy.

And the rule of thumb of 3 pellets in the bird has arisen. Makes sense to me. There was a whole monster thread on that recently. Yes, that thread was about the energy to down one pheasant, but it boils down to the likelihood of hits and what part of the bird gets hit, which boils down to not only the energy of the pellet, but also pellet count. Now here we find the common sense of the three pellet hit.

Even shot stringing has come up, generating a response that had been made credible long ago by reason, calculation and experiment. Good.

I appreciate the pattern testing done by members of this forum. Thanks. I have done virtually no pattern work, a fact that, while it should, it still hasn't embarrassed me enough to make me spend the time. Considering the vast range of shotguns, gauges and chokes I shoot, shame on me. However, my blissful ignorance does not appear to prevent me from hitting the targets of my choice. I hate to think my head is in the sand, but . . . what's that thing they say about the truth. So thanks to all of you who post info from your pattern experiences.

I will digress to say whatever wad unit or combination of conventional wadding I use, I prefer a plastic obturating type wad/seal over the powder for consistent sealing of powder gases. I'm not a fan of nitro-card over-powders except maybe, and I mean really maybe, in paper hulls if they fit nice and tight. Considering all the bore, chamber and forcing cone variations, as well as hull wall thickness variations, obturating over-powders are just plain better, even if they're the inverted paper cup type used by Olin/Winchester-Western in the old days. Any desired combination and type of cushions, fillers, and cups on top of that makes sense. Pattern modifiers can be an option within the shot load. I prefer nothing on the very top of the shot but the crimp, whether it is the preferred pie crimp or a roll crimp.

Anyway, thanks for this thread.

Cheers!
Tony
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