Saxtonyoung said:
I've shot a lot of lubed bullets without any wad but never experienced an issue with the lube contaminating the powder but I must say they were not loaded for an extended period of time. They were either used for target practice or hunting when the weather was cool or even cold.
Are the wads you are referring to have lube and if so is there no issue of contamination there ?
When you do start making your wads will you be lubricating them and with what ?
Although I have been happy with the results without wads I would like to do a side by side comparison to see if I'm missing out.
Saxton, The wool wads i am currently using are supposedly lubed? But i can Squeeze them hard between my fingers and i cant see any signs of grease/oil? So i feel they are 100% safe against the powder. I should have stated, i am going off of my personal thoughts/feelings on the Wad protecting the powder, i have no proof that lube gets in the powder? But it seems plausible to me that it possibly could so why chance it? It is EXTREMELY unlikely that it ever would in Hunting season around these parts, It is usually freezing in October here, and in November when i really get serious about deer hunting i can almost guarantee that it will be cold, ive seen it get down around 0 here In November, so definitely no worries of lube getting runny and possibly contaminating the powder if it is freezing cold out. I think the importance of the OP Wad is far more so in sealing gasses behind the bullet than protecting the powder, But here again i have ZERO proof of there being anything to this with these large tight fitting Greased bullets, Maybe they don't need an over powder wad? I have yet to test this with the Greased bullets, it would be interesting to run Chronograph numbers on identical weight bullets with an over powder wad, and without a wad to see if there is any difference to speak of? My Chronograph has a high, low, standard deviation, extreme spread, and average velocity so it would show up. I know there are a lot of guy's that don't use an op wad with lubed Maxi's, Lyman Plains, etc. i started using them the very first time i ever shot a Muzzleloader, to me they make sense. My thinking is There must be a reason that all of the big competition shooters use them? Most of them guys use Vege fibre, or LDPE (Poly) Wads, and in .060 Thou thickness.
I have had experience with Gas sealing/not sealing behind a Paper Patched bullet and i feel it is EXTREMELY important to use a good over powder wad with PP Bullets, for 1 my PP bullets, and most are undersized by 6-8 thousands, in other words without a paper jacket on my bullets i could literally drop a bullet down the barrel and it would free fall to the powder, I was shooting this same 45 LRH back in late winter, starting of spring, i was shooting BACO .444-400 Bullets (the same bullets i have shot out to 500 yards) I was on my last shot of an AWESOME group (one of my best to date at 100 yards with open sights) Something went bad wrong? The gun went off, but sounded really odd? The rifle barely bumped me, it wasn't a kick like all the other shots? To this day i can only speculate what happened? The BACO bullets are a cupped base swaged bullet, not poured, they have a REALLY sharp burr around the base that i had not payed enough attention to, i was wrapping them with 2 wraps of 9# onion skin paper and sending them through a .448-.449 sizing die to 'iron' the paper out, the morning i was gonna shoot i was packing my stuff up to head out when I noticed a paper at the bullet base was cut? I unwrapped that bullet to see what had happened? That sharp burr edge on the base of the bullet from the swaging process had sliced through the onion skin paper like a knife! I checked the other bullets and sure enough i found a few more that were cut, i ran down to my loading press and redid the ones i could see that were damaged (I should have taken the time and stripped all of the papers and deburred the base of every one of them bullets, and then re wrapped them, but i didnt)
I was using .060 Vegetable fibre over powder wads this day, Here is the only logical thing i can think of that happened on that last shot, after dumping my pre weighed charges in i was starting the over powder wads just slightly, and then pushing the PP bullets in on top of the wads and pushing both of them together to the powder charge, I believe that last bullet had a cut paper at the base that i had missed, or it was at least weakened from that sharp edge on the bullet base? When i pushed the bullet down on top of the already started Vege fibre wad it felt normal (the Vege fibre wads have noticeable resistance all the way down) I believe Somewhere on the way down the barrel that Bullet pushed through the paper jacket, But I didn't feel anything different due to the resistance of the Vege fibre wad, I capped the rifle, settled in and took the shot, it sounded odd? It didn't kick me, it was more of a slight bump against my shoulder? I seen the puff of smoke after the shot and that was it? I don't think that bullet even made it to the target? If it did, it went perfectly straight through the center of the group, but I doubt that happened by the sound, and no recoil. Even tho i had an over powder wad behind the bullet, i am confident that i had lost the paper jacket somewhere down the barrel? So that left a .444 naked bullet in a .450 something bore, When i shot, gasses were able to escape around the Over powder wad due to the naked undersize bullet ahead of it, and gasses obviously would have made it around the undersize bullet as well. That is the only thing that makes any sense of that odd last shot that morning?
With my paper patch bullets i have tested to see if there are differences in accuracy between wool, Vege fibre, and Poly wads, I can't tell any difference in accuracy? I have loads logged down for each wad that have worked very for me. I personally like the way the Vege fibre and LDPE poly wads load, especially in my .45 But after today with Grease Groove bullets they are out of the question in this Rifle, and probably all of my rifles when i shoot Greased bullets, Paper Patched bullets are a completely different deal
