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Hi all,

I'm hoping to do some relading soon for my martini henry in 577/450 using black powder.

I have been doing lots of research on and offline and am fairly confident to go ahead and start making the Ammo.

The only thing that has got me thinking is the filler used to take up the air space.

I see some people using cotton wool, carded wool (anyone know what this Is?) Oats, saw dust and lots of other stuff.

I was hoping to use a little bit of cotton wool or pillow /toy filler like kopak.

What do people on hear use as a filler, any good experiance with some against Others?
I hear p**f-lon is good but does foul alot in the bottle necked cartrages.

Any advice or experiance would be great.

Thanks
Happy shooting

Is semolina any good?

Depends really on how much space there is.

With full loads where the powder is up to the shoulder so the space is just in the neck I use packed in carded wool, kapok or cotton or more usually beeswax and card discs, nothing plastic like dacron.

Granular fillers like semolina are not a good idea if they go deep into the case past the shoulder and are not recommended for bottlenecked cases.

The best and my filler of choice is black powder, to reduce the case capacity and get the chosen load up to the bullet I use nitrated blotting paper to reduce the internal diameter/capacity of the case to get the powder up to the base of the lube column.

Make sure that you understand the difference 'tween wads and fillers as wads are known to cause ringing.

dromia wrote:
The best and my filler of choice is black powder, to reduce the case capacity and get the chosen load up to the bullet I use nitrated blotting paper to reduce the internal diameter/capacity of the case to get the powder up to the base of the lube column.

Adam

Does the nitrated paper add to the combustion? do you make allowance for it.

David

One would think so, but I have never noticed any difference. As I have never shot the reduced capacity loads without the nitrated blotting paper I have never had anything to compare it too.

The weight of fillers and wads makes more of a noticeable difference in my experience.

It would make seance to make the inner dimension smaller to avoid or reduce the need for a filler.

If I don't go for this method I would use a bit of cotton wool about quarter / half a cotton balls worth of wool just to take up any air space followed by a card - lubed wad or some sort of 'grease cookie' followed by 1 or 2 cards with the projectile on top.

But I do like the idea of taking up space in the case.

many thanks

If you go down the cotton wool route make sure it is filler and not a wad.

It is not about holding the powder in place it is about totally removing the space, air, between the powder and the bullet column.

You must use as much fibre, well tamped in, that will do this.

Wads in bottle neck cases ring barrels.

If the case is more than two thirds full when charged with the black stuff, then use air for the filler. Cheap. effective and works well. The "no air space with black powder" wisdom is a myth, handed down for generations.
Fred

That is very true Fred, Greener for one used airspace in BP cartridges to control pressure.

But who am I to challenge modern wisdom and the "truth" of the internet.

I've used cotton wool, p**f-lon (only once as it was messy as hell) and my favourite are Kynoch Nitro-Express wads Size 2 from Kynamco

Donald