In a post in African hunting, Ray was looking for foam ear plugs to use as filler in double rifle cartridges. I am looking for comments by anyone that have used them this way. Seems like a good idea. Does the foam plug melt or foul the barrel in any way.

What do you do? Do you just roll the ear plug between the fingers an drop them in on top of the powder and let them expand to fill the space and then seat the bullet?

I was thinking of doing this for lite loads in my 45/70 Marlin. Would this method also work in a bottle neck cartridge.

Thanks, Hart

Sounds like a monstrously dangerous proposition to me, especially in a bottleneck case where that stiff earplug has to be swaged through the neck. I have read somewhere that even the soft puffy poly for filler isn't recommended in bottlenecks because it can lead to chamber ringing, so to put an earplug in there seems (to me) to indicate a suicidal tendancy on the part of the operator.

Disclaimer, I have little experience with fillers in straight wall cases and zero in bottlenecks. I'm just regurgitating what I have read and drawing conclusions from it.



good luck,

Ian

I have used cotton in 416 Rem cases. No problems with melting and/or ringing.

I don't know if I'd use it in a case with a bigger shoulder.