Has anyone used this in their double rifles for filler, looks and sounds great, but ????????

Ray,I'm sorry i can't return all the help you have given in the past, But I do rmember an article, I think it was in one of the mag put out by Wolfe pub. from Ross Seyfried he used it in one of his doubles, maybe he or they can help you.

Unlike other fillers, it can "load up" and influence pressures, especially if the loading is on the warm side to begin with. While resizing, I noticed a % of the cases felt as though they were being worked a bit more, going through the sizer. I mic'd the fired cases and found indication that the pressure was on the rise, with shots fired. Nothing serious but my point is that this does not seem to occur with the usual fillers.

It presented another variable in load assessment, much as molycoating the bullets does. Just didn't seem worth it.

Thanks Nick and I'll just pass on Puff-lon based on that....Butch is sending me some stuff that works, its a solid styr foam substance of some kind...

I'm seriously thinking about using cotton puff balls from the drugstore next time. Anybody want to rain on my parade before I get there?

My budget doesn't extend to nonconservative reloading practices, so the cautions raised with regard to foam (I use polyolefin) and the ringing of chambers are sufficient to cause me to start thinking about a switch. Nevertheless, I really won't believe it until somebody rings a chamber with a hard 4140 pressure-testing barrel with loads at or below normal safe pressures. I'd prefer a compressed load and no foam, but there might be some intermediate power levels for which foam might be useful.

The thing about foam is there are so very many varieties. Some types are O.K. but none are ideal and some are just terrible for such use and will load up your barrel with glop. Cotton works but does not "disappear" anywhere near as readily as does the Dacron fiber. Too, bad, because the cotton balls are uniform enough in weight to save one lots of time at the loading bench. For now, it's Dacron fiber for me.

I use the poly pillow filling that Ross wrote about in his Dec'99 Article. The poly filler is not consumed, rather spat out the bore, much like a shot cup on a shotgun.

I use the filler with RL-15 in my 450/400 3".
The filler keeps the powder against the primer and fills the case above the powder. The use of the filler gives extremely consistant velocities with the RL-15.

The RL-15 closely follows the pressure curve of the Cordite. Now that may not be a problem in newer doubles, but I think it is very important in older Cordite regulated double rifles like my A. Hollis and Son.

Once again I have an emailable copy of the article by Ross Seyfried. Please email me
at rkmojo@aol.com I will be glad to pass it along. The article is in a zip file and will require a program such as winzip to decompress the file.

Rusty
We band of brothers!

I agree with Rusty, the Pillow stuffing ( poly fiber fill) can be found in any faberic store, and comes in a package the will fill a normal bed pillow, for about three bucks. That amount will build a lot of NE loads. Enough should be used so as to be slightly comressed when the bullets is seated.

SDS, the filler is needed in those old NITRO EXPRESS cases that were designed for Cordite. Modern powders are not bulky enough to fill these cases suficiently to give good results, and in fact, are simply dangerous in the amounts that generate chamber pressures comencerate with the NE rifle, with out the filler to take up the excess airspace left in the case. Any modern powder used in these large cases, that is eonugh to be a compressed load, would be a serious OVER LOAD! Fillers are absolutely NEEDED, in these very large NE cases!

I use the poly pillow filler also, its the exact same thing as dacron or looks the same...it just blows out the end of the barrel...

The only problem I had with the Poly Filler was the snow storm upon ignition I used foam of the type used for furniture padding, worked very well, is very light and was extremely inexpensive. I now use a size 2 Nitro-Express Wad from Kynoch in my 470. They are very consistant and weigh 1.1 grain.

atkinson the stuff butch is giving you is surf boad material its 1/2" think and extremly dence i have a wack of it . its supposed to be great.

If Butch says it's good stuff, you can believe it.
Is it some type of styro-foam? Wonder how well it passes down through the neck and conforms to final shape at loading? That's one characteristic of the Dacron I have always liked. Other than the time it takes to tear off pieces and get the weight just right, the Dacron fiber has worked well for me. Yes, a goodly % of it will blow out the end of the tube, at firing, but I think this is better than reliance on combustible filler materials to fully combust. Less crap in the barrel. I also feel that some of the foam materials are less "inert" than is Dacron fiber. It's hard to know just what it is that is produced via combustion. Some weired looking stuff comes out of the barrel, at cleaning. If you have found the right foam, that's sounds great. Go for it!

Just about fishing,
Guess I am using Dacron as it comes out the bore in a wad cylinder..It must be the same pillow stuffing that Nick is using...I use 3 grains it a 450-400-3.25"////

I have used cotton balls in my 416 Rigby for reduced loads with cast bullets. I found that the cotton became tiny cotton fibers when fired. The front of my shooting bench was littered with tiny white fibers.

It was kind of interesting to lite off a big boomer and then watch all these tiny fibers settle to the ground after the dust cloud at 100 yards settled.

I didn't have any problems with cotton, beyond this interesting display.

RobertD

I have always mis-trusted Dacron-type fillers, because of the possibility for powder granules to infiltrate the filler. This won't happen on a trip to the range, but bouncing around in the bush in the back of a Landrover for a couple or weeks, anything can happen.

I prefer saddle-felt cut with a wad-punch. A lot of shooters in Oz are using polyurathane packing-foam wads, but I have found that they are 'grippy' against the sides of the case and if compressed during recoil or rough travel can remain compressed thus creating air-space.

Obviously the Kapok would win a vote, but if I changed I would miss out on that curious smell of burnt fur at the firing line. One of my 'mates' once commented that a mouse must have crawled down the barrel!

Never heard of Puff-Lon in Australia. What is it?

Marraki,
If you use 3 or 4 grs. of Dacron filler it is extremely dense, shoot one then pick it up off the ground and you will find it is a solid dacron caliber size tube about 1 inch long...NO powder will infiltrate the dacron filler I assure you...if so then you are not using enough filler and that could feasibly ring a barrel...It does become a solid on compaction.

Marrakai, the dacron should be used in a compressed state. Just enough so that it is slightly compressed when the bullet is seated.
A piece of plastic PVC tubing of near caliber size can be by loading enough in your case, then removeing it, and pressing it into the tube standing on top of a table. Now cut the tube off till it is exactly the length of the filler collume from your load. Now all you need do is fill the tube with the polly fiber and you have the right amount for every load.

Puff-lon is a granulated filler, that is much like shot buffering, but is turned into a lubricant under pressure of fireing! I really don't know how well it works, as I have not tried it! I'll see if I can find a link to puff-lon!

Try www.pufflon.com

[ 10-30-2003, 22:11: Message edited by: MacD37 ]

500,
I have a .470 on order but I have a 450-400-3.25 in my lap!

MacD37:
Thanks for the link. In my ignorance, I thought we were talking about (once again )modifying some other compound for use as a filler, but Purpose-Built case-filler? Wow!

If we ever see it on this side of the pond, I'll grab some and give it a go.

Ray: I assumed the dacron would work OK, since a majority of shooters use it. Its just that I have had such good luck with saddle-felt wads in the light-nitro loads I use which need a filler (20bore/.577, .577 x 2 3/4, and .500/.450 3 1/4).

I also load for a 450/400 3-inch (nitro), and although there is a small amount of air-space I don't use any filler. The load is 82 grains of AR2213, which is similar to IMR4831.

Cheers

Marakai,

You might try some RL-15 and filler in the 450/400 3 inch. Velocities are very close and uniform. It works very well in my A. Hollis and Son 450/400 3 inch with Woodleigh bullets.

Jim,
With the Dacron filler there is no snow storm just a wad of filler spat out the bore.

Rusty
We band of brothers!

For the guys that have used cotton fillers.

When the cotton leaves the bbl is it burning/smoldering and is it likely to start a grass fire?

Cheers.