- Thread Starter
- #21
I didn't think up this "technology" myself, I borrowed it from other shotgunners. The wax doesn't contribute to compression, its purpose is to hold the payload in place. You don't need to use much of it, just enough to seal the edges of the overshot card to the inside of the hull.
You ask a perfectly insightful question about compression. Shot shells work at much lower pressures than centerfires do. You need adequate compression / base wad sealing for the powder to burn properly. I apply a bit of pressure to every step of loading a shot shell, but not overly. When I seat the wad, I give it one single, very light tap on a flat punch. I tap and tamp the shot down by hand. By the time I've placed the card on top, I've tapped and tamped everything down, and I give a little pressure to the card itself before I apply the wax.
You know you've compressed a plastic wad too much when you can see the wad buckle inside the hull.
The use of full metal hulls was mentioned above. I've loaded full brass 20 ga. but it's a different process. You don't use plastic wads, rather "traditional" wad materials are used, similar to how paper hull shot shells were made. You need oversized wad materials for the gauge loaded; stuff made for paper hulls will not interchange directly. I found that getting enough compression for proper ignition in full brass hulls was more critical than when using plastic wads in plastic hulls.
I could star crimp them I guess, but doing it by hand without a guide/compression tube makes it pretty difficult and not at all consistent for tube feeding.
