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How to make bootleg flite control wads

John A.

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I guess the word bootleg wads is probably not the correct term. Lots of folks have been making their "HOMEMADE" flite control wads for years because while Federal could make a small fortune by selling their components, yet for some reason, they flat out have no interest in selling their flite control wads unless it's in their factory ammo.

For several years I've seen folks making a template and making their own flite control stylish wads, so I'm not doing anything here that hasn't been done before. Though, I'm wanting to try to put my own twist on it (no pun intended).

I am wanting to make some of the longest range and accurate (pellet count) loads as I can. In typical fashion for me, I just can't leave well enough alone.

In the few years that I've been reloading shotshells, I have picked up a thing or two here and there. For instance, there are wads that separate very quickly from the shot. Those typically have 8 petals.

Example is the Downrange brand hybrid wads like the HRHRT12 as seen here:
DRHRT12-HYBRID_2959ac33d337e348e1edd58169868cef.jpg


Those hulls tend to work well for bird hunting and clays because they seperate quickly and typically spread out a lot of shot rather quickly.

Then you have the standard 4 petal wads that are common in most shotgun and hunting loads. Below is the clone of the remington fig 8 wads that downrange makes.
DRRT12n_a99f28d9520e73e88a2d7b48250a4b79.jpg


The actual early version of the flite control wad had 3 petals around the shot cup and a whole bunch of slits around the gas seal that you can see below.
Flite_Control_wad.jpg


The newest style long range wad they've been using has omitted the three petals around the shot cup and now simply has some slits along the sides. They have kept the small petals around the gas seal.
federalpremiumblackcloud.jpg


So, the whole point of the last several things I've added is in regards to the petal count on the wad. More petals generally equals short range and less petals equal longer range because the wad and the payload acts more like a slug that travels for longer distances before the wad is more gradually stripped away and separate from the pellets. At least that's how it appears in my limited knowledge of the subject.

So, since I have finally found some really deep shot cups that are not preslit for petals, that means that I get to make my own slits. I've wanted to try some of these unslit wads for a long time, but they're apparently only made every now and then. And considering these are 16 gauge wads, make them even more unusual of a find.

So, I decided to sacrifice a straight wall hull and turn it into my template. I may make some changes later, but this is version 1. In order to make some shells that should excel at long range, I only made 2 petals near the base of the wad. Since the gas seal part of the wad is solid, I cannot copy the little petals that federal does around the base of their wads. But, I only wanted to use the 2 side petals near the base to try to keep the wad and the shot together for longer than I'd get out of a traditional factory wad.

I trimmed the top of the hull off so I can insert the wad into the template hull and pull it out easier. And the easiest way I could think to find the center on both sides of the hull was to count the little ridges in the hull that the federals are known for. Once I found out how many there were (40), it was only a matter of 3rd grade math to find the center of the hull on both sides where I wanted to make the petals. Another benefit of the ridges in the hull was keeping the cut straight for the petals too.

uwsAIm7.jpg


I used a piece of masking tape around the base of the hull because I wanted to keep the slits that I made straight, and also, the location that I made them, the riser in the bottom of the shot cup will be there, which should minimize the amount of pellets coming out of the openings on the side and encourage as many pellets as possible to come out the front in the direction that it's traveling.

I may make taller slits in the side later. I'm curious how the short petals will work first. And for no other reason than to have a baseline to compare later.

I simply slide the wad into the hull until it bottoms out, use the little razor that my Dad gave me to cut the slit in the wad, and pull it out of the hull. I also use a little metal piece to push the petal out a little so I can shape and help form the petal so it'll open OK on its' on.

WdcHJwT.jpg


Here's a few of the wads after I cut them. Again, I may make the petals taller eventually, but for now, the main reason why I kept them the height they are, is that each petal is half the height of the bore diameter. So, just under 3/8" each. Combined for both of them, the petals are as tall as the bore is wide. (That was my attempt of trying to be scientific). But, again, I can make the petals taller later if I find that helps.

EebMZxJ.jpg


I have absolutely no idea how these wads will work. May just flat out suck. I don't really think they will though. But, I also don't want to make a pellet slug either so I'll have to shoot these at varying ranges with the #6 shot that I like to use for hunting to see how they do at 25-50 yards. Only live fire will give me the answers that I'm wanting. I will be making each test load with 20 gr of longshot. Each will have exactly 1-1/8 oz of shot down to the pellet. Same nitro shot card underneath of the pellets to raise the height up enough for a crimp and will all be shot out of the same gun trying to keep everything equal as I can.

The main reason why I'm only going to use 20 gr of powder is because that's on the bottom of what I could be loading with and shouldn't be a problem from a pressure standpoint. I can load up some hotter ones later when I'm working it up to the velocities that I want to get. 1275-1300 fps would be great for what I do. But when I load some of these and test them, I'm wanting to see how the pattern and the wads do first. The rest of the load workup can come later. In looking at a lot of published data for longshot, generally starts at 22 gr and goes up to ~27 all depending on components. So, 20 gr should be an adequate place to start working this up since there is ZERO published data for this wad yet so I want to be careful and start low and work my way up as necessary later. But 20 gr should be a decent jumping off point.

It will be a while before I'll be able to load some up and put them on paper, but I just thought a few of you may be interested in following along.
 
Same here. It’s been a long time since I’ve done any scientific ammo testing, but I enjoy seeing this done.

Also I’m a sucker for unique shotgun loads.
 
It'll be about 2 weeks before I'll be able to start loading and testing these. I have to order some 28 ga nitro cards to fit in the bottom of the shot cup to raise the payload up to get a good crimp. Unless I'm able to trim some other felt wads or nitro cards I already have in the meantime. I need to look through the stuff to see what I have already. I may be able to piece something together enough to test a handful without ordering anything. I just have to dig through the box and see.

But, I'm looking forward to it. I've been saving some of the bigger pieces of cardboard I come across for a while and I have a bunch of stryofoam plates that I can tape to them at varying distances. ~40 yards with a good coverage, would be a sweet spot for me. Anything more, would be icing on the cake.

40 yards is a typical shot up into some of those old growth oak trees we hunt in sometimes. Some are easily 120 tall. Couple that with standing on the side of a mountain and the increased distance from the angle of the ground, many "regular shells" can't pull that off.

I'm not looking for a specific pellet count. That doesn't specifically concern me. After all, I have skinned squirrels before with only 1 pellet in them. I'm just looking for decent coverage. I'll know what I think "decent coverage" is when I see it.

I'll be shooting some of the factory Federal shells to get a control shot or a baseline to compare. Besides, I need a few of the federal hulls to test this anyway. So I'll fire a few of them at the 25-?? yard distance and kill 2 birds with one stone so I'm not just completely wasting them.

But I'll let you guys know how it turns out.

Quick question. I have two different guns that I can test these with. One with an improved modified, and the other is a cylinder choke. I'm thinking of using the cylinder choke so I could concentrate on what the wad itself is doing since it's an open choke, since using the tighter choke should only improve it too. I'm not testing what the choke can do. I think we already know that should help improve its range, but for now, I'm wanting to just see what the wad will do.

Which do you guys think I should grab to test them out with to begin with? Again, I'm leaning towards the open choke gun but am not married to the idea.

The open choke gun is the one that I plan to thread for a choke and try to make it a full choke gun soon as the reamer rental is available. But I have some time before the company said they expect to ship it.
 
John, very interesting project. I follow exactly what you're trying to do to achieve long range / tighter patterns for hunting.

But this brings up an unrelated question (sorry to hijack). I hear all the time folks saying they use ammo with flight control wads for home defemse. This, to me, makes little sense in that for very short ranges your load will be acting essentially like a slug with little or no expansion of the shot and increases the likely hood of a miss. I've always found that the old "one inch of expansion per yard" from the muzzle for conventional wads worked pretty good for close range home defense applications.

Any thoughts on using flight control ammo for short range (say in home 10 yards or less) applications?

Or is the old guy missing something?

Regards
 
I have shot flite control with buckshot and it holds a tighter pattern at longer distances than anything else I have ever tried. It does a really good job at that. The only thing that even comes close to that is the Hornady Versatite wad, and even with as good as it is, at longer ranges, still doesn't do as well as the flite control tight patterning.

I think the idea for using them for defense is that while it wouldn't likely separate from the wad at close distances as you noted, it would still make just as big of a mess that way, it's also better at the longer distances, and thus its' appeal to folks because we never know what distance we'll be forced to shoot at, so it gives us the widest range of possibilities of where you may need to use one.

Just my opinion about it.

We've tested a lot of shells here at home defense (indoor) situations in years past, and 33 feet is the absolute longest shot that I could possibly take inside of my house. Most of the distances are much less. 5 to 20 feet typically. You just have to measure yours as it pertains to your situation.

At that distance I would use inside, almost any wad being fired will still contain all, or almost all of the payload inside of it. Aiming is still necessary. There is virtually no opening of the pattern at that distance. I've set up pizza boxes and tried. There may be a stray one or two pellets out of the wad, but you'll mostly get a big hole where the wad went through the box. Try it sometime.

There is essentially no advantage with the flite control wad with buckshot in an inside the house situation for me. Out in the front yard or while on the tractor or at the barn, yeah, that's where the advantage would be.
 
Thanks John for your insights. Your testing, using conventional wads at short distances, 10 yards or less resulted in exactly what I've seen in my testing. Typically no more than a three to seven inch spread using 00 buck. I've never used flight control but given the concept I've doubted if there would be any spread at these shorter distances. If that's true, why not just use slugs?

But you bring up an important point that I've always made to folks regarding aiming their shots. No matter how hard we try the myth of the "scattergun" lives.

Regards
 
I have came to the conclusion, at the distances that most people see within the confines of their walls, there is realistically no difference between slugs and buckshot. At least upon initial impact. They're both going to essentially be a near solid mass when it hits something. Even birdshot for that matter.

It's after it hits where the main differences are. Buckshot will likely go in different directions (internally). Slugs obviously wouldn't.

Birdshot, isn't exactly a great choice though is better than nothing if that's all you have. The lighter pellets just doesn't penetrate as deep because they don't have the mass to do so. There's going to blunt force trauma with any of them. It's the after effects that are what's important.

There's plenty of emergency room pictures of humans shot with birdshot online and most are, while painful looking, most are very survivable.

example-nsfw probably, I guess depending on where you work:
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/media/images/photographs/tmp_bhxuSJ&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=1c20ce04351d8a5ded4b4bdc45d54a86c3bd7e3edeacbb06fc975ff866a731a8&ipo=images

But you gotta put it on target with any of them. Otherwise, just use the gun as a club and be done with it. At the close distances that I see within my walls, there's not going to be enough spread to even call it a spread. Aim small, miss small or keep firing until something connects.
 
John, I agree with you on buckshot vs slugs dispersion once the body is penetrated.

The one thing to remember with birdshot is that shooting at someone wearing a t-shirt is totally different that someone dressed in winter layers. Someone wearing three to four layers may certainly feel the initial impact but the penetration with birdshot would typically be none to very limited. However, I've heard some folks say they use birdshot because they are worried about over penetration of walls. What about the bad guy?

Sorry to hijack your original thread but good discussion on penetration.

Regards
 
No apologies. As I said, it may be a while before I can start sharing pics of what I intended to do with the topic anyway. Later, if anyone doesn't like the discussion we added, they can speed read over it while ignoring it, or lose interested and click off of it.

I agree about the birdshot. I wouldn't want to use it unless it was all I had. Some gun is better than none. But, it's barely more than none. I wouldn't want to use a 22lr or 25acp either, but if it's all I had, well, I guess that's what I'd use.

Back to the subject at hand though, have any of you given any thought as to whether you think I should use the open choke barrel or the improved modified for the test?

I'm still leaning towards the open choke since there is no constriction. That would tell me more what the wad itself was doing, but I'm interested in other viewpoints and thoughts as well.
 
I vote no chokey for testing. Some pretty varied ideas to be found when it comes to shot cards, fillers,etc. Bulk credit or gift cards to replace the shot card, punched out sheets of cork gasket material from the auto parts store, slices of the tootsie roll shaped packing peanuts from the UPS store,etc. lol. I guess that at least by using all these “off label” bits for testing and the like could someday be the only available components to the common guy..
 
A little trivia:

A woman design engineer at Federal originally developed the FlightControl wad to be used for turkey loads. It worked great.

Later it was incorporated into buckshot use.
 
Didn't know that.

She had a really good idea. It seems to flat out work.
 
So the whole idea behind the slits or petals is to keep the shot contained in a column for a specific amount of time or distance, before air pressure acts on the petals, basically air braking the plastic tube, while the heavier shot continues on? So that makes a flight control wad act on the shot as if it were a slug at close range, only spreading after the air brake is applied and the wad falls away? Would just using a thicker plastic, while giving up some slight pellet holding ability, get more distance as the petals would be less pliable? If this were reloading for the .410, I could see a run to the mall for a handful of straws from the bubble tea store..lol
 
Yes, but I think the petals are also meant to stabilize the wad better so it flies more true too. So, yes, the petals work as you describe, but there's a little more going on there too.

At least from my way of looking at it.

The shot cup keeps the shot together longer (as compared to shooting it like a black powder shotgun that has no wad) improves patterning and distance.

The flite control wad, in how it's designed, I think does both processes. Keeping the shot together longer and also stabilizing it in flight until it does drag out behind the column of shot.

Which is why I made the short wings along the base of mine. While it imparts some drag, the small wings would have less drag than large wings, which to me would seem like would be beneficial more for longer range.

If they stabilize it well that is. I would imagine, if the wings/petals weren't cut in the center or straight or however you want to look at it, would cause the wad to gradually veer off over the flight of it.

I'm going to try to dump out a few factory loads tomorrow or Saturday and load up a few of these to try to shoot Sunday because one of my sons is wanting to zero his new gun anyway, so I may as well try to have my stuff ready to shoot a few as well.
 
How pissed will you be when you get to heaven and find out all this engineering innovation was merely created at an ad agency to flower up the mundane process of allowing pre filled and weighed shot cups to be inserted into the hulls on the assembly line to shave 15 seconds off the manufacture of each shell, thus increasing the bottom line? Lol
 
I admit, there is a lot of marketing involved in everything.

Like hunting gear especially. It's designed more to catch your attention in the store, sell the idea to you, then to separate your hard earned money from your wallet, more than it is to catch a deer. Or a turkey. Or Fish, or whatever. Lots of gimmicks out there.

Though, I have shot a lot of shells. There are some things that I have seen work, that I have paid attention to. The flite control wad is one of the better longer range wads out there. If not the best. That is hard to debate, but they are generally accepted throughout the shotgun community to be good performing by essentially everyone that has used them and when you put shot to paper at distance, that's when the BS stops when you see how it does in person. You don't get that kind of acknowledgement by performing badly. The marketing department then has to take a seat when the pellets hit the paper.
 
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