old brittle rxp wads

[eastbank]

a friend gave me a bag of wads as i was just about out. they were old rxp,s target 1-1/8 oz, they were brittle as some of the pedels broke off with a little flexing,but i loaded 25 with 17gr red dot and #8 shot any way. i shot a 18 out of 25 with them in my BT-100 and they sounded funny. the next round i shot a 24 out of 25 with the same load with the last of my good flexible rxp wads. no more old wads for me in the future. eastbank.

 

[TheKlawMan]

Perhaps the old wads were so brittle they fragemented and blew the pattern apart?

 

[BigJimP]

You have 2 issues here ...performance and safety.

You're ok shooting them in a break open gun....but not in a semi-auto or a pump gun for sure ( in case you get powder migration in the shell / and poor ignition ) that might lodge a wad in the barrel ...

your first clue was how brittle they were.../ not a great idea to load them...

the cost of the wad is around $ 0.02 per shell ...in an $ 0.18 shell ( X 25 per box or about $ 4.50 for a box of shells..../ not worth fooling with in my opinion.

Performance is the other issue ...not consistent - not a surprise. The wads need to be flexible to seal the powder in the shell - so you get consistent ignition and performance.