What I ended up doing

by cr.., Tuesday, October 27, 2015, 18:41 (3318 days ago) @ Hoot

Tried several combinations. Being a purist, I tried brass shells with a series of waxed cardboard wads (cut from poster board, shoe box, etc), roughly equal volume FF Goex and shot, overshot wad sealed in place with melted wax or super glue. Most experiments looked cool but pattern even at cowboy action range had holes you could throw large cat through.

I settled for fiber wad, FF Goex, and red Winchester AA plastic wad loaded on MEC Jr and star crimped. Volume of BP was such as to fully compress under the properly crimped red AA wad. I think I used a 1/8 fiber wad between to reduce burning the plastic wad.

Been a few years since I competed so don't remember exactly. I did write down the exact load that worked well and will see if I can find it for you. Make sure the BP gets compressed. I hollowed out a section from a deer antler for a powder measure.

I used a wonderful BP solvent and swabbed out the barrels between matches. I will share the formula if you can keep a secret... fill a squirt bottle with two parts hydrogen to one part oxygen.

The only way BP gets any better is to make sure Mr. Tom is close by and downwind.