reading in an old guns and ammo about putting flour in the shells will protect the barrel and give more pellets at the target. Up to 77% at 40 yards they are saying, as opposed to the flour-less loads of 68%.
Now I enjoy shooting trap and skeet, but I have never loaded my own shells, but am going to finally start. Has anyone else tried this flour trick? Sounds like it might be good for turkey shoots too. In this economy, winning a few hams and turkeys couldn't hurt !! lol
Oh, but he does say to reduce the propellant some as the flour actually increases the pressures and if not careful can cause embarrassing problems.

also, this author talks about his ultimate 70 yard goose killer load that he modified from shotgun gods, Tom Rosters and Francis Sells data. 1 & 3/8th ounce Lawrence magnum lead BB shot ( sorry steel only fellers), fiber wads, and Alcan AL-8 powder. He claims its consistently 60 to 70% shot grouping at 70 yards and will down any goose at 70 yards

Now this is all from 1978, so it might be so old its outdated and useless. but what the heck.

could someone please move this to reloading.

Thanks.

dan

have you heard of
grex
winchester super x double x
the flour/filler has been used alot. the grex, I believe it is called, is a fine plastic type stuff about the size of salt.
the new hypersonics and HD loads from remington have buffer material in them too.

You need nice round shot to improve your pattern, using hard shot will help, using a shotcolumn shorter than the cup of the wad will avoid touching the barrelwall and ruin shotshape, but filling the gaps between shot will also prevent dents.
I have used flower in the past, but it has been a long time now since I used that Lee Load-All.

For your info: decreasing the amount of powder will also give you a denser shotpattern.
And remind: add flower BEFORE you develop the load and not when you're already at maximum load. The flower will increase pressure (and remember you are playing with rather fast burning powder behind a rather heavy load!

I also have used flour in the past and still do occasionally as the theory is to provide less friction between the shot rubbing against themselves. Also what Aloysius said about using less powder is true for a denser pattern. And flour does increase pressure so you have to reduce your charge either powder or shot.

As for 70 yard shots at ducks and goose, I'll pass and wait till they are 40 - 50 yards away. Even with the new Remington hypersonic 3 1/2" loads, 70 yard shots is stretching it.

Since flour mixed with oxygen and subjected to a spark can be explosive, I think I would put that on my list of "Things Not To Do". At the least it should create some interesting muzzle-flash. I know many people have done it in the past and have gotten away with it, but I think you are better off using materials intended for such uses such as those mentioned by Elvis.

As noted by Aloysius, make sure you develop your loads with the filler you choose. The filler becomes part of the payload and has to be figured as additional weight to the overall load.

I'd go this route !!! Buffer page

SSL, you mention dust-explosion, but that cannot happen in a shotshell. You need the right mixture and then the ignition... in practice you get a minor explosion first (that makes the extra dust/air-mixture) and then it taks 7 seconds before the major explosion starts... 7 seconds after the shot the duck is already down (or should be) so no need for the big bang anymore

Dan if you want to find out about shotgun theory get hold of a book put out by Winchester press by Bob Brisler (I think) its about 1.5" thick called shotgunning theory (or something like that) it has info on allsorts of loads and patterns and shot strings and buffers and on and on and on......
the new Remington HD loads are getting rave reviews over here if you want long range the price MAY be worth it.

Shotgunning the art and science is the book I ment.

I don't know if I should put it here, but I recently discovered this swedish site, still didn't read it all but what I saw so far is really promishing. There's a lot about shotgunning too.

www.shotguns.se/html/p...marks.html

when somebody wants to put this info in another thread: no problemo.
I can add that what they say about belgian proofmarks you normally only find in rather expensif books and here it's for free!

Aloysius wrote:

SSL, you mention dust-explosion, but that cannot happen in a shotshell. You need the right mixture and then the ignition... in practice you get a minor explosion first (that makes the extra dust/air-mixture) and then it taks 7 seconds before the major explosion starts... 7 seconds after the shot the duck is already down (or should be) so no need for the big bang anymore

Good point. It just seems easier to use products designed for such uses though. Should make the results more predictable too.

The biggest problem with flour is that it will "cake" if it sits too long or if it picks up moisture from the air, that is why we switched to corn meal.
I have since quit using any filler of any kind because my ability with the scatter gun doesn't show any difference in accuracy.
Paul

Paul, and what do you think happens with steel shot? A friend was testing (rather expensive!) Rottweil steelshot in cal 12 on paper, untill she suddenly got a 1 hole hit of about 1" diameter on her paper target (at 25 m).
Now what would happen when she would have shot that cartridge at a feasant (or even worse: a partridge) and somebody is walking 4-500 m further? Shot would never go that distance, but a slug will!