Fibres or plastics?

[Iggy]

Just wanted to go out for a shoot today, so did a local independent shoot rather than a registered....the targets are decent and they serve a cracking full English.

Anyhow, it’s fibre only so I picked up a few Eley Select 8’s yesterday and went along. I don’t normally shoot fibres and (for some reason) wasn’t expecting much but I must admit I was rather impressed with their performance through my fixed choke Invictus (1/2 & 3/4)

Is there any ‘science’ to suggest they should work better through fixed chokes or was I just having a rare ‘good’ day?

Ive got a reasonable stock of my usual plastic wad shell, but I’m temped to try these Eleys at my next registered to see what happens. 

What do you guys use...I’m assuming plastics in general? 

 

[Hamster]

Just wanted to go out for a shoot today, so did a local independent shoot rather than a registered....the targets are decent and they serve a cracking full English.

Anyhow, it’s fibre only so I picked up a few Eley Select 8’s yesterday and went along. I don’t normally shoot fibres and (for some reason) wasn’t expecting much but I must admit I was rather impressed with their performance through my fixed choke Invictus (1/2 & 3/4)

Is there any ‘science’ to suggest they should work better through fixed chokes or was I just having a rare ‘good’ day?

Ive got a reasonable stock of my usual plastic wad shell, but I’m temped to try these Eleys at my next registered to see what happens. 

What do you guys use...I’m assuming plastics in general? 

I'd have thought the fact they performed well is probably more to do with the CG not having weird chamber cone/barrel overbore dimensions although tight chokes will also help. 

 

[Will Hewland]

A decent Fibre is fine. A bit dirtier, a bit dearer, a bit more recoil, but fine.

 

[Hamster]

Most are a bit sh*t. 

 

[DavidJ]

I've decided to shoot fibre as much as possible there's no excuse to litter the ground with plastic and I've not shot any recent shoots where I've felt any disadvantage. My misses aren't because of the wad...

I'm shooting Kents by Gamebore at the moment.

 

[wylye]

Off we go again

 

[Cosmicblue]

Like DavidJ above I've switched to Fibre for the same reason.  My Perazzi DSR is fixed half/quarter (oh they do have sense of humour in the factory for sure) and 24Grm Jocker fibres work beautifully, even out to serious distances.  Recoil (I'm sensitive to it) is a little more than plaswads, kills are just as effective.  So I'm thinking fibre vs plastic is in the same bucket as chokes - largely a head game (at my lowly level of competence anyway)

Anthony Evans at Claverdon Cartridges indicated that Jocker are close to bringing a fibre load that will have some sort of bio-degradeable shot-cup (as found in plaswad carts) like wad to the market.  Hopefully they won't be crazy money.

 

[wylye]

You spend all that money on a decent gun then put crap like that through it? I despair.

 

[Salopian]

This really is all a nonsense.

A fibre wad can be very effective through the correct choke selected for the distance you are expecting to connect with the target.

Bio-degradeable wads have been available for years , but the cartridge manufacturers are loathe to use them because they slow down production of the loading machines , cost a little more which they think the customer will not buy .

Because of the publicity about plastic pollution I looked into this earlier this year, I contacted manufacturers with a view to using paper cased cartridges with starch /PVA wads and was told it would be cost prohibitive ( don't forget it was me that was paying). Further investigation showed me that I could have obtained what I wanted for less than the cost of two Pheasants per thousand cartridges.

So my good friends please don't blame me when the EnvironMENTALists curtail our sport.

 

[jwpzx9r]

I had some Lylevale express HV fibres that I tried through my Perazzi... one word describes the performance of them ... manure ! 

 

[Cosmicblue]

You spend all that money on a decent gun then put crap like that through it? I despair.

Yes, weird isn't it?  However testing against at the pattern plate indicated that my then shell of preference, Fiocchi FBlacks, patterned centre-dense, whilst the Jockers were much more even.    Since then I've experimented with lots of different cartridges and from my experience there is very little difference in effective performance in the real world.

My regular shooting group includes an AA shot who shoots 'whatever is cheapest' and hits just about everything going - I've deduced that ammunition cost has little bearing on the final result.

 

[Doug Pinnegar]

I could well be completely off the mark here but I think the performance might be  equally related to the bore size as well as the choking. 

The bigger the bore, the worse the performance due to a worse seal being created. There is also a very real risk of gas escaping around the wad in the very large bore guns which can cause shot clumping (can be quite dangerous)

 

[jwpzx9r]

I could well be completely off the mark here but I think the performance might be  equally related to the bore size as well as the choking. 

The bigger the bore, the worse the performance due to a worse seal being created. There is also a very real risk of gas escaping around the wad in the very large bore guns which can cause shot clumping (can be quite dangerous)

Think you are right but with my 18.4mm Perazzi the Lylevale HV I tried were really very poor alongside my plastic wadded Clevers in terms of break patterns and recoil.

Yes, weird isn't it?  However testing against at the pattern plate indicated that my then shell of preference, Fiocchi FBlacks, patterned centre-dense, whilst the Jockers were much more even.    Since then I've experimented with lots of different cartridges and from my experience there is very little difference in effective performance in the real world.

My regular shooting group includes an AA shot who shoots 'whatever is cheapest' and hits just about everything going - I've deduced that ammunition cost has little bearing on the final result.

At the French UT championships something I personally have not seen before happened. A guy on the line I was marking had three misfires from one box of shells... they fired but nothing much happened almost as though they had very little propellent they just gave s pathetic fart sound . What made that critical was although he was just shooting the bits with two of those misfires one cost him a target and a 25 straight. I have also seen very expensive Fiocchi cartridges case major problems... they did not go bang! So what do we conclude?? Regardless of cost you can get the odd poor box ?

 

[Oldblaster]

It did bother me being forced to go over to fibre, but did find one cartridge that was awful in my Browning bored 18.8mm, and l suspect gas escaping round the wad, but most fibre cartridges are just fine. l find Olympic Blues 7.5 in fibre do an excellent job, and are as clean, if not cleaner than plastic wads!

 

[westley]

I can recall years ago at a DTL Comp. I had taken a box of fibre wads onto the range, by mistake. Knowing that it would cause a 'between the ears' thing and still having 50 to shoot, I decided that as the cartridges were of the same make and type (apart from the wad), to tip them all out, mix em up and then count out 25 into my pocket. The remaining 25 would then shoot the final line. As I was unable to tell one from the other, I just 'got on with it'. Final tally, 49/50. The target missed, centre peg, straight away  !  The gun was a Winchester Grand European, bored 3/4 and Full. From that day on, I have never really been bothered about shooting fibre wads, if required. I only use plastic wads due to cost,  BUT,  I can see in the VERY near future, fibre wads being compulsory, even if only to take the pressure off the 'played to death' lead issue.

 

[AW13]

Almost everywhere I shoot has to be fibre so I now just buy fibre, that keeps it simple and I wont run the risk of taking the wrong cartridges. 

 

[Iggy]

Thanks for all the constructive replies guys, it’s much appreciated.

Its still a bit anecdotal for me, never having shot a fibre cartridge before I was just genuinely surprised at how well they worked through my Guerini. 

My purely gut feel is they patterned better through my fixed chokes than the plastics I’ve been using uninterrupted for years so I’m really inclined to give them a proper testing. 

With all the pressure on single use plastics etc we’ll probably all be using them anyway in a  couple of years 

 

[Salopian]

Iggy,

 Very interesting in your experience . It is possibly a fact that many clayshooters are biased towards plastic wads because they have not used anything else and also possibly not shot Game , where fibre is often stipulated .

Interestingly most clays are shot at ranges of 45 yards with extreme range clays generally being in the order of 65 -70 yards using a number 7 or 7.5 shot 28 gram cartridge containing 340 -400 pellets .

Where as we hear of Pheasants being shot at ranges in excess of 75 yards using shot size 5 & 4 with depending on load may have only 170 -220 pellets upto 220-290 maximum depending on the load size . 

Perhaps we clayshooters should spend more time evaluating the performance of Fibre & Felt wadded cartridges?

 

[Finners]

Plastic, fibre, £165 or £300 per 1000, I'm still sh12. My conclusion is don't, take it so seriously and go down the pub