In times past the wad was either felt or thick paper/cardboard. However, modern shotgun ammunition has a bit more sophisticated system that uses a plastic wad that is both a divider between the powder and shot, but also a container for the shot in the form of a canister with slits. The slits allow the canister to open up as it leaves the barrel and fall away from the shot. In other words, it acts to hold the shot together until it's in flight to the target. The idea is to create a better shot pattern.
As you can see from the image below, the shot holder/wad is large enough to easily be seen as it falls away after leaving the barrel.
Cheers
Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.
You can also see in the above picture how the bottom section of the wadding has holes running through it across the axis, this acts as a shock absorber to help prevent the lead shot from being compressed against one another by the initial shock of powder detonation, uniform shot travel in straighter line and therefore maintain a tighter pattern.
"In the vast library of socialist books, there’s not a single volume on how to create wealth, only how to take and “redistribute” it.” - David Horowitz
I've shot old shotgun shells that lacked the usual modern improvements, with paper hulls, horsehair wads, no shot cup and very soft lead, and of course the patterns were much wider and less even than their modern counterparts out of basic open choked barrels.
However the patterns were surprisingly comparable out of guns with barrels with tighter chokes and better internal profiling.
It seems the old timers relied on barrel quality to get good performance out of the primitive shotgun ammo of the times.
The guy in OP's video who goes by the Youtube handle of Hickok45 is named Greg Kinman. He's lives in middle Tennessee and is a retired private middle school English teacher.
His range is built on his own rural property. He started out doing mostly history-themed shooting videos with old lever guns and six-shooters, but eventually expanded to all kinds of firearms. His folksy presentation and friendly humor have helped him to build a huge Youtube fan base. He goes out of his way to keep his content as non-controversial and non-political as possible, which has led to criticism from some of the more ardent pro 2nd amendment channels.
I used to watch him off and on, but I soon got a bit tired of him repeating himself too much. Also once he ran out of older historical firearms as the subjects of his videos and switched to modern black Tupperware guns I sort of lost interest.
Cheers
Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.
I've seen the guy in the video land steel targets with a 9 mm at 500 yards, deadeye, if it is the dude I'm thinking of.
Naw, that's probably Jerry Mischulek.
Or the late Bob Munden.
"In the vast library of socialist books, there’s not a single volume on how to create wealth, only how to take and “redistribute” it.” - David Horowitz
I wouldn't call myself a gun lover, just an owner, but I was just involved in the shooting of a ~4' snake! It was at my back door and I didn't see it until I opened the door and it tried to come inside. I quickly shut the door, pinning him as it was trying to bite my exposed foot (wearing Crocs sandals)! I was actually more worried for my dogs (a couple of Jack Russells) and I'm glad I had a water bottle sprayer handy (had to keep spraying them in the face to back them off). I had my wife call my father and he rushed over and shot it from the outside it with his .22 rifle (belonged to my grandfather), injuring it enough that I could open the door push him out with a PVC pipe she handed me (that we use to check the mail with, in case some crazy animal wants to try and have a go at us). My father then shot it in the head. Ah, living in the country.
Edit: Currently comparing my pics and investigating what kind of snake this was, I think just a large water snake (known as a fake Moccasin).
2nd Edit: Confirmed, round pupils with a solid yellow belly (although angular head to look like a Moccasin), this one was non-poisonous. But I still wouldn't want to get bitten by it.
Last edited by MarkG; 06/01/2010:58 AM.
The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in Gives way and suddenly it’s day again The sun is in the east Even though the day is done Two suns in the sunset, hmph Could be the human race is run
Lol, Dart. What a mess, having to wipe the blood off my white trim and glass door. And it stunk even before it quit squirming.
EDIT: I'll put up a couple of pics under my snake story post once I get them off wife's iPhone 11 and size down their ridiculously high resolution.
Last edited by MarkG; 05/31/2011:07 PM.
The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in Gives way and suddenly it’s day again The sun is in the east Even though the day is done Two suns in the sunset, hmph Could be the human race is run