cotton balls as a filler?

[.429]

it worked well for me this afternoon. i didn't have any polyfill. do any of you use cotton?

[knifemaker]

I would be careful with cotton as a filler and not use it where it could start a wildland fire,

[.429]

i was worried about that myself. after i stuffed the cotton into the casing i never saw it again. no fireballs...LOL

[PuppetZ]

I did for some 30-06 loads. Worked ok. The grass did not catch fire and I went looking for the small puff I used, about 0.5 gn each, afterward. Never saw any. Must have burned while travelling down the barrel.

[DCM]

Cotton is Much less likely to catch on fire than polyester.
Many flame resistant clothes are made from cotton.
Weldors, electricians and foundrymen are often prohibited by smart safety directors from wearing poly type clothing for that reason among others.

[.429]

that's a good observation

Cotton is Much less likely to catch on fire than polyester.
Many flame resistant clothes are made from cotton.
Weldors, electricians and foundrymen are often prohibited by smart safety directors from wearing poly type clothing for that reason among others.

[Baja_Traveler]

I use a small tuft of cottonball for my light silhouette chicken loads to keep the Unique in place. While shooting I can never see anything, but I gave a buddy a few at a match when he ran short, and when he fired them I could see fine white fluff flying off in a bunch of directions when he fired. Looks like it gets shredded into itty bitty pieces on firing...

[Scharfschuetze]

I and another Castboolits member had almost exclusive use of an indoor range on one three year assignment. I used cotton balls in my powder-puff-indoor-range 45/70 loads at the time with good results. We cleaned up the range every few weeks and I never did find any cotton on the floor or in the backstop. I can only surmise that it was completely consumed by the light charge of Bullseye powder. The range had a powerful air extraction vent so perhaps if the dismembered cotton remained airborne, it was sucked out of the range before it could accumulate on the floor.

Now COW on the other hand left debris all over the floor and had to be swept up weekly.

[Mk42gunner]

Cotton is Much less likely to catch on fire than polyester.
Many flame resistant clothes are made from cotton.
Weldors, electricians and foundrymen are often prohibited by smart safety directors from wearing poly type clothing for that reason among others.

Cotton clothes will still burn, they just don't melt and stick to a person. After the fire on one of the Adams Class Destroyers on the east coast, it suddenly became necessary for every sailor to have at least one set of fire retardant dungarees, which were 100% Cotton.

This is the same reason the Navy still uses feather pillows on board ship. (Which really doesn't make a lot of sense, the whole two inch thick mattress is foam rubber).

Robert

[dromia]

I use kapok.

[303Guy]

Polyester won't burn in a barrel. Cotton balls can burn. Not always - in fact it's quite hard to make them burn but burn they can. I shoot a lot of test loads into a 'test tube' and once I got some to burn. Smoulder actually. There are reports of grass and scrub fires being started by cotton.

A trick we would sometimes play was to set some cotton rags smouldering (happens often in a welding shot), fold the smouldering bits into the middle of the rag and place that under the welders bench or into something. After a while he starts smelling the smoke .....

I've had my cotton overalls start smouldering from grinding sparks. Polyester just melts away, leaving big holes and that's what happens to it in a barrel. I sometimes find these little balls of melted polyester. Never heard of kapok starting a fire - which doesn't mean it can't.

[ku4hx]

I tried it once in a .30-'06. Every shot yielded a veritable snow storm of small, partially burned, cotton particles. Each shot was quite a flurry and I was exceeding glad I was at our gun club alone. I had 20 rounds I think and I shot them all, no memory of velocity or group size, but the snow storm was ... well, unforgettable.

On the way home, I stopped off at a fabric store and bought a replacement bag of polyester fill. Thus ended my cotton-as-filler phase.

[Mohillbilly]

I just use corn meal or cream o wheat , outside .

[john hayslip]

If you are loading a straight case florist foam works well. It will stay in place over the powder and seems to be consumed when you fire without any thing bad to the barrel happening.