CptCurl,

Shotgun buffers were my next step in my tests, but time ran out and I had to move to South Africa where I have no gun, no loading equipment, nothing but assagai's!! Okay I do have two cast lead bullets my friend left me after shooting in the world long range shooting championships in Capetown.

First a word of caution about brass shotgun cases.They can be used, but read this without fail before you use a brass shotgun case.

Word of caution about balloon head cases

Shotgun buffers are supposedly designed to be compressed through a shotgun choke and not raise pressures. That being said consider where in the pressure cycle the buffer is being compressed- at the muzzle. So if buffers raise pressure it would be in an area of low pressure to start with. In the Cartridge the buffer would be compressed and forced out in the area of high pressure. A spike there could be critical.

Now I know Wright and others here are talking about using fillers in bottlenecks, but none of them have the radical constriction I am working with in the 577/450 Martini. They don't call it the Fat boy for nothing. But even the constriction from the ssmaller 500 body to 45 neck must be reconciled. You are still trying to move a large mass under pressure through a smaller hole.

I have used a disc of tissue paper between powder and fibers like dacron and kapok. I think for range ammo I could dispense with it. But for hunting ammo that is going travel in rough conditions, I would us the tissue.

The puflon and powder was a compressed load and I wasn't worried about migration.

I think Marraki is using the wads in a straight walled or long tapered case. Marraki please correct me if I am wrong....

Please understand, I see a difference in a filler and a wad. Wads are a single solid item and go in straight walled case to to take up space or used in the neck of bottle necked cases for the same purpose. Fillers are for taking up space and are not a solid item.

I would not want .45 cal solid felt wad to drop down in the body of my fat boy case. It would be just fine under the bullet in the neck.

I will look for those load post over on Gunboards and post them later. There are several of them written over a period of a year or two. There may be a couple of earlier ones over on British Militaria. The search function on that board is useless.