I would REALLY like to see those photos, as I was of the opinion that the lack of mass of a wad, either felt, or paper, or modern plastic coupled with the surface area of the wad compared to the spheres of the individual shot pellets, would cause the wad to decelerate from air friction when the gas column was not contained by the barrel, (even with some shot stuck into the top surface of the wadding material), and the deceleration would be so fast on the wad as to prevent the wad from passing through the shot column that has exited the smooth bore barrel. One reason for this was the observation that at very close range, when patterning or firing at a static target, the wad does not fly straight, and in fact often hits the target outside of shot pattern, due to air friction deflecting its path.
The other reason for this hypothesis was in reading Forsythe's
The Sporting Rifle and Its Projectiles , he covers why the round ball from a smooth barrel deflects sooner in flight than when fired from a rifle barrel that imparts a controlled torque, and the same forces would apply to a shot column fired on the horizontal..., in fact because the shot column is composed of multiple pieces of shot, the column will tend to react to the tendency to be "unbalanced" more than a solid ball, and this unbalanced state when the shot is fired, imparts torque or rotational movement to the shot as it approaches the muzzle, thus blowing the pattern.
The reduction of the torque is accomplished, or less amplified, I thought by reducing the powder to reduce the velocity, or by increasing the amount of shot which increased the mass, and reduced the velocity. The torque or tendency to rotate, was further reduced then and today, by the use of "gooved" or "straight rifling" to thus correct or eliminate the torque, and the modern use of choke tubes that employ grooves to obtain a tighter pattern over identical choke tubes that do not, further point to torque and not wads blowing or donutting patterns..., or so I had thought... for folks with donut pattern problems, when using the same load but switching to a same gauged smoothbore that has a gooved barrel report elimination of the pattern problem. Also when using the same ammuntion but adding a grooved choke tube in a modern shotgun, eliminate the blown patterns. IF it was the wads and not torque, the wads should still blow through..., gooved or not grooved, torque reduced or not....
..., but if there is photographic evidence showing the blow through of wads, then perhaps torque is a very minor factor, with the wads are the real culprit, and the modern choke tubes with the grooves cause the wads to not pass through the shot, which is really how they help? But what about grooved barrels which impart less friction to the surface area (in theory) of the wads than a plain barrel..., why do they stop donut patterns...?
How does reducing the velocity suddenly cause the wad to sufficiently slow down to not blow through the pattern? I mean if you launch the shot and wad at 1100 fps and that causes the wad to pass through the shot pattern, then how does reducing the MV to 800 fps not cause the wad to pass through the shot pattern? The wad must pass through the column very soon after exit from the barrel, otherwise the pattern would be so wide that the amount of shot impacted by the wad would be minimal. Deceleration ratios should be a constant for shot and wad at either speed, 1100 fps or 800 fps... ??
Or wait, is the air compressed quicker, thus increasing the friction at a higher MV?
AAAAAAAGGGGH! :cry: I should've paid more attention in physics class.
LD
