3-D printing shotgun wads

howl

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Apr 19, 2014
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I've been waiting for this to become a thing so I didn't have to figure it out. Anybody? Bueller?
 
Cool idea. Curious what type of media would need to be used to withstand pressure and heat?
 
I got really, really, really deep in the weeds on reloading sabot slugs as kind of a fun project. There's a couple areas I can hunt that are shotgun only and I went full on stupid into it. There is not a lot of info out there on it, so you read a lot of stuff in a facebook group on it. If you're curious, I did get a couple loads that are a consistent 1-1.25 MOA at 100. Both open up to 4-5 inches at 200, but that's all I wanted. I burned about 3lbs of powder and bought 100's of very expensive bullets. 3-4x what the gun cost.

Some of the guys on there started 3d printing sabots, but they didn't have much luck. There is some arguing on if it will work well or not, what kind of plastic to use, etc. Like folks will be like, "This will definitely work, I'm doing it!" and then never get back.

It sounds like the general consensus was that there isn't a good filament out there for sabots and definitely not one out there for wads. If it worked with buckshot, someone would be posting about it on there.

I don't know much of anything about printing, but I'm pretty sure wads are generally made from HDPE and LDPE, both of which are hard to print. (If I'm remembering right) The sabots I use are definitely hdpe.
 
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