In these days of ethical shopping and the effort to try and reduce the impact of plastic on our planet, should we, as “countrymen” first and “sportsmen” second, not be doing our bit by reviewing the cartridges we use either in the field or on the clay ground?
A left and a right of plastic wadding is the same weight of plastic as a shopping bag and on any given day we can go through a fair few shopping bags! We make an effort to reuse our shopping bags (or we pay for not doing so) and yet some of us give little thought to the cartridges we use.
Many theories exist about whether fibre-wadded or plastic-wadded cartridges are more accurate and some use the thought that plastic is potentially more accurate and thereby more humane, to justify using them. The science begs to differ.
According to clay-shooting.com, this pattern difference is “just not borne out by practical testing”, and a fairly exhaustive test by Shotgun-Insight.com found plastic wads to be actually more variable than fibre with no clear advantage to pattern shape or range.
The responsible approach
More and more shoots and shooting grounds are banning the use of plastic wadding. In these days of #PassonPlastic and, with all the other pressures on country sports, we should all take the responsible approach and do our bit for the countryside we love. If you aren’t already using fibre, then take the advantage of the off-season to use up any remaining stock you might have on the clay grounds where they can be more easily collected or at least where their impact is mitigated.
When stocking up for the season to come, then please order up fibre wadded cartridges and do your bit. In doing so you will also comply with the Code of Good Shooting Practice which every responsible gun should do as a matter of course and which states “Guns should use cartridges with degradable wads where possible”.
As any good country person knows, when doing anything in the great outdoors, “leave only your footprints and take away only memories” so we urge all guns to take away your empties and leave only your bio-degradable fibre wads.