Wadding

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Wadding is a disc of material used in

seal gas behind a projectile (a bullet or ball), or to separate the propellant from loosely packed shots.[1]

Wadding can be crucial to a gun's efficiency, since any gas that leaks past a projectile as it is being fired is wasted. A harder or more carefully designed item which serves this purpose is often called a

]

Shotguns

A series of individual 1/1,000,000-second exposures showing shotgun firing shots and wadding separation

In

muzzle, the wadding loosens and opens up in flight, allowing the much denser shots to be inertially released and scattered. The same function is served when shooting slugs
.

Model rockets

Wadding is used in model rockets to protect the parachute when it ejects. Without the recovery wadding, the parachute would melt because the ejection is by a small solid-fuel engine, which gets so hot that it melts the glue almost immediately.[citation needed]

Effects

Burning wadding may have ignited the fire that led to the explosion that destroyed the Orient at the Battle of the Nile (q.v.). The father of Robert Morris, "Financier of the American Revolution," died as the result of being wounded by flying wadding from a ship's gun that was fired in his honor.[2]

References