More filler stuff -- Do those of you who use "fluffy" fillers get good combustion?    I am looking for velocity SD's in low single digits for competition at 600 yd.   I have shied away from wads and grease cookies, never having had any better results with them than without.   Highly compressible fillers are essentially going to "disappear" on firing -- will we then lose the value of the compression we have achieved?  Experimental data, anyone?
    Rice was one of the first things I considered, but it is not as handy to run thru a powder measure.  Also the grains are large and not symmetrical, so may pack differently from one load to another.   I figure that at $3/lb it is only going to run me less than half a cent a shot, and that is certainly worth it for the convenience.   
    When I say that it is "hard", I mean that it will stand the powder compression force without being crushed. One of the bad things about the traditional corn meal or cream-of-wheat fillers is that they tend to compact into a mass.  Amaranth is not going to damage any gun barrels unless it (unlikely) has some grit on it, and even at that will likely do less damage than the average paper-patched bullet.   

CHRIS
RGChristensen

Here's what I've been using:
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I compress 55 gr of 3f with this and a vegie wad over it and only the 3f compresses, the shot buffer will pour right out if I remove the wad.  Seems to work well.  I chose this over COW and others because of the 44-77 bottleneck cases I use.

Chris,
Sorry, I can't answer those questions as I'm still very new to this stuff and I'm just trying to hit the ram more often than not every month.  I was going to include the link to an article about using the stuff in my previous post and found the link is not available now.  Its the only thing I've ever used.
Here's that link, maybe it will come back (something funky with the domain I think):
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   Hi Chris ---

   I was wondering how the Amaranth seed filler has been working for you with black powder.

  Particularly, with fixed ammunition of B.P., does the seed filler co-mingle with the B.P. and therefore retard combustion ?   Or, is the filler segregated from the B.P. via a card wad ?

Any suggestions or results you would care to pass along RE Amaranth seeds would be appreciated.

Webb

WEBB:
   Insofar as mixing with the powder goes, no, it doesn't.   You can dump in the powder, dump in the amaranth, compress, then dump out the amaranth and see the BP remain compressed in the case.   At the suggestion of "Mr Trapdoor" Dennis Bruns, I have tried actually mixing them together before compression, and get higher velocity SD's that way.

CHRIS
RGChristensen

   John ----
             Always worked for me too.  Smith carbine with a "corrected" barrel and plastic cartridge cases from Osborne and, . . . Katie bar the door.

C.M.M.

I use cotton as a filler in my reduced 45-90 chicken loads. 1/4 cotton ball per shell.   

In them old cotton fields, back home. 

   Joe.