Baschieri & Pellagri, aka B&P, is a company that has a long and storied history but is one that as a game shot you may not have come across before. Clay shots of a certain vintage, particularly those who shoot trap and skeet may recall them as the cartridge brand of choice in decades gone by, but as a game shots the company may well have escaped your attention.
That’s mostly because B&P has been, until recently at any rate, best known in this country as a producer of cartridge components, supplying other cartridge manufacturers with cases, wads and powders.
A history of innovation
Founded in 1885 in Bologna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, by enthusiastic hunter Settimi Baschieri and chemistry graduate Guido Pellagri. The pair began experimenting with smokeless gunpowder, eventually resulting in their Acapnia smokeless powder, which, thanks to the uniformity of the orange granules quickly gained popularity with hunters around Italy. This product formed the basis from which the pair went on to develop further powders.
This spirit of innovation and research has formed the backbone of the company ever since, in particular in the field of powders and propellants. For example B&P pioneered F2 powder in 1962, and later in 2008 the development of MG2 powder, a modified nitrocellulose containing 90% nitrocellulose and 10% nitro-glycerine, an excellent powder for heavy loads and extreme velocity.
With the advent of plastic wads in the Sixties B&P also became one of the world’s biggest producers of plastic wads, as well as industrialising the process of loading cartridges, something that had traditionally been done by hand.
The Gordon System
Perhaps the best-known of Baschieri & Pellagri innovations, however, is in the field of shotgun cartridge cases. In 1989 the company created the Gordon System case, one of remarkably few revolutionary developments in the most fundamental of components, changing the case from a passive component to one that has a distinct impact on the performance of the cartridge, specifically the reduction of felt recoil through the use of the shock-absorbing wad base.
Having recently been acquired by Fiocchi Munizione Italy (the same company that owns Lyalvale Express) the company announced early last year that the full range of B&P products would be available to purchase in the UK, including their new range of game loads built using their Green Core wad technology. Going forward the Gordon System is only to be found in Baschieri & Pellagri cartridges.
Green Core wads
In the spirit of the firm’s tradition of developing high quality components, the Green Core technology was developed in a project led by the B&P research and development team in collaboration with the University of Bologna’s Centre for Advanced Mechanics and Materials.
The collaboration resulted in the development of new biodegradable materials for cartridge wad systems, delivering ballistic performance similar or better than that of traditional plastic wads.
The new materials have been developed into three specific wads for different types of load: a ‘container’ wad with spring suspension suitable for lead and bismuth, a shot cup wad for use with steel, copper and tungsten loads, and a ‘couvette’ gas seal for use with fibre wads. The two container-style wads feature pre-cut petals to ensure excellent patterning.
The material, which is biodegradable, compostable and leaves behind no micro-plastics, giving it a good shelf life and ensuring peace of mind that those last few boxes that you have left at the end of the season will still be in good condition when the next one rolls around, assuming, that is, that you have stored them correctly!
The material breaks down as it reacts with the carbon found in the environment. Lying on the surface of the ground the wads will break down at a similar rate to other organic compounds, but when collected and placed in a compost heap or mown into the grass they break down far faster.
The Privilege Game range includes examples of each of these wad systems. Privilege Game is available in 30, 32 and 34g loads of 4-6 lead shot and combine the Gordon basewad with the Green Core pre-cut container wad.
Privilege Game Fiber also features the Gordon basewad and the Green Core seal, and is available in the same lead loads as the non-fibre variant.
Finally the Privilege Game Steel employs the Green Core shot cup wad, which is designed to give the best protection to the gun barrels from the harder steel shot and the best performance from the load being used. Loaded in 28 and 32gs of 3,4,5 steel shot, 4 & 5 being standard and the 3 shot high performance due to the size of shot
Double bubble
Also employing the Green Core technology are a number of specialist loads which underline the B&P penchant for pushing the envelope. For example, the ‘Dual Steel’ cartridge contains two different sizes of steel shot in two separate layers in the shot cup. For example, the 32g contains both 3 and 2 shot, with the lighter Zinc coated 3 shot behind the heavier 2 shot standard steel, giving a superior pattern and knock-down power even at long ranges. Also produced in a 34g Magnum of the same construction and shot size.
Similarly ‘Dual Shock’, designed for wildfowling, contain a dual layer of different sizes of copper and zinc-coated copper pellets. These cartridges have been engineered to give denser, more regular shot patterns, which, combined with the denser-than-steel copper shot results in effective stopping power at longer distances. Dual Shock are available in 32g 6+4 , 34g 5+3, and 36g 5+3 Magnum.
The idea behind 2 different size layers is that. the lighter shot, being overtaken by the heavier shot behind it in the case, fills any voids and gives a denser shot pattern.
As a relative newcomer to the UK game shooting cartridge landscape, it will be interesting to see how these products are received. We look forward to the chance to put some of them to the test in real-world situations in the hopefully not-too-distant future.
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