wooden magazine plug ??

The old Winchester and Ithaca 37 wooden dowels did not have plastic tips. My guess is the tip goes against magazine cap.

Seeing how a whittled down branch has worked just fine when a buddy forgot to reinstall a plug before a duck hunting trip I would guess it does not make much difference.

Is the plastic tip intended to be inserted into the cartridge follower or magazine cap?

The rubber tip goes against the magazine cap. This is to prevent "oil leeching" from metal-to-wood contact, whereas the other end of the plug dead stops, when fully loaded and over-compressed, against the plastic follower. It's nice to throw a wider plastic flange on the cap end of your plug, so your spring can pin the plug in position and prevent rattling.

Responded on the other forum. New M500 plugs do not have a plastic end. There are rubber/plastic washers on the dowel.
"...whittled down branch..." Just needs to be cut to length and doesn't need to be very big in diameter. Did the same thing long ago.

I find that mesquite makes a better field-expedient magazine plug than greasewood.

A pencil works just fine.

I found a hunk of plastic, heaven only knows what it is made of, that replace a lost wooden plug on my Franchi 48L. I actually found that the manufacturer will sell me one. But I'm not paying, in 1981, twenty bucks for a cylindrical hunk of wood.

Years ago I've seen cylindrical pieces of wood cut to just the right length and even had a nice coating of wood stain on them. I was told you can buy wooden dowels that are the same diameter, or close to it, of a 12 ga. shell and you just cut them to proper length and give them a nice coat of stain. Depending on the length of wooden dowel you can make yourself plenty of spares. When properly stained they don't tend to soak up oil either; or at least that's what I was told.

The Ithaca magazine plug's are made to go inside of the magazine spring.

I bought a Ithaca 20 gauge, when I removed the magazine spring there was a twig from a tree.
The spring was so screwed up I had to order a new spring.

The simplicity and basic form of the Mossberg 500 plug is seriously cool to me. I'm not kidding.

If you aren't hunting waterfowl leave it out.

I would not use oak for a dowel. If the shotgun gets wet the acids in the wood will mess up a shotgun.

MSgtEgress said:

If you aren't hunting waterfowl leave it out.

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What about dove?

Dove are not waterfowl; you can leave it out, if your State allows.

My old Winchester 12 had a wood plug with some factory writing on it. I gave it to my cats to play with and scratch.

I have no use for plugs.

The three shot rule reads "migratory bird" in Tennessee. That is duck, goose, dove, woodcock. Who'da' thought.
I just never take the plug out. My HD shotgun has never had a plug in it...( that would be kind of dumb! )

Mark

A cattail reed will work in an emergency.

cdb1 said:

The simplicity and basic form of the Mossberg 500 plug is seriously cool to me. I'm not kidding.

View attachment 761249

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It's pretty minimalist all right. If you have one of these, shake it out of the mag tube and bevel the ends. If left square it's possible for them to get tangled in the mag spring, turning your repeater into a single shot.

Fortunately, I discovered this when the turkey was already on the ground.