Wadding

Wadding is a disc of material used in guns to seal gas behind a projectile (a bullet or ball), or to separate the propellant from loosely packed shots.

[citation needed] In shotgun shells, the wadding is actually a semi-flexible cup-shaped sabot designed to hold numerous much smaller-diameter sub-projectiles (i.e. shots), and is launched out together as one payload-carrying projectile.

After leaving the muzzle, the wadding loosens and opens up in flight, allowing the much denser shots to be inertially released and scattered.

[citation needed] 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.