I have always thought that a plug was where there as a spot at some point in the cigar that was stuffed too tightly and will not let much air past it. Which, I suppose could account for all your troubles and lack of smoke volume. I've resigned myself to that sort of thing every once in a while, as we're dealing with something made by hand, and even a master roller is going to screw up every once in a while.


I'm also not too fond of guillotine style cutters anymore. I keep one around for the odd torpedo, but I get far more use out of my bullet punch. I also found a cheap V cutter built along the lines of a guillotine, that seems to work rather well.