What other wadding or padding materials do you use?

[1886nut]

I've pretty much stuck to commercial wads when downloading BPCR loads, but I've dabbled with the milk carton discs from a punch I made in the shop. These are free but tedious, I was wondering what other ways there are to safely tamp down a load without the risk of leaving a ring in the barrel? I've heard things like foam peanuts and cream of wheat tossed around but wanted to see what others here were doing with sucess.

[Nobade]

Cream 'O' Wheat works fine, either on top of the powder or even mixed together. I'd be scared of foam, both from danger of ringing a chamber to having it melt and gunk up the barrel.

IIRC the gub'ment used cork discs in their carbine loads, didn't they?

[NickSS]

Several buddies of mine have been experimenting with light BP loads using Pufflon ballistic filler. Their results have been so impressive that I have decided to get some of the stuff for a trial to see how I like it. One buddy was shooting his first tryal loads with the stuff today using 40 gr of FFG and pufflon to fill the case then he seated the bullet and wad on top. He hit five out of five chickens at 200 yards with this load and it kicked very little. He plans to refine the load and use it for the chicken stage in silhouette matches. Sounds like a good idea to me.

[Southern Son]

Felt wads soaked in your favourite BP lube (want to try that one myself), and grease cookies (have used them, had some good results).

[Chicken Thief]

Beer coasters!

[oldracer]

When I started, Doug Knoell said he used a wad cut from milk cartons by the press mounted type of punch. He said he used a newspaper wad on top of that cut with the same press. I looked at the wall covered with plaques and such and decided that those types of wads would be just fine for me also. I usually spend an hour every few months making a bunch and with newsprint I use a whole paper section so cuts go quickly.

[cajun shooter]

I have and still do use felt wads for reduced loads. There is a lady that sells it at very fair prices. I load my BP then a wad over the powder that is compressed. I then fill the remainder of the case with yellow grits. ( southern choice) Load the bullet and fire. No problems and load is accurate.

[Cap'n Morgan]

I've been experimenting with wads made from paper mache. The idea is to use them for taking up empty space in my 45-70, when using slower powders. So far I haven't had time to test them properly.

The wads you see in the picture are only prototypes, the shrinkage after drying was somewhat larger than I expected and I had to enlarge the cavities in the "mold". The weight is about 10 grains for a single wad.

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/7263/img1350hu.jpg http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/6109/img1351g.jpg

[mroliver77]

I have used foam in .38 special cases to up the pressure of a load. A 2 gr powder with filler load will do the same work as a 3.5gr of powder load. These are approx numbers so please don't use them as data.
If a fella was in a SHTF situation and needed to stretch out a lb of powder this would work well. Grits, cream of wheat, bran etc all do the same in straight wall cases. I have used the foam beads for out of stuffed animals also but they are such a pain to work with and very static prone. I have never had a problem with ringing when using such as filler. I do not have pressure test equipment so I do not know what the internal ballistics of so loaded cartridges.
Jay

[Newtire]

I've been experimenting with wads made from paper mache. The idea is to use them for taking up empty space in my 45-70, when using slower powders. So far I haven't had time to test them properly.

The wads you see in the picture are only prototypes, the shrinkage after drying was somewhat larger than I expected and I had to enlarge the cavities in the "mold". The weight is about 10 grains for a single wad.

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/7263/img1350hu.jpg http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/6109/img1351g.jpg
I will try that Captain! Now, that looks both economical and do-able. Could use the right sized Forstner bit and even make filler wads for the larger gauges. Will have to look up how to make paper mache now.

OOPS. See you have even included that info...

Thanks for the great post.