I have dabbled with black powder in cartridges before, but I'm pretty ignorant overall on the subject. Well, to make a long story short, I lucked into a 50-70 Trapdoor, so I plan on shooting a lot more BP cartridges in the future. My question is, what is the right way to load them?
I know that you are supposed to load by volume, that you are supposed to use a drop tube, and then you are supposed to have a bit of compression when you load your boolit. That's about it. Do I need a wad and if so, does it matter if it's veg fiber or cardboard? Does the thickness matter? How about grease cookies? Are they needed? Do they melt and contaminate the powder on a hot day? Do I need to sandwich them between two wads, or do I just need one under it? What style of lube works best for that? Hard, or soft? Is there anything else that I need to know?