What do you use and why.

[country gent]

Ive heard / read alot of diffrent things. I am curious as to what you use for wads in your black powder cartidges? Thickness? Size? Anything Goes or is it really a science? Ive heard of Playing cards, cereal Boxes, poster board, gasket material, plastic lids, milk cartons, plastic jugs, wax papper. and some may have slipped my mind. One I have never herd of being used is corrogated card board is there a reason why? Could thin leather be used? How about old deninm jeans? I have been wondering about this for awhile, and since the only stupid question is the one you dont ask, Im posing it to you gentleman here.
Hopefully Im not opening a can of worms here. And also Thanks for your help.
Ive been using cereal boxes and just punched a deck of playing cards into wads to try. My home made wad punch is cutting them .465 dia. But I shoot mostly fire formed cases with little neck sizing.

[Don McDowell]

In grease groove loads I use mostly .030 fiber wads, sometimes a .060.
Paper patch I like 1/8 in. dry lubed felt wads and a wad punched from the Napa rubber cork gasket material.
Altho the other day I took along a batch of rounds for the 45-70 with a 420 gr patched bullet that used the felt wad and wads I had punched from a cheddar cheese flavored gold fish cracker box and they must of worked quite well as the accuracy that combo turned in sort of had me wondering if I really wanted to have that rifle rebarreled to 44-77.

[John Boy]

Country Gent, why chase a rainbow and try to reinvent the wheel for the different materials you listed?
The standards that work are fiber-LDPE-cork and felt. Harry Pope made his wads from old hats. If felt was good enough for one of the best marksmen that lived in the US - why would I try to chase a rainbow? Dry felt is my primary wad. It protects the bullet base and burns at 420 degrees. For shallow GG's or just one, I'll use a lubed felt wad

[Matt85]

almost anything that can survive the heat before the bullet leaves the barrel will work. the primary goal is to protect the base of the bullet, however using lubed felt wads also gives added lube for softening fouling.

-matt

[country gent]

Not "chasing the rainbow here". Ive heard of all these materials being used from one or several and was just trying to get it straight in my head as it does get confusing at times. We get a post goingand the what and whys and the group answers alot of questions for everybody. Im sure it goes on at the black powder matches same as Highpower rifle. group of guys discuss changes procedures after the matches are over for the day. I Think there is alot of good info to be gleaned here.

[Wayne Smith]

But...with everything said, it eventually all comes back to what works for you in your rifle.

[nwellons]

But...with everything said, it eventually all comes back to what works for you in your rifle.

Good point.

I use playing card wads the most but have tried lots of other. All seem to work well placed above and below the grease cookie in my .42 Russian Berdan. No leading and better accuracy than I can hold since I usually shoot off hand leaning against a pole at the 100 yd range.

[2Tite]

Wads punched from cereal boxes are a consistent .022". They've helped me hold MOA in my Browning 40-65. Why pay more?

[Bent Ramrod]

A friend used to order specialty calendars for everybody in the office and they come in the mailing package with a stiffener made of thin corrugated cardboard. She collected a bunch of them and gave them to me. I've used them for wads in BPC rifles and they work as well as anything. I've also used gasket fiber wads, cardboard wads, leather wads, heavy paper wads and plastic wads. (And primer wads.) One of the nice things about BPC rifle shooting is you can mess around all you want with a lot of variables.

Some day I plan on soaking the corrugated cardboard in melted lube before cutting the wads to see if that does anything. So far, though, I haven't seen any systematic difference in accuracy, at least with grease groove boolits, that associates with wad material. Primer wads, whether of newspaper or slightly better quality paper, do seem to help.

[oldracer]

I use a powder wad made from either milk cartons or juice cartons and after compressing the powder I put a newspaper wad on top so the base of the bullet does not stick to the wad. When I started several years ago that is what Doug Knoell said he used and he has a wall of plaques and such so I figure he knows what he was doing.

[CanoeRoller]

I like to use a cardboard wad made from the case dividers in some brands of beer (I really like the ones used by Mike's Hard Lemonade as they are very uniform in thickness) One case will make enough wads to keep me shooting for a year.

[Gunlaker]

Just to throw more gas on the fire, a few years back DanT was telling me over on the Shiloh site that he'd recovered bullets shot with a number of wad types. He'd come to the conclusion that bullets shot with LDPE wads had less finning at the base than those shot with fiber wads, and that HDPE wads were even better at reducing fining.

I sometimes use fiber wads and sometimes LDPE. I'm not sure I can tell the difference, but I'm pretty sure that LDPE wads seal better than veg fiber wads.

I plan to play more with the rubberized cellulose gasket wads that Don told me about.

Chris.

[Grapeshot]

I found that the cardboard used in Soda Can Cartons are perfect for my use. They are moisture resistant, which precludes them from being recycled. So they are great to use for sandwiching a grease cookie between the powder and bullet.

[freedom475]

I figure that a gasket material specifically designed to withstand heat, seal, and stop blow-by is a good material to use. I buy .030 bulk gasket material, sold by the foot from a big roll, from my local CarQuest. (They also have .060)

It seals perfectly.... I recovered a bullet with the wad stuck to its base at 400yards...this gasket showed that it was positively doing its job of sealing the bore and protecting the bullet. I found a few of the gasket wads laying around my 300yard target so I knew that many of the wads were "making the ride"

I added a very thin slick paper wad, cut from adhesive strip backer, over the Gasket wad...now the wads release at the muzzle and my 45-70's group dropped to -2" at 300yards with just a blowtube.

Old hats, leather, veggie, milk jug (plastic of waxed paper) all work well enough...but NONE of them are designed for the job like Gasket material.

[johnson1942]

several years ago i cast up some 550 grain .458 pope style bullets. my 45/70 is 1/22 twist. past 300 yards these bullets couldnt hit a old barn. out to 250 they are deadly accurate. i remember i used milkcarton wads and drop tubed a load without compression so the bullet fit in the case well. slipfit with a not heavy load of powder. my barrel is throated so they set up in the bore some. at 200 yards off of a rest i rember i could get true bumble bee groups. now i shoot a 450 grain paperpatched bullet that i swage my self. best for the 1/22 twist. i also use a .60 thousands poly wad behind it. i also use reloader 7. not quite bumble bee groups at 200 yards but it will shoot very good any distance i want. i taught a neighbor boy how to load and shoot his 45/70. he used rs pyrodox put in by a drop tube and no compression. he used my bench wad cutter and cut wads from a corkrubber gasket material. he shot a 500 grain grease groove bullet and got very very tight groups at 100 yards. he slip fit them in without crimping also. after all this im sure many things will work if all else is done right. i do pine afer those bumble bee groups at 200 yards once in a while but im so spoiled by my swageing set up i dont cast unless i have to. i dont want to just hit the deer in the heart i want to be able to hit the mitral valve in the heart or the rattler in the eye at 100 yards. have fun, johnson1942

[cajun shooter]

The reason that this subject matter is as you say, one that has many different answers is because we are human and our rifles are all different. It is not as confusing as it may seem if you studied any psychology. If I have a certain material within my reach and I look at it long enough, I may say why do I need to buy Walter's vegetable wads when I can use this.
Man has always tried to reinvent the wheel and that is why you will read about 20 different materials being used to place between the bullet and the powder. Why people do certain things are still not able to give answer to.
Shooters are the same as men who build engines, buildings, and any other thing we do for fun or life. We will always try to use and do it a different way in the belief that our way may work even better. That is how we have arrived at this year of 2013, by trying different approaches to every little thing in life.
That is what John Boy was making a point of in his posting.
Go to a large shoot and ask each person what they do from A to Z and it will not be the same but they all work and that is your answer.
The one thing that is in common with all of them is that they must be free of the bullet as it starts on it's path. A wad that stays on the base will never give good results. Later David