Homemade OP Cards

[burch]

I`m wondering if anyone makes their own over powder cards. I have a punch for OS cards but was concerned with the thickness of OP cards and what you use for material.

burch

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

With the cost of the majority of the components involved in the shot column, it just seems to easy to purchase from track as they are fairly inexpensive, I do see the advantage of a punch for felt wads to see if they have a positive or other effect on patterning, just have not gotten around to it yet. I also can see the justification of purchasing a punch "just in case" the "readymades" dry up.

Curious about the inside diameter of the punch you are using though.

hotoSmile:

 

[roundball]

I`m wondering if anyone makes their own over powder cards.
I have a punch for OS cards but was concerned with the thickness of OP cards and what you use for material.
burch

I have 3 different caliber punches and do make my own OP wads out of sheets of felt from Duro-Felt.
I didn't get started making my own OS cards as I I bought a bag of them from Circle Fly for $6 or $7 for a 1000 or something like that.

But I have seen the occasional post about using the cardboard from a breakfast cereal box to make OS cards...remember you want them very snug/tight fitting in the bore.

 

[burch]

bore dia. is .625 and the punch dia. is .653

 

[burch]

I`m also punching os cards from cereal boxes per your recommendation :thumbsup: I have some 12ga. felt wads that I could punch down to size but I thought the over powder cards we`re of a harder material, like thick cardboard or something along those lines. I also thought the over powder card was a gas seal. I`m thinking with felt being a porous material that moisture would be able to get through. Correct me if i`m wrong here, I may be on the wrong track :idunno:

 

[roundball]

Oh gosh, wool felt has been used as wads for a long time...in fact, if you'll Google Oxyoke Wonderwads you'll see them commercially bagged by caliber/gauge

 

[burch]

So these wool felt wads are used for an over powder wad ? Are you suppose to also use a cusion wad on top of the felt or does the felt serve as an op cusion wad. The felt wads I have are about 3/16" thick, so if I double up on `em i`d have my op cusion wad - right ?

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

Very possible, this is where the fun of trial and error comes in.

Got any pics of that punch ?
:grin:

 

[burch]

I forgot to mension that i`m doing this for a #6 small game load. I got the punch from Ohio Ramrod.

 

[burch]

So what do i use for a lube ? Olive Oil, Crisco ?

 

[hanshi]

I already had punches for some of my guns. I punch card wads from cereal boxes and they work very well in my smoothbore. I also punch wads from Durofelt pieces that fit several calibers. Making my own stuff, to the extent I can, is part of the fun of muzzleloading, IMHO. Yep, I still have to occasionally buy supplies I am not set up to make.

 

[roundball]

So these wool felt wads are used for an over powder wad ? Are you suppose to also use a cusion wad on top of the felt or does the felt serve as an op cusion wad. The felt wads I have are about 3/16" thick, so if I double up on `em i`d have my op cusion wad - right ?

I've never had the need to use both wool wads and a cushion wad...one or the other seems to do it.
Depending on pattern testing, certain of my loads do better with a full 1/2" Circle Fly fiber cushion wad...but most of my loads pattern better with only a couple of 1/8" wool wads.

I used to buy bags of Oxyoke 1/8" Wonderwads but they started getting pretty pricy so I bought an ARCH punch and a few feet of 1/8" stiff felt from Duro-Felt and punch my own.
I put 100 in a plastic cup or ziploc, squeeze in a few lines of Natural Lube 1000 from a tube, and melt it into the wads using the microwave.

 

[burch]

o.k. - I lubed up one my 12ga. wool wads with some olive oil and wanted to see if it would work in my 20ga. Now, if i`m wrong here please feel free to let me know. The 12ga. wad slid down the barrel pretty nice so i`m wondering if I can use `em ?

 

[burch]

What type of Duro-Felt material do you guys use. I checked out their web site and they have quite a selection. Also, how many wads can you get out of a 36" x 12" piece. That was running around 19 bucks + shipping I guess. TOW wants 12 bucks for 100 + shipping. That`s way too expensive for just 100 wads. :surrender:

 

[roundball]

What type of Duro-Felt material do you guys use.

They actually have one labeled for use with muzzleloaders...its a stiff 1/8" type of felt.

how many wads can you get out of a 36" x 12" piece.

You can get many hundreds of wads out of one piece...one simple way to figure it is to just grab a sheet of notebook paper and see how many times your punch will fit across 11.5"...then see how many rows fit in a full inch going across that same 11.5...then do the math.

IE: you should get a double row of half inch wads in an inch wide line, x 11.5" across = about 22 wads / inch.
So about 100 wads in every 4"-5" of the 36"...roughly 700+ 1/2" wads in this example.
Slightly less for a .6xx" wad, less for a .7xx" wad, and so on

 

[roundball]

o.k. - I lubed up one my 12ga. wool wads with some olive oil and wanted to see if it would work in my 20ga. Now, if i`m wrong here please feel free to let me know. The 12ga. wad slid down the barrel pretty nice so i`m wondering if I can use `em ?

I would think so...can't hurt to try.
.20ga is about .620", .12ga is about .710".
Suggest you use a flat face shotgun jag to ensure you compress the oversize wad down flat...then the same thing for the shot charge and the wad will stay flat.

Be careful of soaking the wads too much which can make them pretty heavy...you want them pretty light enough for the wind blast at muzzle exit to immediately try to start separating them from the back of the shot column...it seems that too heavy of a wad configuration can cause 'dough-nut holes' in the patterns, so watch for that.

 

[nkbj]

Mostly using that gray spongy pressed paper stuff from egg cartons. When soaked in melted lube it soaks it up like a sponge and disperses the lube some to help keep the fouling soft. It pretty much seems to be somewhere between felt and a hard card. I use two of them beneath a plain based bullet, three if the mold has a stepped gas check base. Using a 7/16" punch for .40, 1/2" for .45, 9/16" for .50.

 

[Linc]

I get the FM18H-1 from Duro-felt to punch out wads. I use an overshot card in place of an overpowder card. The thicker overpowder cards were giving me doughnut holes.

My .53cal smoothbore likes powder,overshot card,3 wool wads,shot charge of #6's and topped of with a overshot card.

The .58cal was the same except only one wool wad.

 

[Dave Marsh]

RB, what kind of punches do you use and where do you get them?? I haven't look too hard yet but would like to get several calibers. Thanks.

 

[roundball]

RB, what kind of punches do you use and where do you get them?? I haven't look too hard yet but would like to get several calibers. Thanks.

Got my first couple by Googling ARCH Punch, and bought them from:
http://www.brettunsvillage.com/


Recently got my .40cal punch from TOW because I also ordered some other things with the same shipping:
http://www.trackofthewolf.com/Search.aspx?search=wad punch