Ron T. said:
Toilet paper? Leather? Felt?
I've been pondering the kind of material I think would be useful for protecting the powder from any possible "wetness" from the patch in a hunting situation wherein the patched ball would sit on the powder in my .50 caliber flinter for hours on end.
You can make your own compressed paper wads at home, I see that you are shooting a .50 caliber, so that will make things easier.
Take a plank of wood about a half an inch thick or so and drill a bunch of holes with a 1/2 in drill bit, then lay the board onto a solid surface that you don't mind getting wet. (like another solid board)
Take some old newspaper and tear them into thin strips (about an inch wide) and dip them into some water for a minute thereabouts.
Remove the strips one at a time and squeeze out the excess water and then stuff them down into the holes of the board, pack each hole to slightly over-filled.
Once each hole is filled with the wet paper, place another board on top of the drilled board that is filled with the paper and weight it down with something heavy. (this will compress the paper)
Leave it alone for a few days until dried, a sunny place will speed up the drying process. Once dried, just pop them out and you now have compacted paper wads.
The neat thing about these are that you can peel off as much as needed, making two 1/4 inch wads by splitting them in case a half if a full half an inch seems too thick.