revolver wads

[doug60]

Ive always been a grease man but I do want to also start using wads.What is agood material to use .Nothing synthetic Im sure.Would an old 100% wool blanket work? Or is felt better and where is a good place to get it.I can have my wife pick some up the next time shes in capital city.Ive read older posts as far as lube recipies so on to the next step.Any help would be great. Thanks

 

[crockett]

Not a blanket. You want felt, wool. There are some insulating strips a lot of folks use. An old felt hat ought to work. I have cut some felt wads and used a wax/crisco mix as a lube but a pre-lubed wonder wad, or something similar is fine and probably easier to use- to see if you like wads.

 

[Matt85]

a wool blankey would be too flimsy. ya want something a little more rigid.

-Matt

 

[Rifleman1776]

Keep it simple. Plain old cardboard wax soaked is just fine and very inexpensive.

 

[cynthialee]

Why not go with corn meal? Stuff has been around for a long time.
(cream of wheat works, but is it PC?)

 

[phoenix511]

A source: http://www.durofelt.com/image_19.html

The material I have is about 0.14" thick, what I would call "hard felt." OK for me for BP revolver, rifle (under ball w/patch), and smoothbore(under ball). Help with thin patch not blowing through.

Old blankets, felt hats,etc usually too thin/soft to make good wads. They work OK in BP revolvers preventing chain fires, but don't seem to me to contribute to accuracy.

I lube all wads with a beeswax/lard/veg oil/ mix, avoiding petro stuff like automotive grease, parafin, etc. Pop some wads in a glass jar, microwave to melt lube.

There are thousands of lube recipes, most of them work about the same, so pick one.

 

[Rick Son]

I always did like a little black powder in my cream of wheat...You can shoot the lumps if ya let them dry fer a month er two~ :bull:

 

[M. De Land]

I like to use felt. I cut the wads out and drop them into melted bee's wax. Remove and let them congeal on way paper and their good to go. Old Elmer Kieth trick.

 

[Many Klatch]

I followed the directions on this video and made myself a bunch of wads that work well in my 1858's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgNVPC2wmWI

Many Klatch

 

[Billnpatti]

An excellent source for 100% wool felt is a place called Duro-Felt in Arkansas. You can look them up online. They have several different thicknesses and densities of felt. you will want the 1/8 to 3/16 inch hard felt. If you don't have a punch of the right size, contact a man who goes by the name of Ohio Ramrod on the Forum. He will make you a custom punch for only $10 plus postage. You can find himn by clicking on the "Members" tab and then searching for "ohio ramrod".

An easy way to lube your wads is to coat the felt sheet with the lube of your choice and put it into your microwave for a few seconds to melt the lube into the felt. When it cools, you can start punching out wads that are ready to go.

Oops, my bad, this should have been addressed to the person who posted the question, not to "Many Klatch". The website suggested by Many Klatch is an excellent one and provides all of the information one needs to make the wads for his muzzleloading guns.

 

[aeatwood]

The big thing I have against CoW is that you STILL need a lubed wad, or lube over the ball to keep fouling soft. For 12 rounds at the range, then going home, it does not matter. If you want to shoot 120, it makes a huge difference. Or if you actually use the guns as field weapons.

For me, CoW is a huge pain in the neck, because you need to carry it too, and have some way of measuring it. The easiest way I know of to do that would be carrying another flask with the spout cut for the correct amount of CoW. (or corn meal).

Powder flask, capper, bag of balls, and a baggie with a few wads in it are easy to carry, and easy to fit in your overalls when driving a tractor. 8)

 

[zimmerstutzen]

a wad of chamber diameter is less than a third of the circumference of the ball. That means that when the ball is compressed against the wad and powder, and the wad conforms to the curve of the ball, it is not large enough to seal the chamber from any flash that may get past the ball. After ignition, when pressure of expanded gases keeps the wad pushed against the ball, it is still not large enough to contact the bore. In order to work, a wad would have to be sufficiently thick to still contact the bore when pushed up against the ball. An 1/8 of an inch, really won't do it. 3/16 might.

It is simple geometry.

 

[aeatwood]

Well, a properly sized wad is considerably larger than the actual chamber dimension. Probably closer to .40 than .380, for instance.

I will let you argue w/ Elmer Keith and 150 years of empirical evidence on whether or not it actually works. He learned it from CW veterans.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

using an over sized wad yes.

Again simple geometry learned in grade school.

The formula for the circumference of a circle has the same since ancient Greece. As great as Elmer was, I do not for a second believe that the rules of geometry were suspended in his world.

A guy that buys a 45 caliber punch to punch out his wads would be wasting money unless the wads are thick. Getting an oversize punch of course would solve the problem. Technically, a .450 diameter round ball would require a wad .707 inches to cover half of a ball. If you have a wad that is .45 in diameter, you are coming up seriously short of sealing the space behind the ball.

 

[Many Klatch]

I don't know about the geometry thing, but I expect the wads to expand and seal to walls of the chamber when the ball is pressed down against the powder. The powder will depress in the middle of the chamber and would migrate to fill at the edges so the wad would have no place to go but to expand.

Many Klatch

 

[zimmerstutzen]

or simply bend to the shape of the ball.leaving a ring around the outside that is not sealed.

Circumference equals pi times diameter. Rather simple concept. To seal around half the ball it needs to cover half the circumference. To expect a .45 diameter wad to expand to .7 diameter because you press down the ball is a bit much. (Although some politicians easily stretch the truth in such proportion.)

On the other hand with flat based conicals, it would be ideal.

 

[Billnpatti]

Whether on not a wad of 1/8 inch of thickness should theoretically fit and seal a chamber, it is hard to argue with the fact that is does, in reality, seal the chamber of a revolver when properly lubricated and properly inserted into the chamber. From experience, I can tell you that it must be larger than the diameter of the chamber but it does not have to be as big as 1/3 the diameter of the ball. As long as the wad is a snug fit in the chamber and is properly seated before seating the ball, it will work just fine.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

How do you know that it does?
X-ray eyes?
Or are you just assuming it does

 

[Billnpatti]

Why, X-ray eyes, if course. :haha: And how do you know they don't fit? Just figured it out with you handy dandy calculator? :blah:

 

[zimmerstutzen]

At least I can calculate it with some verifiable accuracy.

You made the statement that the wads DO seal the chambers after the ball is seated, just trying to figure out how you know. Do you have some verifiable objective observations which support your conclusion.