Size of wad

[Harold1950]

Happy New Year Everyone! I am going to try a felt wad between the powder and the .54 PRB. My question is this, I have cut several 1/2 inch wads to use in my .50 Hawken, will these work in the .54 GPR or do I have to try to find another (bigger) punch to fit? Thank you for your thoughts....I appreciate it............Harold
Both rifles are percussion

 

[roundball]

Happy New Year Everyone! I am going to try a felt wad between the powder and the .54 PRB. My question is this, I have cut several 1/2 inch wads to use in my .50 Hawken, will these work in the .54 GPR or do I have to try to find another (bigger) punch to fit? Thank you for your thoughts....I appreciate it............Harold
Both rifles are percussion

Well, two possibilities come to mind:

1) If you're using them to get the benefit of sealing the gases better behind the projectile, doesn't seem like they could seal very well not fitting tightly against the bore walls;

2) Being smaller than bore diameter, it seems like there might always be the chance that they could settle down on top of the powder more to one side than the other, and that might cause an accuracy problem at muzzle exit if escaping gas was a lot more on one side than the other, affecting the direction of the projectile just as it's exiting.

I am a believer in the use of prelubed OP wads like Oxyoke Wonderwads, and actually use the NEXT LARGER caliber size wad in the expectation that they'll seal even tighter/better...so if it was me, I personally wouldn't waste the gas, powder, and lead going to a range to shoot undersize OP wads...just my .02 cents

 

[paulvallandigham]

The short answer is "NO". You want a OP Wad to be the Groove diameter of your gun, which for a .54 is something like .560. Trade or give the .50 wads to a friend, and order some for .54 from Circle Fly direct, or from any of the usual suppliers who have links on this site. Track of the Wolf has an excellent On-line catalogue, with color pictures of the wads, and good descriptions. If you call them to place the order, you can ask them exactly what the diameter of the .54 cal OP Wads is. I know my .50 caliber Fiber Wads are .510 in dimeter, and I suspect yours are the same. That is way to small to provide any kind of gas seal in a .54. The whole point of using an OP Wad is to seal the gases behind the wad, so that you get consistent velocity from shot to shot, and protect your patches from burning. The wads also tend to do a good job of pushing fouling down the barrel in front of them, cleaning out the grooves much better than any cleaning patch on a bore jag does.That residue gets burned by the powder and exits the barrel as " smoke ".

 

[Harold1950]

Thanks Roundball and Paul.........it makes sense.......I never thought about the wad getting to one side guess I'll look into some bigger diameter wads......

 

[Semisane]

Hey Paul, help me out here. I'm confused about how a fiber wad functions under a PRB.

I use a .510" diameter, 1/16" thick circle fly vegetable fiber wad under Lee R.E.A.L. conicals in several .50 caliber guns with good results. That makes sense to me because the Lee bullet has a flat base for the wad to push against and hold it's shape against the bore.

However, if you put such a wad under a PRB wouldn't it just curl up around the rear of the ball upon ignition, and thus lose all contact with the bore? I can see where it would protect much of the patch, but it does not seem that it would protect that part of the patch in contact with the bore.

If it does curl around the ball, how can it create a gas seal? If it does not curl around the ball, what keeps it flat?

 

[paulvallandigham]

If you use the 1/8" thick wads, they are usually strong enough not to curl. If you feel its curling( wide velocities on your chronograph ) then use two such wads on top of the powder before loading the PRB. I don't think you are going to see a problem using them in a .50 caliber. There might be a problem in a .69, or .72 caliber barrel. Don't hesitate to use extra wads, as they are dirt cheap, and the whole purpose of using them is to seal the gases. I have not seen any gas leak using them in my .50, which is a Green Mountain barrel.