Vintage 'Mold-Tie" wads

[Trail Troll]

I was given a box of Remington Mold-Tite fiber wads, wax lubed and 3/8 thick. They are fairly stiff as they are nearly 55 years old. Can these be used as a cushion wads ? They are stiff going down the bore and do not want to start in straight, will they right themselves when they bottom out? Is this normal? New to shotgunning here, so thanks in advance

 

[wiscoaster]

I'm not familiar with that product, but if you know they're wax lubed you might try heating them in the oven and then relubing them with a softer lube of your own making.

 

[Britsmoothy]

There is no such thing as cushion wads!

How strong is your rammer! Tight wads can break the rammer.
I don't recommend any difficult to load wadding.

 

[Des52]

Listen to Britsmoothy, the only thing fiber wads do is blow holes in my patterns. I have boxes of them I bought when I got into smoothbores and they are just taking up space. I use a lightly greased cotton wad for lube over the powder cards for lube.

 

[ZUG]

Years before the plastic wad when reloading shot shells they used fiber wads between the powder and shot in the paper shot shells. They came either lubed or un-lubed. My dad use Alcan wads he got from Herter's sporting goods - LONG time gone now.

This might not be what you have because the ones you have will not slide down your bore. The fiber wads for the paper shot shells would be smaller in diameter than the ones used for a muzzleloading shotgun. Sounds like the ones you have are for muzzle loading shotguns and therefore VERY OLD.

 

[snakebit]

Not sure. I have a few around here somewhere that are made of cork. I got them at a yard sale or somewhere like that even before I had my shotgun barrel.

 

[Brokennock]

Years before the plastic wad when reloading shot shells they used fiber wads between the powder and shot in the paper shot shells. They came either lubed or un-lubed. My dad use Alcan wads he got from Herter's sporting goods - LONG time gone now.

This might not be what you have because the ones you have will not slide down your bore. The fiber wads for the paper shot shells would be smaller in diameter than the ones used for a muzzleloading shotgun. Sounds like the ones you have are for muzzle loading shotguns and therefore VERY OLD.

You're close...
As near as I can tell, those hard "cushion wads" came about with shotshell cartridge loading as you alluded to,,, but do not seem to predate cartridges.
For some reason when muzzleloading made a resurgence and folks got back into muzzleloading shotguns, they thought that of those "cushion wads" were needed in the black powder shells, they must be needed in the muzzleloader. They were wrong.

So the wads the OP has are probably not super old, as in pre-cartridge, but I wouldn't be surprised of they are from the 1960s or 1970s.