Do-It-Yourself Felt Wad Making

I'm using a 7/16" punch for my .45" lubed wads because the lube formula I use(Gatafeo's 2 parts paraffin, 2 parts lard/lanolin 1 part beeswax), makes the wads expand a little, so they are tight when I load them. I have a .45" punch I bought from Track of the Wolf, but they're uncomfortably tight and extremely messy to load. Using the .44" wads is cleaner and easier. I have a good shaved ring, so it's sealed.

I used nothing but Hodgdon 777 FFFg until recently, when my local store ran out and started ordering Goex Pinnacle. I still use 777 FFg in my rifles. I noticed that 777 was greasy, using grease wads and grease pills made it even more greasy wth my Pietta SS Remington. I had good results with using 777 "dry" with no greased felt wads at all, but I was still loading a dry felt wad to wipe down the bore. With Pinnacle, it's greasy using a dry felt wad and a greased felt wad, I haven't tried it dry yet.

When I shoot my rifles with PRB, I load a greased felt wad after the powder charge. That keeps the bore phenomenally clean. I had some adventures with a '52 Springfield I bought lightly used. I thought it was smoothbore until I used greased felt wads. The wads knocked out fouling I didn't know was there, and then I noticed rifling grooves in the bore after the first shot with the wads and figured out how to properly clean it with boiling water. :)

I use the 3/4" punch to make wads for my .69" (tight is good) and the 9/16" punch for my .54" and the 7/8" punch for my .58", all with good results on fouling.

I use a pair of bamboo toaster tweezers to pull the wet felt wads out of the melted lube. I give them a squeeze to let the excess drip out, that makes them clean to use and they look just like store bought grease felt wads, except they're cream colored and not yellow.

Edit: I got my beeswax from Hobby Lobby. I signed up on their website, so I get a coupon nearly every week for 40% off one item, so it was cheaper. I only live a few miles away from the store, so there wasn't any shipping. Good tip on the co-op, I have some bees in my well house. I need to call a beekeeper to see if they can come and get them and I get to keep the hive. :) I can smell the honey ten feet from the doorway.

That cedar stump probably makes it more fun, you get a whiff of cedar with every hammer blow. :) I have to get me one of them. I whack out enough for each caliber to fill an Altoid tin.
 
Thanks for the thread. I just bought a set of those punches and some felt weather stripping like Gatfeo recommends (somewhere around here), and I'm ready to go.
 
Buy the metric punches. The 11mm size is perfect for my 1860 Armys.
I do the Durofelt and melted lube routine.
 
11mm (0.433") is smaller than the 7/16" (0.4375) punch. An 11.5mm (0.453") punch would about right for those desiring a .45 caliber punch.

The Buffalo Arms 45PISTOL punch is .455".

My smallest .44/.45 revolver has a 0.447 chamber supposedly but the felt wads are flexible enough to used for it on up to my ROA's which have a larger chamber diameter.
 
Hawg Haggen said:
I don't use either one.
Click to expand...
Me too. Does anyone here feel like wads increase accuracy? If not I probably won't go to the trouble. As far as keeping the fouling down I cut baby wipes into cleaning patches and run a patch through my bore and wipe down the cylinder and pin, every three or four loads.
 
I don't know anyone who believes wads improve accuracy in pistols, although I'm sure there are those who do just on the basis of statistics. Several people who I credit with excellent credibility claim significant improvement in accuracy (as measured by group size) when using overpowder wads in large bore rifles. It's one of the things on my list to test.
 
Much of what was offered here was in my earlier post, that became a sticky, "So you want a cap and ball revolver."

I've been singing the praises of Duro-Felt for nearly 10 years. Best source of felt I've found. And it's pure wool, made at the factory owned by Duro Felt's family.

For most purposes, I use 1/8th inch hard felt. But I also picked up some 1/4 inch felt from Duro Felt. Soaked in lube, the 1/4 inch wads are used to take up space with medium to light loads, just like cornmeal. For very light loads, you can use one 1/4-inch wad and one 1/8-inch wad.

Pet food cans. I don't use boiling water for melting a bit of lubricant in the aluminum or steel can. I just set it on the range at very, very low heat. It doesn't take much heat to melt the lube. Tongs or needle-nosed pliars make a suitable handle to move it off the heat source after you've stirred the wads in the lube a bit.

Large amounts of wads can be stored in the same can used for melting. Just snap a plastic, pet food cover over it. In the field, I use the smaller Altoids sour candy tins that snap tightly. The hinged, Altoid mint cans dont' seal as well, allowing lubricant to dry over time, since they have an opening where the hinge is formed.

I much prefer wads; they're easier to use than grease over the ball and less messy. If you're concerned about powder contamination, use the same wad cutter to punch out thin, waxed cardboard wads from milk or malted milk ball cartons as a barrier between the grease and powder.

Using grease over the ball, with a 7-1/2 to 8-inch barreled revolver, I find that about the last third of the barrel toward the muzzle is heavily fouled. Using wads, fouling is removed along its length.

Do greased wads create a more accurate load? Hard to tell, given the rather primitive sights of the Remingtons and Colts. Perhaps a revolver with adjustable sights could be used to determine that, but I have none. Well, I do, a .36 Remington with adjustable sights, but I've only used wads in it. I have no other basis for comparison.

Some complain that making the wads and lubricant, and then greasing the wads, is too time consuming. Yeah, it's a little but I do these things during the bitter cold of winter when it's too cold to go out, anyway. Punching wads can be done while watching TV, with a stout board across your lap. I screwed a 6-inch diameter short length of log to a 2X8 that sits across my lap. The end grain of the log won't chip like a board. You could also use a short length of 4X4 mounted to a stout board for the same purpose, as long as the end grain is up.

Wad punches from Harbor Freight work fine for most calbiers: 5/16 for .31 caliber, 3/8 for .36 and 7/16th for the .42 and .43 calibers like .44-40 and .44 Magnum. The 7/16th is too small for the .44/.45 cap and ball revolvers. You can grind out the end with a Dremel, or you can do like I did and buy a .45-caliber punch from Buffalo Arms. I'm not handy, and I could just see either a ruined punch or bleeding fingers in my future, so I went with Buffalo Arms.

The late gun writer Elmer Keith suggested greasing wads with a 50/50 mix of tallow and beeswax. He didn't specify what kind of tallow, or whether those amounts were by weight or volume.
I use the old recipe proportions -- whose type of tallow and paraffin were not specified when listed in 1943 -- but use canning specifically canning paraffin and mutton tallow. This lubricant, with these specific ingredients, was named after me as "Gatofeo No. 1 Lubricant."
I've found it superior or equal to most as far as qualities, and cheaper overall.

It's always amazed me just how many tips and methods crop up each year, just within the field of cap and ball revolvers. We never stop learning, disproving, affirming, discovering and rediscovering.
 
thanks for the info clembert. i fired my fist cap and ball revolver recently and im hooked. these do it yourself tips are great.
 
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