felt for wads

[bruce moulds]

what type of felt are you guys using for wads.
also what thickness.
i am guessing that wool would be the best.
is a different felt desirable for grease wads than plain.
hat felt would be my guess as ideal.
some of the industrial felts seem to have different densities and thicknesses.
an old shotgun shell might shed some light on this, but who has one nowadays.
keep safe,
bruce moulds.

[Don McDowell]

Bruce some folks do use old hats to punch their wads out of.
I like the 1/8 inch lubed felt wads, but I have been purchasing those from various places.
There's a place on the internet that sells felt, and they actually have listings for felt that they recommend for wads in ammunition.
Roberts wrote of using old desk top ink blotters as the best for the wads.

[bruce moulds]

don thanks for the reply.
only thing is it is a very tormenting reply.
where do you get the lubed wads and what are they lubed with?
what is the place that recommends felt. i have looked but can't find.
keep safe,
bruce.

[bruce moulds]

just found durofelt.
bruce.

[bobw]

bruce, the old Alcan "Feltan Bluestreak" shotshell wads were called that but really looked more like a veg fiber wad and not felt at all. Back when I was a kid the oldtimers called cork cork but instead of calling the fiber ones fiber, many referred to them as felt and opw's were allways called nitro cards. Wonder wad was a lubed soaked felt that I used in my 50 3 1/4 for a little while before figuring out in my gun a straight cookie got it done better. bobw

[Kurt]

Bob,

Last time I was out your way I stopped in a hat makers shop in Rapid City SD and asked him if he had any trimmings I could have. He came out of the back room with a whole arm full of rings he trimmed off. I asked him what he uses for felt and he said 10 and 20X rabbit felt and some wool. I separated the rings and cut several thousand wads and I really like the rabbit wads, but they both are good.

I used a mix of B-wax or Ozokerite wax, I used both, and cut it 50/50 with Vaseline and thinned it a little more with Jojoba oil and filled a coffee pot with wads and covered it with the lube mix and let it sit on the hot plate on low heat for about a hour and kept pushing them down then I poured them into a screen to let them drain and squeezed them out in a potato ricer. It didn't hurt the wads to squeeze them out using the ricer then laid them out of paper shop towels stirring them around till they cooled.
It made a very good wad.
Stay away from the synthetic felt when you look for it.

I still have several boxes of Alcan wads left over since before the power wads came around

Kurt

[Dan Cash]

Bruce,
I have never tried the duro felt though I keep meaning to get a Round Toit and check them out. I have had reasonable results with felt weather stripping although the quality wseems to be going down hill fast. What was once firm and dense is now all fluffy and formless. Such mushy felt can be sized with clothes starch like Stay-Flo, dried and punched into wads and works ok that way. I have never greased any felt wads as the lube in my grease groove bullets seems to do the job and I did not want to take up more powder space with grease blocking wads.

[powderburner]

I have gotten a lot of felt from durofelt and it is real good stuff, good folks to deal with ,

[Trapper]

Hi everyone,
I started loading two 1/8" felt wads in my 45-2 7/8. It is a hunting load and I can shoot 20 rounds or better with out any fouling control. I was reading on another site that if you use to thick of felt wads you take a chance of ringing your barrel. They implied that it is like having an air space between the powder and bullet. Is there any truth to this? I sure don't want to ring my barrel. Oh ya they are lubed with spg lube.
Thanks,
Trapper

[Don McDowell]

There's a lot of stuff out there on the internet, that's just not quite right, but they can't put anything on the internet that's not true, right

Anyway using a felt wad will not ring your chamber, felt wads have been used since they invented felt and gunpowder..