RE: Thompson "New Englander"
I use my own card wads I cut from shoe boxes or milk cartons (had a kid in machine shop at the local vocational school make me a punch to cut them). I load 85 grains of ffg Goex BP, ram 2 of the cards on top of it, dump in
1⅜ oz of shot (100 gr setting on a powder measure) and top it off with another card.
I've tried a variety of wads (cushion wads, felt wads, tow coated with lube & packed in on top of a card) and patterns are just as good with 2 plain old cards on top of the powder.
The old rule of thumb of equal volumes of powder & shot don't produce good patterns with my NewEnglander. I've found the best patterns are had with about a 15% reduction in the powder volume.
I have a T/C full choke, a T/C IC choke and a Mossberg X-full choke tube I tried. The T/C full tube produces as good of patterns as the X-full and is a lot easier to load through!
For turkey I like the 1⅜ of #7½ shot with a self-imposed 30 yard maximum range limit.
I have the gun set up with a TruGlo f/o front sight and a T/C tang sight (with aperture removed to make a "ghost ring" sight).