I have a question, that I realize is irrelevant, but out of curiosity I decided to ask. I know we all have ways of doing things that become a habit . So the question is, for those of you who use a felt wad or powder card do you put the card in and seat it first and then load the bullet or do you load the wad or card and the bullet at the same time. I know I load the felt wad on top of the powder then I seat the wad and compress the powder before I load the bullet. Just a habit. How do you guys do it. One step or in 2 steps like I do.

seat the wad first so i know its flat and not turned sideways.

It depends on the wad. If it is cardboard then I load it first. If it is felt, I load it as a unit.

I do it in one step - wad and bullet go down together. It would be interesting to shoot two five-shot groups doing it both ways to see if a difference can be detected.

Interesting point Chet. The last time I shot the .58 GM/TC Hawken I was using felt wads. When I got home and compared the targets to some I shot earlier without wads, the ones without wads were better. I wonder if the wads were not going down flat as I seated them with the patched ball?

When I use wads or cornmeal for that matter I seat or compress them a bit and then with the bullet I don't push hard. Why do you call this question irrelevant? I think it is better than most of your questions. Did you ever think of asking the weasel what he thinks?

Weasel won't talk to me or I would have him answer the other thread on farm equipment. He is much better than I am at stirring the pot.

I've never used wads, just powder then maxi ball in my TC Hawkins. Always shot fine. I've thought about trying them though, felt wads that is.

i use felt wads in the .54 renegade shooting prb + 90g t7 3f i seated the felt first just to know that it seated flat on the powder.my groups shrank nicely now that the patches were not burned...karl

chetmarks

I install the shot card in the bore then the bullet on top of the card and push them down as a unit. The way the card is constructed, larger than the bore, the flat bottom of the bullet will hold it square and it will load as a unit.

Never had a problem...

I only use the felt wads and only with a flat based bullet like REAL or Maxihunter and I load them both together. I figure if I start the wad relatively flat to begin with, the base of the bullet will keep it that way all the way down to the powder.
If i were using PRBs then I probably would load the wad first then the PRB.