Salopian,

Thank you for your kind words. I look forward to more input on these old/new wads.

FWIW, I believe that Circle Fly stocks felt wads. They are not cheap but I understand that they are quite good. CF also stocks a proprietary wad lubrucant.

Your method of wad lubrication is a common one but it raises one concern. There have been instances where fiber wads that have been dipped into hot lube shrank to some extent.

Wads so lubricated also soak up a heck of a lot of lube. As I understand what Greener wrote, I believe that the old-timers lubed their wads by rolling them in shallow layers of melted lube that was contained in a "frying pan-type arrangement". Failing that, I have found that a quick dip in melted lube that is immediately followed by placing the lubed wads on sheets of newspaper works as well as anything else, as long as the melted lube is just above its melting point, and no more.

Your technique reminds me of the early days of the Ljutic trap shotgun. Al Ljutic was a genius and an unreconstructed character, in no particular order. In the early days of his company he offered proprietary lubed fiber wads. The wads were cut from fiber board that had already been lubricated. AL then offered the "holey" fiberboard remnants as charcoal lighters!

One thing that I am especially interested in is "nonstandard" wad materials. For example, an old Gun Digest article mentioned wadded-up newspaper as filler wads for both m/l and b/l shotguns. The stuff seemed to work pretty well. Greener mentioned that one of the cartridge companies of his day used oiled sawdust for the same purpose. During my Wisconsin boyhood I was made aware of an old gent who used cornmeal as filler wad material. He even had a little machine rigged up to drop measured amounts of the stuff into his shotgun shells. (This indicates the possible dangers of leaving a German or a Skandahoovian alone with tools during long winter days and nights!)From what I can tell, the guy's loads worked out, OK. I understand that he claimed that the birds he missed he at least fed. I also understand that, when these shells were fired into a strong headwind, the shooter and bystanders could come away looking like they were in the last stages of terminal dandruff!