[Gatofeo]

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.