I recently listed several bags of over powder wads for sale on this site. These came with a bunch of BPCR stuff I purchased in a single lot. Each bag contains at least 1000pcs of wads, which is the standard quantity sold by several suppliers, Walters Wads being the most well known. Considering the amount of work required in making wads using a hand punch and hammer (I’ve done it several years ago), the commercial pre-cut wads are a steal. Therefore, many of you reading this no doubt have purchased one of Fred Cornell’s very well made and excellent loading press punches to make your wads from various material including sheets of vegetable fiber and poly (LDPE). I happen to have one each for 40 and 45 caliber and have used them extensively. So what am I leading up to here? I just thought I pass along a neat trick I came up with when punching wads using a Cornell punch.
Those of you with a Cornell punch have probably struggled with how to contain the wads as they fall out of the top of the punch. I’ve tried various techniques including taping a plastic bag over the punch head (not much room to do this), stretching a wide mouth balloon over the punch head, which, by the way, works pretty well. Of course you have to tear open the full balloon to dump out the wads, but so what, balloons are cheap.
Another trick I stumbled on when I last used my Cornell punch a few months ago was forcing a sort piece of rubber automotive water/coolant hose over the punch head. I just happen to have a few pieces of 1” OD, 5/16” ID hose in my automotive repair stuff and figured I’d give it a try. With no problem at all, it easily stretched enough to slide over the punch head and stayed with place with a tight friction fit. So then I punch away until wads start to appear in the top hole of the hose or when 1 or 2 fall out when I’m not paying close attention. At this point it’s easy to pull the hose off and dump the contents in a plastic sandwich bag. If more wads are needed, reinstall the nose and punch away.
Another related hint, don’t make the hose too long when you're punching out wads for 38 or 40 caliber. Being much smaller than the hose ID, they will jam up inside the hose now and then. A short hose (3” to 4” long) works much better than a longer one and still holds plenty of wads before having to empty it. Plus a shorter hose is convenient to store in the same box as the punch.
Wayne
