I've never much cared for Wonder Wads, as-is. I always soak mine in more lubricant.
I've used Wonder Wads for 20 years or so. I've always found their dry lubricant to be lacking, even in cap and ball revolvers with their comparatively short barrel.
I use a very old lubricant recipe, perhaps dating to the late 19th century, and soak my wads in that:
1 part paraffin (canning paraffin, sold in the cooking aisle)
1 part mutton tallow (sold by Dixie Gun Works)
1/2 part beeswax
All amounts are by weight, not volume.
With a kitchen scale I weigh 200/200/100 grams of ingredients, which will almost fill a quart Mason jar.
Place the jar with ingredients into three or four inches of boiling water. When ingredients are melted, stir together with clean stick or disposable chopstick. Allow to harden at room temperature; hastening cooling by placing in the refrigerator may cause the ingedients to separate.
When cool, tighten the lid on the to keep dust out and natural moistures in and store in a cool, dry place.
I put a couple Tablespoons of the lubricant into a clean tuna or cat food can, then place it on the stove at the absolutely lowest setting. You need only to melt the lubricant. When fully melted add the Wonder Wads and stir them until well-saturated, using the same stick or chopstick.
I don't squeeze out the excess lubricant; just allow the wads to cool and use as-is.
Some shooters will be aghast, no doubt, at the inclusion of paraffin in this recipe because it's a petroleum product.
Petroleum products typically leave a hard, tarry fouling that is hard to remove, when used with black powder.
Not so, paraffin. A chemist type on another site explained that canning paraffin lacks the hydrocarbons that other petroleum products have. Apparently, hydrocarbons are the culprit in the fouling mess.
Anyway, I can say that I've used the above lubricant with lead bullets in cartridges, as a patch lubricant for my .50-caliber muzzleloading rifle, with conical lead bullets in cap and ball revolvers, and as a felt wad lubricant.
Not once have I encountered the hard, tarry fouling typical of other petroleum products.
I believe the paraffin is actually quite beneficial. It stiffens the felt wad considerably, which helps it scrape out fouling. Recovered wads show a mirror-image of the rifling, around their edges.
This recipe creates a lubricant nearly identical to the commercially available black powder cartridge bullet lubricants. In fact, to the untrained eye it can be difficult to tell the difference.
I use these lubricant-augmented wads in my .45-70 Trapdoor carbine and reproduction 1873 Winchester .44-40 with 24-inch barrrel, as well as my .36 and .44 cap and ball revolvers.
All guns shoot very clean when these wads are used with Goex FFFG or FFG black powder.
I've never had to place a vegetable fiber wad below the wad. I've used a vegetable fiber below the bullet at times, but could never see a difference.
On especially hot days, I'll place a waxed-paper wad (cut from a pint of milk or similar carton) between the powder and wad or bullet, to keep the lubricant from contaminating the powder.
I don't know if I really need to use this waxed paper wad but it certainly doesn't hurt.
