thanks , was it necessary to use the over powder wad.
walt.
Probably not "necessary", but they're touted as improving the gas seal and to give you an example, I've chronographed loads where shot to shot standard deviation variances averaged 25 FPS without a wad, and dropped all the way down to only 6 FPS with a wad;
Another thing any wad does is serve as a firewall and protect the patch;
A third thing is that it introduces more lube into the bore;
To offer an additional viewpoint on "stripping the rifling", PRBs don't strip rifling in TC 1:48" barrels, and wads would not have any effect on that if they did...that would only have to do with the snugness of the PRB combo itself.
It seems that this notion that PRBs strip rifling is a misnomer that got started way back in the 50s-60s when some imported military rifled muskets made for use with a mini skirt type bullet with only 3 very shallow lands & grooves @ 1:48" twist began to lose accuracy with PRBs and large powder charges were tried in them, and it was surmised that the PRBs were stripping the rifling. Evidently that became twisted, condensed inaccurately, and has been repeated ad naseaum over the decades that TC's shallow groove 1:48" barrels won't shoot PRBs well with large powder charges because they'll strip the rifling.
In 18 years of using max-near max powder charges in TC .45/.50/.54cals pretty much year round, with and without wads, I've never had anything but excellent accuracy out of TC's 1:48" barrels, both cap and Flint.
Other's mileage may vary of course...
