While at the range today I noticed something. I am loading 25g of APP with a .451 ball and getting good groups at 20 yards. I noticed that when I used the wonder wads with the bench loader or the loading lever I got good compression of ball and powder. When I used just the powder and ball with no wad in between and used the bench loader to push the ball as far as it would go I found that I still had some compression space, about 1/16" - 3/32". I found this out by taking a 9mm casing and a .40 cal. casing and putting them together so I had 2 flat ends. I then placed my improvised "brass rod" in the cylinder and used the bench loading lever to push that extra little bit. Now for my question. Is that small amount of extra compression space a bad thing? Will I have to use wads all the time? I have put 30-40 rounds through my .44 stainless 5.5" Uberti using the ball/powder with no wad and the guns loading lever to push the ball in. Will having that gap have hurt the gun? All the posts I have read say for the ball to rest on top of the powder as close as possible. I just want to be sure that the guns own loading lever is giving me the required ball/powder compression without having to use the bench loader and my "brass rod" every time I don't use a wad.
Thanks in advance
Thanks in advance