Sorry I didn't get back sooner - PC broke. Nice picture - no, you're doing it right. And yes, you want the wads down tight on the powder - no air gap. I get all my wads from Circlefly. I wouldn't cut or put any kind of hole in the wads to let pressure leak through, you'd be defeating the purpose of tight wads. You'll just have to reseat the wads. Years back my friend was sighting in a 72 cal ML rifle. He had just seated the ball and had to leave for a minute or two. He left the ram rod down the barrel so when he came back he knew where he was in reloading. When he returned the ram rod was about 8" back up the barrel. He reseated and shot the gun. Reloaded again , sat down and shortly thereafter watched the ram rod slowly come back up the barrel. This was back in the 70's and some fellows had blew up ML rifles that were written up in national magagines. Guess that explained why. My friend was reloading with the hammer on the nipple - the compressed air had no where to go. Maybe this explained why some guns blew up. Not saying this would happen with your shotgun shells , but you shouldn't leave any air gap between the powder and wads. Paul
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