Personally I don't use any wadding at all. I use a piece of nomex fabric attached to the shock cord to wrap the chute completely. On ejection, the chute is pulled out by the nose cone and it pulls the chute out of the fabric wrap as it deploys.

Warren Musselman

I do the same, though i occasionally throw a handful of cellulose insulation in before the kevlar pad.

For high power I use the Kevlar pad like Warren (Tim Thomas always has them for sale at each launch), but for model rockets, I use the gray dog barf. Never use the pink, fiberglass insulation. While it does work, it's bad for the environment--and I don't think allowed at either of NCR's sites? It can kill or make any animal deathly ill that makes the mistake of eating it. Plus it's not biodegradable and considered trash, and for the Pawnee National Grasslands das ist verboten.

pistons work well too...

Doug

All my serious scratch built birds up to 4" have pistons. Of course my PML kits have pistons as well, but not the other ones.

Warren

I use pistons when I can as well, though usually not in the smaller diameter stuff. They work great 🙂