That's an interesting idea.  We all talk about perfect bases, but it seems that when you have a wad under the bullet that the wad wants to be perfect too.   

Chris.

Gents, follow this thinking:
Harry Pope, as I mentioned used wool felt wads through his shooting periods using black powder, semi-smokeless and smokeless powders.  If felt wads were a hindrance to him being one of the greatest marksmen in the history of shooting ... sure as heck he would have stopped using them.

I'm no Harry Pope, I never used felt for smokeless or semi-smokeless but had stated... shot thousands in black powder reloads from 100yds out 1000.  Also digging spent bullets from the berms at all these distances - sharp edged bases.

The only difference is these felt wads have an adhesive side that I'm going to stick on the back of the smokeless bullets before I go to the range shooting 32-40 bullets breech seated.  Haven't started yet because I just received my breech seater from Russ

Is the adhesive going to screw up the accuracy of these reloads with a very thin layer of glue leaving a residue in the bore?  I truly don't think so and here's why!
I use a substantial ring of hot glue to seal the over shot cards on my MagTech BP shot shell reloads.  When I clean the bores with hot tap water & a squirt of Dawn ... the bores come absolutely 100% clean the whole length of the tubes

What little adhesive on the felts, will be consumed with the burned felt

With a breach seated 32-40 bullet at 1350 muzzle veloctiy in a 15 twist spining at over 70,000 rpms I doubt that John's felt wads will stay on the base of the bullet after exciting the muzzle causing any ill affects. 

JLouis

I suppose a somewhat different affair, but I've seen a Vegtable Fiber wad stuck in a 200 yd Target on a .45-70 BPCR from Not Wiping the Lube from the Base of the bullet well enough...

Terry

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Mick, a felt wad will never have a snow ball's chance in hell of ever reaching the bore ... let alone still be on the base of a recovered bullet.  Your forgetting the temperature that felt burns at and the internal ballistic's flame temperature of various smokeless powders when it touches the wad on the base of the bullet ...   
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I've recovered lots of wads from my paper patched rifles ( well, just the bullets are patched, not the actual rifles .

The LDPE ones show paper imprints from the patch folds at the base, but no flame damage that I've ever seen, except when using FFFg and getting some gas cutting.  In that case you can see the cuts in the wad.   

Today I recovered a partially burnt 0.030" wad that was sitting under a lube cookie.  That surprised me as I've never seen one with burn marks before.   

I've never recovered a felt wad, but have only shot a couple of hundred probably.  Most of those were behind breech seated .32-40 bullets.

I was recently given a bag of .45 cal felt wads which I will experiment with soon.

Several years ago Dan Theodore told me of some testing ( bpcr rifles ) with veg, ldpe, and hdpe wads.  He was testing to see how wad types affected bullet finning as the lands engraved the base.  Veg wads had the largest fins, ldpe were smaller, and hdpe eliminated them.  I have recovered patched bullets that were seated under a 0.030" veg and a 0.060" LDPE and found very small fins where each land cut the base.

That's a little ways off of John's original topic, but it is wad related and maybe of interest to someone.

Chris.

My pea brain agrees with 40 Rod.  I doubt the wads will burn (consistently) and then the age of the glue, pressure of applying the sticky things, and even different brands of felt bumpers will show effects. Like John L says, somebody (but not me) should report back so we can get all over this some more. It's interestin'.