The powder-in-tube process has been widely used to fabricate long lengths of Bi 2 Sr 2 CaCu 2 O 8 (Bi-2212) superconducting wires and tapes. However, there is not a good understanding of the processing variables involved in the wire-drawing process. Recent studies indicated that powder characteristics, such as particle size distribution and morphology, had a significant effect on the consolidation behaviour of Bi-2212 green compacts. In this investigation, silver-clad Bi-2212 composite wires containing powders of two different particle sizes were fabricated. The effects of initial packing density and sheath thickness on the characteristics of the wires, including elongation, silver:core ratio and relative core density, were investigated. It is observed that coarse powders with a wide particle size distribution produce wires with higher core density and a moderate benefit is obtained from higher initial powder packing density.