There are many ways to do this. The one I liked best as a player is a dot slash dot (pasting graphics on my iPad is not fun) . That symbol tells you to repeat the last written measure. Ex. It’s an 8 bar phrase. You write out the first measure as you want it played. Now you can either a) put in seven measures with that symbol or b) treat it the same as a multi-measure rest by writing it once with the number 7 written above. There’s a variation where you have a two-measier phrase that repeats the same and so on...

Sorry I cant just paste a graphic to show you. If someone hasn’t done so, I’ll do it when I get back to my Mac. 

While you can use the Repeat Measure Staff Style as Mike describes,

there is no easy way to simple specify Time for 4 Measures. I have seen someone simulate it in Finale by altering the multi-measure rest implementation, but that is more work than is worth it, especially since it would affect ALL multi-measure rests in the piece (unless you extracted the drum part and handled it as a separate score--as I said, not worth it in my case.)

The 4-bar repeat is available in Jazz, and many other "handwritten" fonts. It can be applied as an expression.

thanks everyone for many good ideas.  not sure which i'll be able to use

Mike, in my JABB expressions menu, is the repeat something you'd create in miscellaneous, or technique, or?

thanks again!

Wherever you want it! No rules!!

I would think it would be a staff style if you could find a way to add it to the options.

EDIT (3/18/18): Tried that but could not find a way. I also thought that if one could blank out the bar lines one could add 8 measures of Time as an expression, but the blank measure style also takes away the final bar line of the eighth measure, which means an additional work-around every time.

Over 40 years, I’d played at least a hundred different shows, many of them multiple times. Although a few were set in a notation app, most were hand copied and reproduced via photostat or Xerox (nothing quite like the overpowering  ammonia/ink smell when one opened a box from Tams or R&H with fresh copies...).

I know other standard ways to notate what you want in a stand-alone percussion book. What I don’t know to get it easily done in Finale after you extract parts from a score that needs to play back with other parts. One of the complications is getting accurate measure numbers. It’s not unusual for the quickest way to do a percussion book is by hand. 

Adrian, I couldn’t find a way, either!