A question for longbow

[PPpastordon]

"I've had good results paper patching for .44 mag and .308."

longbow;
You covered the .308 well. How 'bout some info on the .44 mag paper patched boolits?

[longbow]

Sorry about that.

I'll try to tell a short story to illustrate the journey that got me here.

About 20 years ago I got my .44 mag Marlin (1:38 twist microgroove barrel) and a Lyman 429421 mould. Regardless of what powder and how much I used I got mediocre accuracy and gas cutting on recovered boolits. Being a somewhat poor lad and also living in an area where I couldn't buy boolit moulds or much else for reloading I decided to make my own simple mould.

The simplest approach I could think of was to bore a piece of round bar to the diameter I wanted (which was about 0.003" bigger than the 429421 which drops out at 0.429" so 0.433" to drop a 0.432" bullet).

I made a nose punch in a round nose flat point with small meplat - thinking more of aerodynamics than hunting potential.

Now this is a simple mould bored on a lathe and has a sliding nose punch so is adjustable weight. The nose punch pushes the bullet out. Of course there are no grease grooves so I used the black powder grease cookie idea for lube.

Tried it out and it worked just fine. The bullets were accurate and no gas cutting.

The only real problem was that the grease cookies are a bit of a pain and I don't think they would be good for long storage - likely get lube contaminating powder.

So, on to the paper patching.

I figured if I used 0.002" to 0.003" tracing paper on a boolit of 0.420" to 0.422" I would get the right diameter. So I bored out another chunk of round bar to 0.421" (I use 1 1/2" diameter and it allows enough room for sprue plate attachment), cast some boolits and patched them up with 0.003" tracing paper.

Final diameter came out at about 0.432" unsized so I didn't even bother sizing them. At the time I was working on heavy bullets so I cast 300 gr. and worked up a load of 21 gr. of H110 which gave me "significant" recoil and flattened primers so I called it quits there though I have seen heavier loads listed.

The bullets shot very well out to about 75 yards then started to keyhole. Lighter bullets up to about 265 gr. shoot well out past 100 yards with no sign of instability. I am sure this is due to the slow rifling twist. I have shot 240 gr., 265 gr. and 300 gr. paper patched and only the 300 gr. give me trouble.

Coincidentally just after I finished working up these loads and article came out in "Guns" magazine in November 1988 - "Paper Patches for Modern Magnums" by Raymond Page. He wrote about paper patching for .44 mag and .45 colt for use in revolvers, TC Contenders and lever action carbines. These were paper patched bullets supplied by Del Phillips.

The loads he listed for .44 mag are:

300 gr. bullet @ 21 gr. H110 (same as mine!)
300 gr. bullet @21.5 gr. WW296
300 gr. bullet a@ 23.5 gr. WW680

For the record, my barrel is 1:38 twist microgroove and slugs at 0.4315" groove.

And before I forget - I have paper patched for the .44 mag using soft (not pure) lead and air cooled wheel weights and both worked successfully.

The paper patches I have recovered show no tearing or burning. They are generally in large pieces with well defined rifling.

I have not had much luck yet with the .303 but I think part of it may be due to rather deep rifling. My .308 has fairly shallow rifling and very smooth finish and seems to work well and of course the .44 mag Marlin has very shallow rifling and it works well.

I have not shot paper patched boolits in any handguns though the "Guns" article claims they work well even in revolvers which is good news for six gun tot'n Americans (we can't hunt with handguns or even pack them in the bush in Canada unfortunately).

Paper patching the .44 mag isn't really too much trouble as the boolits are big enough to grip with my fat fingers. 30 cal. are a little more trouble.

There are several black powder shooters on this site that paper patch and have postes on this site too and I suspect most of them have more detailed knowledge than I do. One difference here I think is that generally for black powder the bullets are very soft and often sized a little smaller than groove diameter (after patching). For smokeless powder I think you need a tighter fit of at least groove diameter or a little larger.

The Lyman Cast Bullet Handook also has info on paper patching and there are several sites on the internet. In fact even though I was fairly proud of myself for coming up with the idea of the mould and all, guess what - Lyman (Ideal) used to make a push out adjustable weight moulds for paper patching way back even before I was born (and that is a long time ago).

Okay, okay like usual I didn't tell a short story but I hope he info helps.

If you have any specific questions send me an e-mail and I'll try to help out.

Longbow