Expierment gone good!

[Freightman]

Got a new 500g Lee .459 mold this morning and cast a few, had some time (not much) and didn't want to size them befor I loaded them. So I put the powder in the cases and not having time to LLA them eather I wrapped them with some teflon plumbers tape (20) and pushed them together with surprising results. had to resight my Buffalo Classic so at 50 yds got the sights set and shot a 1" group now I said that is good now to look at how much lead I left. Ran a patch down the bore and no lead at all and without the mess.
Is there any bad thing about this, I always shoot outside and the wind is to my back most of the time so there will be no exposure to the fumes if there is any.
O the mold drops a .4605 boolit.

[dragonrider]

I have heard of the plumbers tape trick before but have not tried it myself. By using it there should not be any leading because there should be no lead contact with the bore, of course this may depend on how many wraps of tape you used. But it seemed to work for you, I wouldn't argue with success.

[Blammer]

is that tape aka teflon tape?

[carpetman]

Yes they are talking about teflon tape. What is called plumbers tape is metal with a series of holes in it so they can use it as a strap on pipes.

[Jim]

No, carpetman, that's perforated hanging strap.

[bruce drake]

Carpetman,

We don't need to know about "strap on pipes"

Sounds like something that isn't wanted on our Family Friendly Forum (The mythical FFF rating that everyone wishes to achieve)

Teflon tape does work to an extent. I've just found that seating the bullets without tearing the tape was sometimes a trying experience.

Bruce

[leftiye]

Bruce, Take a little of your own counsel, IMHO. Try running the taped boolits through a sizing die.

[mooman76]

If the tape is teflon. What makes it stick to the boolit?:kidding:

[Freightman]

The tape sticks or conforms to the grooves and its self when streched.

[BAGTIC]

No, carpetman, that's perforated hanging strap.

I am 64 years old. My uncle was a plumber. It was always 'plumbers tape'.

"perforated hanging strap" sounds like some politically correct 'newspeak', shades of '1984'.

The teflon stuff was called 'pipe tape'.

[DLCTEX]

+1 for plumber's tape being metal strap. Dale

[Freightman]

My mis-nomer pipe tape works for me, the teflon tape that is very thin and 1/2" wide and will stick to it's self and when streched will mold to surface like a skin "pipe tape".

[hs45/70]

Glad the teflon tape worked for you..I first heard of this proceedure about 1990... A friend and fellow caster gave me a photocopy of an article from (IIRC )Handloader magazine from the mid 1980 's. Those folks had tested cast boolits in 45/70..and .300 win. mag. and a few others useing teflontape.

In the .300 mag. , they went up to 3000fps with no leading ..accuracy was not mentioned at this speed merely that it proved successful.

Since about 1990 I have been teflon tapeing all my cast bullets in 45/70 to 2300 fps
..same for .444 and my .30 calibers to 2550 fps with excellent accuracy. The 45/70 has well over 2000 taped/cast through it and has never leaded and the bore is as shiney as new. Between the 308's and the 30/06's about 1000 at over 2200 fps and many more at under that speed and no leading ever.

Two wraps of tape is what works best for me regardless of caliber...if your mold is somewhat undersize more wraps will usually make it shoot better.. sort of like paperpatching to increase diameter.

You can do 3 to 4 boolits a minute once you are used to doing it and as it s proved more accurate in my rifles than any other lubes i've tried, it' s well worth my time..

max..

[BluesBear]

How close do you trim the ends so that the wrappings are equal?
Seems to me if one side had more tape than the other accuracy would really suffer.

[Ernest]

The paradox shooters in Australia use it a great deal on soft paradox bullets to stop leading.

[hs45/70]

Blues bear

The bigger the boolit ie: 500 gr vs. 155 gr .30 cal the easier the process is as its a matter of a little bit of dexterity....if you have long thin fingers its easier than the rest of us who have chunky ones..

Go to an office supply store and get one of those scotch-tape dispensers that have about 1 pound of ballast in them ..$10....these will accomodate your roll of teflon tape...here it's 50 cents/roll of 40 feet..small pair of "sharp" scissors with short blades..2-3 inches. Tape dispenser is put on any flat surface you choose ..I use my kitchen table and with a comfortable chair.

Pull/roll off 3-4 inches of teflon tape from the dispenser...place start of tape on base end of bullet and roll tape around boolit and keep spiral rolling it untill you get as far forward as you want to cover any part in contact with bore.... you have one wrap now..keep rolling back towards the base now until you have 2 wraps and I usually allow some to over lap the base/gas check as it later helps in boolit seating into the belled case mouth...its not important how much the overlap is as each will vary as you roll them.
Once you have 2 wraps, cut the tape and repeat until you have as many as you want. I just roll the tape on, I don't stretch it and then try to roll it on.

I just butt the boolit base in to the palm of my hand and twist a bit and the tape overlap is now flat...briefly roll the boolit between the palms of your hands and that will firm the tape up on your boolit. ....

This procedure is slow at first and after you've done a dozen or so you can do 3 per minute assembly line style.

[Last Spike]

Clyde "Snooky" Williamson was doing this teflon tape thing back in the 1980s according to his book "The Winchester Lever Legacy" which was published in 1987.

[Paladin 56]

I did it back in the early 80's as well. Never had a problem, but saw no real benefit, and it was time consuming, but I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just did it to see if it worked.

If stretched tight enough on unsized bullets there won't be a problem seating the bullet.

I also applied the tape first, then sized the bullet on some. The tape just flattens out and becomes nearly transparent, but seemed to work just as well.

As I said, I didn't shoot for accuracy or velocity, just to see if it worked. It did.

David

[BluesBear]

HS4570, thanks for the info.

About a dozen years ago I used Post-It brand tape for paper patching .45/70 boolits and it worked very well. It was much easier to apply and you can buy it in several different widths.

It seems to me that Teflon tape may be the 20th century equivilent of the paper patch. I just wish I had thought of it first.


Has anyone every experimented to see if keeping the wraps equal, that is if the tail of the tape isn't overlaping the nose, makes any difference in accuracy?
I know that it does with paper patching.
But the teflon tape is thinner.

It seems to me that if tension was kept as constant as possible when stretching the wrappings that the tape thickness would remain stable. If there were, let's say, two complete wraps of tape then accuracy should not be adversely affected and may even be enhanced.


Dang it! Now y'all have me wanting to get another .45-70.

[Freightman]

Every once in a while Harbor Freight has it on sale for 10 rolls for .99 that is how I had this lying around and had read you could do the wrap thing.

[hs45/70]

Blues Bear
Never tried post-its but did experiment with puter lables/sticky price tag lables on my cast .30 cals. .....one complete wrap with ends butting together for a straight seam and then one wrap of tape for lube.
Had some success but it was too labor intensive and had to use razor blade to trim any part hanging over the base area for a flush trim and no tail and just went back to 2 wraps of tape.

In the tapeing process I never found a need to stretch it to put it on...it never mattered if the boolit received 1.75.or.1.90.or .2.25 wraps.. the accuracy remained the same (once you'd already found your accuracy with that particular boolit/load )

I usually never size them before taping and use the time to wrap instead...

Have a 45/70 Lee 500 gr GC load that will consistantly shoot 1.75 inch/3shots/190 yds/1300 fps with my #3 Ruger and my B-78 as well...Tested sized vs. unsized with this load and 2 wraps tape and never saw an appreciable difference so quit sizeing them. Found the same to be true at 2000 fps with 350 gr PB with reversed GC under base of boolit.

Have recovered boolits from berm to note a thin "string " ..1/2 inch or so of tape still attached on all and some tape still in the lube grooves and is no detriment to accuracy regardless of velocity.

From all appearances, teflon tape does not require any exactness when "patching" to achieve accuracy/non leading..just cover the boolit from the base end to the front driveing band and if some slightly overlaps this band this is good, as no lead/ww touches the bore at the front.

Whether you shoot straight wall or bottle neck cases , case necks need to be belled/expanded to seat the taped boolits with out bunching up or tearing the tape....I use an inexpensive Lee universal case expander die good from .224 to .458 and then useing Lee crimp die remove the flare or crimp if i choose

So if you have an accurate load useing your favorite lube try it with tape instead, especially if its in the high velocities.

max..

[Last Spike]

Another thing that Snooky did was use the flame of a bic lighter to shrink the teflon tape to the bullet. Seems to have worked out ok.

[Baron von Trollwhack]

What carpetman said(so that the world remains orderly). BvT

[Scrounger]

What carpetman said(so that the world remains orderly). BvT

I thought CarpetMan changed his handle to "Hogan's Goat".

[dnepr]

I Do a bit of paper patching and the teflon tape idea interests me . I think this might work well for the .310 lees I have for my .444 . I was wondering How much does 2 wraps of teflon increase bullet diameter?

[BluesBear]

HS4570, IF you like paper parched boolits try the Post-It tape some time.
You can usually find a partial roll laying around at Kinko's. It comes on a throwaway dispenser like Scotch Tape.
It tears very easy and is just sticky enough to make it easy to wrap the boolit.
It's white and comes in quarter inch, half inch and one inch widths.

[lovedogs]

We better watch out... now they'll be trying to ban Teflon tape!

[hs45/70]

I shoot the 310 gr Lee GC in my 1972 Microgroove Marlin .444 scoped 3x9 ..My Lee mold drops them at about .432 avg. and two wraps of tape is .434 avg. useing WC WWts.

At 50.0 gr. H335....1992..1994..1997 fps.. 3 shots /100yds/ 1.50 inch
51.0 gr. H335..2054..2010..2026 fps..3 shots/100yds/1.60 inch

In each target the first two shots are well under an inch and the 3rd shot opening up the group is usually my fault. Have gone 52 to 55 gr H335 but accuracy was over 2 inches.

My best reduced load useing this taped boolit is 21.0 gr Bluedot..1598..1597..1588 fps. 3 shots/100 yds/ 1.25 inch

Blues bear.....what caliber/bullet/powder did you have your success with the post-its patching ?

[felix]

Yes, just stay upwind when shooting it. There used to be some gun cleaning lubes containing fluorocarbons, but I see they are no longer on the market. These compounds can theoretically create glass-etching fumes when flamed or heated beyond a certain limit. I wouldn't worry about it when using the necessary precautions. ... felix

[dnepr]

Thanks HS45/70 that looks promising.

[BluesBear]

Blues bear.....what caliber/bullet/powder did you have your success with the post-its patching ?

We were shooting them in my old H&R '73 Trapdoor Officers and my friend's vintage Remington Rolling Block.

We started out using Pyrodex. We didn't know that there were special boolits meant to be used with patching while the rest weren't. We just started trying it to improve accuracy with Pyrodex.
We used three different boolits that I can recall. I think they were Lyman #457125, 457126 & 457193. I think the alloy we were using back then was 25 to 1. I know it was just a little softer than 20 to 1.

Later on we tried them with IMR 3031, 4198 & 4227 smokless powders. We used lighter loads for my H&R and heavier ones for his Remington.
Patching didn't always improve the accuracy but it did seem to make all of them more consistent. And cleaning was certainly much easier. The biggest accuracy difference was in the Rolling Block. If we wrapped them too much they wouldn't chamber in my H&R.

This was late 1980s/early 1990s. I can't find my notes from back that far. Sorry I can't remember more.

[hs45/70]

Thanx Blues Bear.....will look for some post its and see if its easier to assemble than my loads useing " labels and tape" ..... always looking to do more xperimentin !

[BluesBear]

Just remember it's Post-It Tape and not Post-It Notes.
To me at least Post-It Tape is just a little stickier than the notes.
Plus the entire back of the tape is adhesive so there's no waste.

[**oneshot**]

Well, I had to try this. All I can say is WOW! Greatly improved accuracy in my 41mag. Now the bullets I used already had beeswax/oil lube on them from pan lubing which I melted off by re-heating the bullets in my double boiler. They still had a slick feel to them and actually seemed to help stick the teflon tape to the boolit while rolling it.
I shot two cylinders worth of very carefully measured lengths of teflon on each bullet and they shot similar groups to my J-bullets. I then shot 2 cylinder worth of purposely mis-matched lengths on each bullet. These shot just as good.
It is a little labor intensive but the results are worth it. I'm sure I can work up some kind of jig to make the process quicker.

[Freightman]

Well, I had to try this. All I can say is WOW! Greatly improved accuracy in my 41mag. Now the bullets I used already had beeswax/oil lube on them from pan lubing which I melted off by re-heating the bullets in my double boiler. They still had a slick feel to them and actually seemed to help stick the teflon tape to the boolit while rolling it.
I shot two cylinders worth of very carefully measured lengths of teflon on each bullet and they shot similar groups to my J-bullets. I then shot 2 cylinder worth of purposely mis-matched lengths on each bullet. These shot just as good.
It is a little labor intensive but the results are worth it. I'm sure I can work up some kind of jig to make the process quicker.

Isn,t this fun? I cann't imagin going back to jacketed bullets it is so boring.

[hs45/70]

I'm glad you had success with your .41 revolver...your tests support my findings that the exact length of tape is not critical to accuracy/non leading so no time needs to be wasted in measuring it.

If you try useing the roll of tape on the heavy weight scotchtape dispenser I think this will ease and speed up your wrapping process....that way you are rolling the boolit onto the tape and then cutting the tape instead of trying to roll cut tape onto the boolit which doesn't work well as the tape wants to twist and fold in half.

When I first tried tapeing I never had any unlubed boolits and taped lubed ones...this proved to be inaccurate...so I put a bunch into an empty coffee can with water and boiled them until the lube floated to the top. I then shot them taped and
never used any other form of lube since. Boolits that come out "frosty" were a bit easier to tape and unsized vs. sized were also easier to tape as the unsized had rougher surfaces and had no differences in accuracy.

If you think .41 's are tricky.. I got a new mold and just wrapped 100 Little Lee .30 soup cans to see if this boolit will work in my .30 cals..

regards, Max..

[BluesBear]

I bought some teflon tape yesterday. I just need to find my tape dispenser. It's still lost in the unpackedfromthemove stuff.

I'm thinking of having the tape unroll from the bottom so it comes out sticky side up.
Just lay the boolit on the tape and roll.

I can't wait to try this on the group buy .44 double end wadcutter.

[leftiye]

Guys please keep reporting your results. I haven't tried this yet, but I'm really excited. The idea started in the eighties (no internet), but fizzled for some reason. I've been aware of teflon tape for that long, but this is the first real information I've seen on it. I'm working on a bunch of milder loads with gas checked softer lead (with tin) boolits with hollow points, and teflon tape may be the final solution (bad choice of words?) to getting reasonably fast loads with good accuracy. The concept is that an expanding boolit with a good ballistic coefficient may do as much or more damage even at goodly ranges than the hard rock wadcutters do at light speed. HRWALS poke holes in game and go on to kill innocent scenery with most of their energy, besides which they range abominably. How does a hollow point 300 grainer @ 1300 fps in a .454 sound? (think of the 330 grain Barlow/ Gould hollow point Lyman 457133) I'm actually in a position to try some of these with tape real soon. I'll post my results and maybe find a way to test expansion (at say 100 yds?).