6.5x55 mm

so , back from the range.

the Husqvarna shoots everything I feed him , with good results.
I don t get it , its not common practice to have a core in 6.6 mm , but the huskey doesn t mind .

I am going to stay with this particular coresize for a while because it seems to have some benefits.
for one is the size itself , as previous testing suggests that the projectile is capable to have the patch AND the core cut by the rifling
this size of 6.6 mm is a nice in between size from slightly engraving to full dia core.

this also means that the casts out of the mold don't have to be sized that much so its less straining on the projectiles.
with the core cut by the rifling I think my patch would need extra attention , cause were the ends meet there is always a little gap
in this gap there is only one layer of paper and my thinking is that the rifling could cut through here...

for now I leave it as is and further test this coresize ... later on I think I am gonna make me a template
out of stainless steel with a supporting device ... but I have to sleep on this for a while.

the method I am using now is producing a lot of patches in short time , but there are some minor differences in length.
with the template I could only cut one at a time , but they would be very consitant in size.

don't know what it is but I have a good feeling for this new coresize .
lets roll up a new set and head out to the range !

there is something else I wanted to share in this thread.

this paperpatching of my casted bullets turned out to be a great hobby for me , one I don't think I could miss out on.
there was a time were I was busy with other things , had a lot on my mind and kind of turning my back on the rifles , to the point
were I shot handguns only.

I really missed the patching thing , the thinking of how to , the testing of a new idea , the satisfaction of seeing the product on paper
the tools to be made and so on.
I think that is why one would call this an paperpatch addiction , and even though I am just barely scratching the potential of the technique with my fumbeling in the lower velocities I am having a great time doing so.

its a " set my mind at peace " practice for me , and I would encourage every one to try it , especially when you look at all the help
I got from the various very experienced people on this forum .
there is an enormous amount of knowledge here and people are not scared of sharing it , so there is no reason not to try it .

I really like the 6,5x55 mm cartridge , its a very forgiving caliber that always performs in my opinion.
in the near future I will try another caliber , the .270 win.
its gonna take a while before the rifle , a ruger nr 1 varmint , gets here because its a lot of paperwork importing it from Belgium.

oh yes ... I am hooked !

so back again...
after giving it some thoughts I made a batch of 24 catridges for some testing this evening..
i took the trusted coresize of 6.50 mm and rolled the patch so that it also covered the nose part of the boolit...
[usualy i patch at the first drivingband, wich leaves the nose bare ].
i set the overall length at 75 mm , so no different then i would normally do , used an federal primer and 19.5 gr AA5744 powder.
[ called LOVEX D 060 here in Holland ] .
the sizing was as i would usually do , so necksize with a rcbs sizer , then a lyman M die .
the patched bullets went through the lyman lubrisizer at .264 " ..

so , the only difference would be setting the patch over the noseriding part of the bullet.
in a few cases i had a hard time closing the bold , and two cartridges would not close at all.
when i took them out i saw the patch was torn at this nosepart.

in my opinion this means that the patched nose section is a too thight fit in the chamber / throat , and the boolits are a thight fitting in the brass casings ... the are so thight that the boolits don't get shoved further back in the casings , at least not every one.

i could open the neck some more so the boolits will move back in the casing by closing the bold , but for now i wont do that.
i kind of like the idea of having a thight fit in the casing , for building up pressure with the AA 5477 powder is one reason.

so this leaves me two options... go back to patching at the first drivingband and leave the nose bare , wich gives me 100 %
reliable loading , or patch with the noseriding portion and the cut the patches to the length that makes loading 100 %.

i understand that setting the boolit with the closing of the bold is the way to go , but i have a scope mounted on the husky
wich leaves me little room to operate the bold so i cant really set a whole lot of force closing the bold.

so .. further testing has to be done to come up with a good compromise , also with the singleshot rifle coming my way..
with the singleshot i have to load the cartridge by hand , with no bold to put pressure on.

also .. a autoloader would not chamber a cartridge like this , with the nose portion patched , because there is not enough power
in the return spring to compress the patch enough.

in short , i m after a patched bullet that has to make a little jump to the rifling / throat , so more of a jay word boolit idea

so , a nice time for yet another experiment with the 6,5x55 mm cartridge.

this time i took 24 bullets straight from the mold , alloy is still the same so they are really soft , like 8 BHN or so.
one might recall that the lyman 140 gr bulletmold i use gives me a slight undersize bullet , something like .0262 -.0263.
i ran these bullets through my lyman 4500 sizer with no pressure on the grease , just to make sure they were uniform.
the sizing die i have for this caliber is still .0264 by the way.
then i wrapped the bullets twice with the chainbar printerpaper , with a paperdisc at the bottom of course , and let them dry overnight.
an easy way of wetting the paper is to have a little water in a cup with a soaking wet sponge in it.
when one now puts his paper on the sponge and gently tap the paper with your fingertips you see some darkspots through the paper and this
is the correct amount of wetness for a very thight patch , that one could easily roll thight on a mouse pad or so.
anyways... when the bullets dried overnight i again ran them through the sizer , this time with the grease under pressure.
the bulletgrease is still a 50/50 mix of beeswax and vaseline.

now the funny part...
these bullets ran through the sizer with very little effort !
the paperjacked is ironed out to be VERY smooth and VERY strong !
by the looks of it its capable of high speeds , one would need a knife to take of this jacked .
for the easy of loading i started the patch at the first drivingband of the 140 gr loverin style bullet , so again , the nose is left bare ,
this would mean that the patch would be making a little jump to the rifling .

im looking forward to try these bullets next sunday !
i will report back how they performed .

Looking forward to your results. :Fire:

so , back from the range.

shooting with the unsized core felt no different then shooting with a sized core , but i noticed that the papershreds were a little further
away from the muzzle , so my thinking would be that the paperpatch is a little harder to shred at the muzzle , but i dont know if thats gonna be
a problem with the accurasy.
i also noticed that the bullets shot a little higher on paper then with the sized core.
grouping wasn t bad at all , but i have to shoot some more of these unsized cores for a better comparising.

the benefit of an unsized core would be that when no sizing has to be done it is one step less , and an very important step to .
so , all in all not a bad experimental load , i will keep this up for a while for a better vieuw on things .

Edwin, how do these unsized core boolit seat in the case neck? Any different to the sized cores?

hi 303

there is no difference in seating this unsized core and the sized ones , because the diametre of both are the same .
when the bullets are patched and dried they go through the .0264 " sizer , so the only difference would be how tight the patch gets ironed out
in the proces .

when i use the unsized cores the patch is really thight and smooth.
i really think this is a projectile capable of very high speeds by looking at the patch , but i am no expert .
i just rolled up another badge for further testing , and with this badge i am gonna give it a little more power , from 19,5 gr to 20 gr of powder.
lets see if this would be an improvement.

going from 19,5 to 20 gr of powder was a good move .
groupings i shot this evening were very promissing , actualy very good !
this combination deserves some further testing for sure .

so , on with the finetuning of this load .

last sunday i shot the very best groups i have ever shot with this rifle !
it is performing exellent in my rifle and is a very economical load .
maby overkill but i will sum up the steps of this great all rounder :

i only necksize the fired brass with a rcbs neck sizer , the expanderball is removed .
[the spent primer has been removed with a lyman universal decapper ].
then i open up the casemouth with a lyman M die .

the bulletmould is the lyman 140 gr "loverin " style and casted in a soft alloy .
i take pure lead , weigh this and divide this weight by 40 .
i multiply this weight by 3 , and this is the weight of 60/40 solder i mix in with the lead .
i run the casted bullet through my lyman lubrisizer with no pressure on the lube , used sizer is .264.

now for the patching part,
i first wet a paper disc from a office style perforator and stick this to the bulletsbase.
i wrap the bullet twice with chainbar printerpaper , the paper is moist as i wet them on a wet sponge.
i start the patch at the first drivingband , so the bulletnose is left bare .

when these bullets have dried overnight i run then trough the .264 sizer again , this time with pressure on the lube.
the lube itself is a mix of beeswax/ vaseline in a 50 / 50 mix.

primer used is a federal large primer .
powder used is LOVEX D060 [ same as AA5477 ] and its a load of 20 grains
the OAL of the cartridge is set at 75 mm.

No unburned powder in the barrel , so pressure is enough for a clean burn.
No signs of over-or underpressure , accuracy is good and the power is plenty !
the paper gets shred into tiny pieces at the muzzle ... exellent !

i am very exited about this load !

Glad you got it working well. It's nice when your efforts come together to produce a good result.

Oh yes, i Am a happy camper!
Thanx nobade.

I've been wondering about lube in the grooves. That would of course water proof the patches, another benefit. The pressured lube probably uniformly presses the paper into the grooves too. Do you have any idea whether the lube and rings of patch in the grooves flings off down range? I would imagine the lube would fling off.

hi .303 ,

its kind of an odd thing here , when i size the core at full bore diametre , .0264 that is , and the bullets are fully dried i again run them through the same sizer , this time with some pressure on the lube .
the paper is ironed on the bullet real , real thight and by the looks of it the paper fills out these lubegrooves , wich leaves a smooth sided bullet

my thinking would be that the paper is really squeezed in these lubegrooves wich in turn makes for a very strong grip , and about that
waterproofing , this jacked is so firm compressed and slick by using the 50 50 mix beeswax - vaseline that it looks it would withstand some
moist enviroments .

off topic ,

i have been reading youre avatar and feel sorry for youre loss..
some things in this life just are not fair ...

Thank you.

hello ,

time for a little update.

i have noticed some difficulties lately in the final sizing of the patched boolits .
i had some nose-expansions due to having to put down to much force to get the patched boolit through the .264 sizer.
there were just a couple of them going the wrong way, but i didn t know why.... until

when i moved to my current house almost 2 years ago i set my reloading gear up in the addict , and this addict is not heated or isolated.
as it is getting colder now here in holland , the lyman lubrisizer feels cold to the touch , so my thinking would be that the 50-50 mix of beeswax
vaseline would become stiff enough to not flow as easy anymore , and actualy work against the boolit passing through.
in fact , when i wanted to size some patched boolits today all of the nose-portions of the boolits expanded to a point that they were not suitable
to be reloaded.

after some thinking how to proceed i searched for my electric paint-stripper blower and pre-heated the lyman lubrisizer.
the boolits come out perfectly now , mabey even better than ever before .
nice, slender and perfect nose portions .. superb super thight patch and a little sticky to the touch ... exellent !

for me yet another problem solved , nothing beats the paperpatch !

Edwin,
You are absolutely correct. There is great satisfaction in solving problems and puzzles. I think that this is why things like: paper patching and shooting cast bullets appeal to so many of us. When everything finally comes together. it produces great joy and satisfaction. When it doesn't work we have another problem to solve and more shooting and experimenting to do. In short: "It is a lot of fun if you like puzzles." Brodie

Patch cutter idea

hello ,

after some thinking about how to improve my patched boolits i thought i could do some finetuning of my patches .
the way i was doing things was with a office style papercutter , were i cut some strips 35 mm wide , and then with the help of a guide
cut my patches to lenght , about 20 at once.

these patches did fine , but there were little variations in lenght due to the nature of cutting this way , and the way measuring was done was also kind of crude , but yes , it was a fast way !

so , this is what i came up with...

i took a solid piece of aluminum and milled this in this shape , so it has a guide for the patch to align to.
i took a piece of solid metal and milled a slot in this , to retain a head of a m6 bold so it can t rotate , but it can move left to right for
lenght adjustment , and bolted this on each other with countersink m6 screws .

the reason for this metalpart is to add strenght to the aluminium , as it has a cut in it , and to add weight
for a more secure handling .



in the fotoos you see the metal part is painted black.

the aluminium part has a 30 degree cut in it to guide a sharp knifeblade , and the aluminium piece that slides over the cutter has the same angle , and has the guide milled into this piece so its easy to keep it straight.
by adjusting this sliding piece and lock it in place with the knop on top the lenght of the patch is determind .

ofcourse this is not the fasted way to cut patches , but i think its more precise this way , and the best part would be that one could experiment
with different lenghts of the patches , and the chosen lenght would be very repeatable time after time.

ah well , we will see how this will work out !

a little remark...

in the far right picture you see the guiding block is not properly aligned with the base .
this is done for clarification , the lock up is very thight and not clear to see on a foto , if locked together it would appear as solid on a fotoo ,
so i left a little gap...