Paper patching for 454 Casull Rifle. Need wisdom please

[RPRNY]

I built this little carbine last year, H&R SB2 receiver, 20" 45 Colt Classic Carbine barrel reamed to 454 Casull (rifle chamber reamer) and stocks that I carved and finished (though I sent it out for checkering). It is great fun and shoots everything from PB 185 gr soft lead over Trail Boss to 300 gr LFN GC very well. With the Hornady 250 FTX it has chrono'd at 2250 fps.



I would like to have a go with some of Buffalo Arms 350 gr pure lead cup base paper patched bullets in 454 brass, but I don't do black powder. I was thinking IMR4227 at around 1350 fps?

In any event, as you may have already noticed, I am clueless on the subject of paper patching. I have slugged the bore and leade at: bore .451", groove .454" and leade at .455". Based on that info, what diameter bullet should I be starting with .451, .452? And what diameter should I patch to?

Any and all wisdom most welcome. I appreciate that you may be followers of the satanic black powder, but I'm not ready to go there yet. Baby steps...

[montana_charlie]

Pick your paper first.
Choose a paper that is known to be good for paper patching.
A 9 pound onion skin with a percentage of cotton fiber (rag) is one decent pick ... and there are others.

Once you have some paper, cut a strip and wrap it tightly twice around a cylinder roughly the same diameter as a bullet.
Bolt, bullet, or drill bit are some possibilities.
Note the diameter of the wrapped cylinder as opposed to it's dimension when naked.

Do it with dry paper, and do it with wet paper.
Note the difference (if any) if wet paper stretches some and gets thinner.

Once you know how much diameter is 'added' by the paper, you are ready to pick a diameter for your naked bullet.
If the paper adds 6 thousandths (about typical for onionskin) then subtract 6 thousandths from your groove diameter to find the naked bullet diameter.

Since you are shooting smokeless powder, you might want your finished (wrapped) size to be a thousandth or two OVER groove diameter. The guys on the Smokless Paper Patching forum can advise you on that aspect.
They will also be happy to recommend some paper types.

CM

[longbow]

Haven't PP'd .454 but have PP'd for .44 mag rifle. It worked out well for me. The gun had not been performing with typical PB lead boolits for a variety of reasons with oversize Marlin bore and tight spots in the barrel being two big issues. At the time we did not have mould makers like Accurate, NOE and Mihec making boolit moulds to suit fat bores so I had a machinist make a "cylindrical" pushout mould for me so I could PP to suit the large bore. Worked fine.

Since my barrel is Marlin microgroove, I did what montana charlie suggests which is to pick the paper then choose boolit size to suit giving a couple thou over groove diameter after patching. Now, not knowing, the paper I picked was a bit thick at 0.003" so added about 0.012" to finished, wrapped boolit and since the groove diameter is 0.4315" I wound up with a boolit of 0.421". However, even though it is about 0.004" under bore diameter I got good results.

Later on I made another mould at bore diameter and PP'd to groove diameter with thin paper but did not get as good results. Go figure!

My powder of choice was H110 at full "J" bullet charges which worked well for me. I normally use a lot of IMR4227 in the Marlin and see no reason it wouldn't work for you at normal "J" bullet charges in the .454.

The short story is that Charlie has given you the right advice for sizing and patching. Generally the naked boolit should be sized to bore diameter or up to 0.0015" over for smokeless powder paper patching so get yourself a mould or sizer to do that and you should be good to go.

Longbow

[RPRNY]

Thanks for the excellent advice. I did not see a smokeless paper patch section which is why I posted in here. I appreciate your indulgence.

Glad to hear your thoughts on loading at J bullet levels. I think I will start out a little light and work up but I'm glad to hear that H110 (my normal J bullet propellant in 454) and 4227 will seemingly work.

I will undoubtedly be back with more questions

[Nobade]

Having had nothing but bad luck with slick boolits and smokeless powder, I would save the slicks for shooting with black. For smokeless, come on down to the smokeless room and get lots of advise. You should be able to get that Handi up and running in no time, and you'll be amazed at what it will do with pee pee ammo!

-Nobade

[RPRNY]

Moved this over to Smokeless Paper Patched. Sorry for the initial post in the wrong place.

[longbow]

My experience, limited though it is, reflects what Nobade says about smooth boolits. I made a mould for my .308 using a "N" reamer and boolits dropped out at 0.301" so perfect for standard .30 cal. The .308 has fairly shallow rifling and worked pretty well but when patched a little thicker to suit my .303 I did not get good results. Granted the boolit was under bore size but after light knurling I got good results. Maybe the slight diameter increase did it, maybe the textured surface held the patch better (deep rifling in the .303), or maybe a bit of both.

Just something to keep in mind if you are using smooth boolits. If you get poor or inconsistent accuracy you might try knurling or rolling the boolit sunder a coarse file to lightly texture the surface. Probably more important with hard alloy boolits than soft or pure lead but worth a try anyway.

Longbow