Cloth-patching bore-size Shotgun Round-balls

[Y-man]

Hiya all!
Happy New Year...


I have this idea I need your advice on: what if I cloth-patch .732" lead balls for 12-gauge bore-size round balls?


Using small squares of lube-soaked fabric [Pillow Ticking equiv] with the twist UNDER the ball inside the shell.


Purpose:
1. Full bore-size fitting for Rifled barrel.
2. Lubrication
3. Eliminate leading.


Will test by pushing through bore first!


How think?

[Y-man]

Guys, give me a break: please give me any advice you can, from your wealth of experience. My question is simply: is it a good idea to use a cotton patch [Soaked and dried in lube] for a full bore-size Round Ball for 12gauge?
Reasons I want to do this:

1. CONSISTENT Full bore-size fitting for Rifled barrel.
2. Lubrication
3. Eliminate leading.

[cpileri]

if your bore size isn't too small (will cut the patch), I think it'll work

[longbow]

Y-man:

My guess is that a 0.732" ball will be too large to patch... however, having said that 725 has been using 0.720" RB's in shotcups in a rifled gun with excellent results. If asked (which we were) I would have said "too big"... wait I did say that! I was getting petal shearingn using 0.690" RB's in shotcups so how he gets 0.720" RB's to work...?

Now in his case he is using soft lead so maybe that made the difference by allowing soft lead to swage some, though I would have thought the plastic would fail before lead swaged. It does not, his wads look good.

In any case, I think that with even a fairly thin cloth of 0.005" or so you are up to 0.742" which is pretty large. If the cloth is tough and lead soft that may work since there is not a lot of lead at the equator. Not so sure with hard lead though.

Now if you had say a 0.720" to maybe 0.725" ball and patched with 0.008" to 0.010" cloth there will be some give in the cloth and maybe some give in a soft ball (maybe even a hard one) so that just might work well.

As a minimum I'd try patching one of your 0.732" balls then drive it through the bore with a dowel and mallet. If it starts relatively easily and patch doesn't cut/tear then I'd load a few and try them at reduced charge. Good linen or silk should be pretty tough cloth for a patch and may hold up and, you should be able to find some pretty thin linen or silk.

Are you finding the naked ball not gripping the rifling well? My 0.735" balls engraved very well with clean sharp rifling impression on recovered balls. I think I still have one or two. I could post a pic if you want. If you are just having a leading issue then try tumble lubing the balls. You don't need LLA to tumble lube. I am using a homemade paraffin, grease, soap, Bardahl mix and hot tumble lubing boolits in a cast iron frying pan. Works great.

In principle I agree that it will work but ball/patch combination will have to be right. Certainly no harm in driving one through the bore to see, then if that goes well load a few up.

That's all i've got.

Good luck!

Longbow

[Geezer in NH]

Are we talking Muzzleloaders???????

[longbow]

Nope, he wants to get a tighter fit/better rifling grip in his rifled pump gun.

Patching has been done before and apparently successfully in both rifles and shotguns. In those cases, the patch is applied like in muzzleloading but when the ball is pushed into the cartridge or hull. I would have thought the patch would strip off the ball as it left the cartridge/hull but reports are that it works. I think Y-man is talking a little different with the patch wrapped around the ball and opening down in the hull.

I think the fit will be too tight using a 0.732" ball in a rifled gun which doesn't likely have a groove diameter over 0.730" and land diameter around 0.720" (my guess) but in principle it should work. I'm not sure it will solve anything though. Slugs are low enough velocity that leading can be solved by tumble lubing and as with boolits, proper fit to bore should give rifling traction with no skidding.