Is my rifle a candidate?

[Wolfmanjack]

I will definitely be wiping between shots that's a given. Looks like I will be able to test my boolits this afternoon after all. I will take some pics and post tonight. I'm using soft lead to cast with. The bullet is cast from the Lee 500 s&w mold. How much of the bullet should we hope engages the grooves or is it desirable that the paper only engages the rifling?

[Wolfmanjack]

Thanks for the help

[BrentD]

Ideally, no LED should touch the barrel.

[Wolfmanjack]

I would say my first outing was a success. That flyer was due to patch ripping on the way down the barrel.

[Wolfmanjack]

These are the fragments I collected, I have no idea if this is good or bad? Most are just the bases of the paper wad. There is definitely room for improvement but I was pleased. I didn't have proper wadding. I used cardboard a piece of felt and then a small piece of meat tray styrofoam all cut with a hole saw.

[Wolfmanjack]

Sorry about the thumbnail I didn't mean to put that up

[BrentD]

WMJ,
I think you are definitely headed in the right direction. I don't like the looks of your patch remnants and I don't like the description of your wads either. But that's great! As well as you are shooting with what you are using, you should be a whole bunch better with a few simple changes.

Start with the paper patches themselves. They are too long from top to bottom. it looks like you are twisting the tails underneath the bullet creating a knot that will only deform the bullet.

Here are two videos of how I roll the paper on the bullet. Notice how much of the base of the bullet is showing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AvKalQipeY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1DmoZnYIQE


FWIW, this is an easy way to make patches
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM23a_tbE-M&t=135s

So, shorten up your patches from top to bottom. Some picts of bullets, patched and unpatched would be great. How long is that bullet?

Next, you wads are creative, and probably not half bad, but they also probably don't fit great and may give you some blow by. A simpler wad would be either a single fiber or LDPE plastic wad that is 0.060" thick or a felt wad used in combination with one of these. For hunting and shooting a fouled barrel the lubed felt will help in ways that we can talk about later. But for now, wipe the barrel after a shot, pour in your powder, then start the wad(s) and bullet and push both wad and bullet down to the powder together. The wad will help clean, protect and maintain the patch on the bullet as it goes down the barrel. That's why you want to push the wad and bullet together.


Last, if you shot that well with pyrodex, you can cut that group in half with black. Order some Swiss 1.5 FG from Buffaloarms.com and you will never look back at the other stuff. It's far less corrosive and easier to clean also.

Here are some sources for wads and powder. I can't find the LDPE plastic wads in .50 caliber, but someone must make them.

Fiber wads
https://www.buffaloarms.com/50-calib...12060?___SID=U

Felt wads
https://www.buffaloarms.com/50-cal-l...c5000?___SID=U

Real powder - the best
https://www.buffaloarms.com/swiss-1-...wder-swiss1-5f

[Wolfmanjack]

Bullet is .905" in length. What source of ldpe are you using for wads? I will order some fiber wads. Is the type of paper the most critical variable in the whole production? I am sizing after wrapping.

[BrentD]

I buy my wads precut from that same website. They sell them in .45 caliber but I can't see them listed for .50s and apparently they don't sell them. But it would pay to call those guys and ask because the website search is a bit problematic.

Here is the material you could use to make your own.

https://www.buffaloarms.com/2-sq-ft-...terial-060poly

But if you do, be sure that the wads are bigger than groove diameter in your barrel. I mine are 0.460" for my .450/.458 bores. The job of the wad is to seal the bore before the bullet bumps up and, in the case of muzzleloaders to do a little scraping of the fouling when loaded from the front.

I ran your numbers for that bullet length and twist and guessed at the velocity and groove diameter. All of the various calculators came back saying you were easily stable, so that's not an issue, and your bullets' holes look nice and round from what I can see. So, that's good.

Gotta lose those tails on the base of the bullet. NO TAILS!

[Lead pot]

The cup based bullets were developed for the twisted patch tails that where common in the past. The cup, not hollow base, would keep the twisted tail flush with the base. Twisting the tail on a flat based bullet creates a problem like using a bullet you drop on a concrete floor and damaging the sharp base edge letting the gas give the bullet a push when it clears the muzzle a push that starts the tumble.

[Wolfmanjack]

What if I put the patch on with a tail ang cut it off flush with the base? When I try to patch like brentd's video with the smaller patch it is wanting to unravel. He is putting his rolled bullet into a brass casing where as mine is sitting there to be loaded at a later date.

[Lead pot]

I don't think you can get the base flat enough doing that but it would help. If you cast a bunch and wrap them for later use put them in a Styrofoam .40 or .45 pistol bullet tray that factory pistol ammo comes in and put the wrapped bullets in the tray and stack a few trays on top of each other and that will hold the folded over wrap. You can find a bunch of them at the rifle range.
Brent does not fold the wrap over more then what you see on these .45 caliber wad cutters and this is the best way for good results.
Like I said keep the wrapped tails for a cup base bullet flat base you wand a spot of lead showing.

[BrentD]

Wolfman,
part of the problem with your patches wanting to unwind is the paper and how you put it on.

First, I like paper that adds about as much thickness to the bullets are the grooves are deep, or a little less. My paper adds about 0.007" to the diameter of the bullet. The bores on my rifles are all .450+ and the grooves are all .458 or .458- so give or take a bit the groove diameter is about 0.007-0.008" more than the land diameter. Matching these diameters is not critical, but thinner papers will grab lands well, and also conform to the bullet well, including the fold around the base of the bullet, and then stay there. If your rifle, the grooves may be much deeper (or not). If they are, I would NOT chase them with really thick paper, but I suppose it might work. Generally, thinner is better, up to a point. That point is somewhere around 8 or 9 lb paper.

You can apply the paper to the bullet after first soaking it in plain (that's important) water. In those videos, I roll the paper on dry and I do that for all my rifles, including the muzzleloaders. But you can do it wet. This will cause the paper to shrink more tightly to the bullet and that helps keep it on the bullet too. I think it is a hassle, but it works.

It also can help if you "precurl" the patch so it wraps around the bullet better. I do not do this unless I'm working with a really difficult paper like cooking parchment (great hunting bullet paper). This is sort of painful to watch but it shows one way to do this easily. You can adapt it to your patches easily. You will have to be careful to get the direction right, but that will take only 2 tries at most to figure out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkon9QqmJCs

There are a few more tricks that I have used, and they work to a degree, but I don't use any of them anymore. I have learned how to wrap, carry, and load bullets so that I don't need those tricks. Once you get your rifle shooting where you want it, you can experiment with them to see if some of them might work for you in special situations.

You really need to 1. replace those wads with better stuff, 2. wrap that paper w/o a tail on it, 3. use real Swiss 1.5 fg powder. Those three things will make a world of difference.

As for types of paper, they aren't so critical as their thicknesses are. I use 9 lb Eaton paper that is either 25 or 100% cotton rag content. I don't find 100 better than 25% but at 25% really does seem to make the paper easier to wrap because it is stronger and it seems to take folding under the bullet better. This paper is largely discontinued, but you can find lots of it on Ebay if you search for "onionskin" and "paper". There are a number of different companies and I am happy to help you find some.

You can also do real well with a slightly thinner paper that is often sold on Amazon.com as "tracing paper". It is usually 8 lb paper and 25 or 100% cotton. Sometimes it is sold in rolls sometimes in pads. But it works. A number of companies make it. Staedler (or something like that) is one of the better ones.

If you have a sharp punch, you can thread your patchs' tail through the punch and then press it hard against the base of the bullet and twist. If the punch is super sharp, it will cut the tail off and leave the center of the bullet more or less naked. That gets old pretty fast and few punches are really that sharp, but it works after a fashion.

So, there are a few ideas to try.