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Thread: Paper patch bullets and silhouettes.

  1. #41
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    i have, and use, 50 of the BACO bore wipers for nearly 2 years, i like 'em, they're darned good. observing a friend using brent's gophers this past friday, i'd hafta say the gophers would be better yet - for me.

  2. #42
    Boolit Grand Master Don McDowell's Avatar
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    Az, I’m not sure that a second felt on a 40 cal brush would be necessary when using the squeegee, so long as you used a flannel patch.
    Most of the time using the baco system one felt has been plenty.
    Long range rules, the rest drool.

  3. #43
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    Hi Guys,
    As you may recall, I participated in my first silhouette match using less than stellar ammunition and shot accordingly.
    The problem was gas cutting from failed .060 veggie wad. Going to a .065 LDPE wad solved that problem and I am getting consistent 1 3/8 groups with a few 11/4 groups thrown in. .45-70, 80gns 11/2 Swiss no compression, BACo elliptical 525 gn.PP 16:1 ccibr2. Used that load to place 3rd in Sunday’s match. Needless to say I was pretty surprised and happy, and made for a nice 80th birthday present.
    The rifle I’m using is a Browning BPCR with a DZ Arms 8x scope. I would like to further increase the accuracy and try to get the groups down in the 1MOA territory. Is that a realistic goal? I really don’t know where to start.
    Maybe going up to 81 to 82 gns and the same seating depth of .125” or trying a over primer wad. I want to stay with the Swiss powder and CCI primers as I have 20 lbs of the same lot and a case of the CCI primers. What, in your opinion gives the biggest change in group size in descending order.
    Thanks guys Richard

  4. #44
    Boolit Grand Master Don McDowell's Avatar
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    Finding the sweet spot load, and a good fouling control routine you should be able to shrink groups to a sub 2 moa.
    After that it's a matter of breaking every shot clean, and a good spotter who's head is in the game.
    Long range rules, the rest drool.

  5. #45
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    To gain that last bit you want may not be one change but several things done. As the groups get smaller improvement gains do too. If your not already doing it some brass uniforming may help a little. cut primer pockets flat and uniform deburr flash holes inside of case. Trim to a uniform length and square. Seat primers to load the pellet uniformly. Maybe try thin primer wad between primer and case head this helps keep powder fines out of the primer, improving ignition.

    Even with Iron sights test at the longest distance possible. This may help refine a load and show issues better than up closer.

    As to primers I have been getting good results with the last case of Remington 9 1/2s in the BP rounds.

  6. #46
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    Imprimis: An absolutely clean, absolutely dry bore. No matter your cleaning routine, it should look unfired before you load the rifle again. You may get away with a little remaining grunge in the bore after wiping, but then again, you may not. If there’s time, wipe and dry again.

    Item: Lead BHN 8-11. Less gives me flyers around a core group, more gives nothing but flyers. This may change in importance, depending on the design of your boolit; mine are Creedmoor, Original Postells, etc.; conventional designs, and no Money boolits or other exotica tried yet.

    Item: I patch dry and store the patched boolits in those plastic box liners that pistol ammunition comes in. The paper takes a set, so when they are loaded, at most a little tightening of the wrap is necessary. I leave the center of the base bare. For me, wet patching ensured the patches sticking to the boolit; likewise twisting the bottom of the patch beneath the base.

    Item: The right charge of the right brand and granulation of powder. This simply has to be found, for the given rifle, and like gold, it’s where you find it. I’ve found loads with grease groove boolits that work fine in multiple rifles, but for paper patch, each rifle seems to be a law unto itself. I’ve had dismal results with powders for which other shooters scour the country for remaining stocks, and fantastic shooting from combinations nobody else seems to bother with.

    One thing that usually seems to improve the shooting is adding more powder vs. making up volume with a wad stack, but sometimes I can get a good load with more wads than usual, so this isn’t an absolute rule. I measure my powder with an Ideal #5, drop it onto a scale pan, and if the charge is what I want + or- 0.5 gr, it gets trickled into the case through the drop tube.

    Item: Watch case lengths and trim whenever necessary. I notice that my successful load combinations will start throwing the occasional low one in a match. Prior to loading this batch of shells, I had measured a random sample of the shells and found nothing amiss, and then happily loaded them. After the match and its none-too-edifying score, I measured all of the cases after tumbling and found that there were a few with slight lengthening or uneven case mouths, found at about the same frequency as the dirt diggers I’d fired in the match.

    Some people never experience this problem. But the evidence for me is that the slugged up patched boolit grabs the end of the case pretty tightly before it starts to move forward, and if there is any moisture from the bore wiping left between chamber and case wall, it will act as a drawing lubricant on the case, allowing it to be dragged forward into the leade in extreme cases and slightly lengthening the mouths and making them uneven in the more routine cases. Paper patch guys don’t follow the Lyman handbook trim-to-lengths, where you chop them well back so as to never have to bother again; paper patch shell lengths are typically right up to the chamber ends, so naturally, any overage is going to be detrimental.

    A grease cookie seems to alleviate this problem, doubtless by lowering the friction between paper and cartridge case. My shooting partner has a .40-70SS, fires nothing but paper patch, and wipes one wet patch, one dry, and a bore mop on a short handle to swab the chamber and leade. Accuracy left something to be desired, but his Buffalo Arms modified Krag shells endured many loadings with only the kind of neck splits and other attrition that such drastically reshaped brass is prone to. He switched to Jamison brass and got even better service out of these. Then he decided to drop the grease cookie, using the same wiping routine. His score went up significantly, beating me handily, but the cases were occasionally stretched so far that the rifling was visible at the front and a tear and near separation occurred in the body. I told him he ought to get some bore pigs, but he may go back to grease cookies, as the Jamison cases are now unavailable. I seem to recall that Kenny Wasserberger was going to try rubbing graphite on the paper after patching the boolits like Frank Mayer said he did, but I can’t find a report of how this worked. I’m going to try my patented mixture of one can Imperial graphite to one can Midway Mica that I use for case neck lube next time I load. But however you do it, keep those case lengths from growing.

    Item: These may be voodoo, but I use primer wads and anneal the cases before every loading. I always seem to get slightly better accuracy when I do so, so I do it. I’d love to be able to avoid these nuances, but I always seem to do worse when I do.

    Item: Diameter of boolits, within reason, doesn’t seem to matter as much as the above considerations. I’ve had good results with .45 caliber moulds that cast from 0.440” to 0.443” with weights from 525 to 545 gr, patched with paper of thickness 0.0015” to 0.002”, as long as it’s the crackly kind, like graph, erasible bond, or tracing paper. I don’t look for rag content. Some of these boolits go into the chamber with no resistance at all; when I have to use my lever seater, the groups open up. Even my “loose” fits won’t go into a fired, uncleaned barrel though, so even my “undersize” boolits are pretty close. I’ve never tried a two-diameter or tapered boolit, and probably won’t.

    Item: Within limits, seating depth also doesn’t seem to be all that critical. I’ve had equally good results with seating depths from 1/8” to 1/4” with the same boolits over the same charges of Swiss powder. I’m using 1/8” as a standard now because my latest batch of Swiss 1Fg is less dense than the previous lot, I need the room in the case, and Swiss doesn’t necessarily need compression. I’m using fractions deliberately here; I once measured the depth of the wads on 50 cases I’d seated to 0.130” and allowed to sit over lunch, and found that though a few had stayed at this depth, many had more or less pushed back to levels somewhat less. I could have run them through the compression die again, but I capped them with boolits and they all seemed to shoot well. So a thousandth, or even a 64th, difference in actual compression, doesn’t seem to affect things after the compression die is set.

    Item: Primer brand and type doesn’t seem to matter much in my rifles. I use Federal GMM Large Pistol because “Match” sounds good and I can punch the primer wad as I seat the primer to the proper depth, rather than using a longer rifle primer and fiddling around with newspaper circles trying to get them to the bottom of the case without turning vertical and sticking to the case wall. Likewise, full-length sizing vs neck sizing vs no sizing; they all work but the latter allows the boolits to drop out,and I don’t see “zero neck tension” as worth this hassle. I made a shell mouth reducer die so that most of the cartridges can be picked out of the box and loaded. This doesn’t seem to affect my shooting adversely.

    Item: I weigh all my boolits before patching into groups of 1.0 grain, and shoot these together, if possible. If I run out of a given weight, adding the next increment (or even the next) up or down doesn’t seem to change the shooting significantly. 950 yards is as far as I’ve shot in competition; mostly I’m a “mid-range” shooter, so this may mean something if I ever try a long range target. In the meantime, as long as I remove the odd light or unaccountably heavy castings from the batch, the rest of them seem to shoot OK.

    And, finally, Item, brand and weight of cases makes no difference whatsoever. Neither does lead to tin (and other) ratio, as long as the mixture is between BHN 8 and 11. Nor does BHN 8 shoot better than BHN 11, or BHN 8.6 better than BHN 8.7. Nor does the direction of patch wrapping. Nor does having every patch made to a template, one at a time. I cut strips, clip them together in a stack of five, and cut the stacks on a bias. If some are a trifle longer than others, the extra length is just folded further around the base, leaving a slightly smaller open space.

    So far, my paper patch experience is one rifle with complete satisfaction, two with promising results and one that doesn’t seem to like them at all, so far at least. There’s a few more in the queue that I have t gotten to yet.
    Last edited by Bent Ramrod; 09-10-2018 at 10:37 AM. Reason: Thought of something else—seating depth.

  7. #47
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    BR, thank you for your post. what kind of chambers are in yer rifles?

  8. #48
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    Try federal large pistol match primers. My rifle loves them. Your might also


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  9. #49
    Boolit Buddy Distant Thunder's Avatar
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    I use Remington 2 1/2 LP primes in both my .45-70 and my .40-65. They seem to work well for me in both, but other rifles may prefer different primers apparently so do what I did, try all the primers you can get your hands on and go with whatever your rifle likes best. I still need to try some BR2 primers, but there's no hurry.

    DT

  10. #50
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    Ive used a lot of different primers, including FA70 corrosives. No quantum leap in acccuracy one from the other that I’ve found. No Magnum primers or drilled out flash holes, although I think I may have deburred and uniformed the primer pockets on some of the shells long ago. I use Federal GMM Large Pistol primers now, but occasionally use BR2s. Pistol primers allow for the thickness of the primer wad in the bottom of the primer pocket, and the primers seat flush. I use strips of ASSRA target paper for the primer wads.

    The #3 Shiloh had the chamber deepened slightly when it was rebarreled with a barrel off another Shiloh. No idea who did it or what it looks like; it handles grease groove loads fine. The .44-77 Montana Rough Rider has the regular Shiloh chamber, as does my #1 Shiloh .45-70, that I still use for grease groove boolits.

    The .44-77 seems to be coming along with paper patch boolits. It will stay on the Rams, off the bench. The limiting factor is the lightness of the barrel; it’s a little harder to manage than the standard heavy and heavy half barrel jobs. I haven’t done any development on the #1 beyond firing a few #3 loads in it, with unspectacular results.

    When I mentioned the length of the patch, I guess I meant the width. The ends, of course, have to abut each other, or come slightly short. Extra width means a slight difference in the size of the bare lead circle on the boolit base. I make sure they go the same distance up the boolit’s shank.

  11. #51
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    Thanks guys and thank you Bent Ramrod for your time and well written explanation.
    My apologies for not going into more detail on my loading technique so hear goes...
    Cases:
    .45-70 Starline brass all from the same batch. All cases annealed, stretched and trimmed to .005” shorter than the stock Browning/Badger chamber. Primer pockets uniformed to depth and inside flash hole debured. Flash holes were not drilled. Case mouths chamfered. Cases were fireformed, 2nd annealing and sorted by weight.
    Bullet:
    Bullets are BACO JIM443530E, cast 16:1 for a weight of 525 gns. Patch paper was a hard paper that brought the overall bullet diameter to .450, a snug finger pressure fit in the bore. Wrapped to about .005 past the straight section of the bullet. Dry wrapped.
    Powder:
    80 gns Swiss. All charges weighed. For the life of me I could not get consistent powder column night in the case even using a 30 inch tube and trickling in the powder. I finally used a method that is time consuming but the results are not too bad. A case with a CCI br2 primer is placed on a etching pencil vibrator and the eighty grans of Powder poured into a case funnel that fits over the case after the powder is poured a small square of index file paper is dropped on top of the powder column and a vernier digital caliper is used along with the vibrator get the proper powder column height, yeah ,I know apita. Next a .065 LDPE wad and a freezer paper wad, shiny side to bullet base is placed in the case and a Meachum neck sizing die size the neck down .125 inches which is the bullet seating depth. It gives me .0016 bullet tension. The patched bullet is hand seated in the case and then seated to depth with a Redding precision seating die.
    Shooting:
    I wipe with BACO VFG bore pig with water and a dry patch. I push everything at once with a Delrin rod. Bore is clean and dry for every shot.
    Like I said I would shure like to get consistent 1MOA . Right now get 11/4 to 13/8 at 100 yds.
    Thanks guys
    Regards, Richard

  12. #52
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    Bent provided the most straight forward set of observations i have seen yet !!!!

    It paralells my experience ,which is not quite as broad as others here, however i have shop PP 45-70 to the mid twenties on silhouettes

    The only thing i add is a wax and final size after dry wrapping, this sets the fold over,and irons the patch slick and protects against the tropical humidity here on the gulf coast

    Have FUN flats guide

    Dave

  13. #53
    Boolit Grand Master Don McDowell's Avatar
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    Richard if you're achieving that tight of groups on your home range already, I would suggest a little less time chasing the measuring string and a bit more on shooting in wind and mirage on silhouette targets. And it's helpful to replicate match conditions as best you can, ie set the timer shoot your practice target just the way you would have to in a match.
    Long range rules, the rest drool.

  14. #54
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    Having just finished my 2018 season of silhouette matches and my first year of silhouette with paper patched bullets (Aug. 2017 to Aug.2018) the following is my loading procedure.

    My silhouette rifle is a C. Sharps 1875 rebarreled to .40-65 some years back. The chamber has a loooong freebore, .400"+. So I use a custom designed and made mold to cast my 2-diameter bullets. The groove diameter section is .525" long and it weighs 382 grains. I cast these from various alloys to 11 BHN. OAL is 1.250".

    I first inspect my fired and cleaned brass. I do check the length on occasion, but I have little if any case stretching, case length is 2.140-2.145". I do not size my brass. I have never annealed my brass, ever.

    I primed all cases with Remington 2 1/2 large pistol primers, no over the primer wads are used.

    I weight the 72.0 grains of 1 1/2 Swiss as I dump them using my very old Pacific powder measurer. I keep the loads pretty much at zero to + 1/2 grain.

    The powder is trickled into the cases thru my 14" drop tube, takes about 2-3 seconds. I then seat the .060" LDPE wad with my thumb to start it in the case mouth. I place the case in my compression die and compress to .075" deep. My bullets are seated very shallow. There is not much compression.

    All my cases are loaded this way and set aside and then I wrap and seat my bullets as follows.

    Each bullet is dry wrapped with 9 lb. 100% cotton onion skin just before it is seated in the case.

    I run each bullet thru my .409" (freebore diameter) size die which just smooths out the groove diameter and presses the fold over flat against the base. The case with the finger seated bullet is run up into a tapered neck sizing die to just hold the bullet in the case for handling and chambering. The bullets are snug in the cases before I run them into the taper die but doing so just adds a little insurance for handling.

    Each round is put into my ammo box and I go to the next one.


    I ended last year shooting this load for the first time as a AA shooter. In the five 40-shot matches I have with it shot my scores were, 26, 32, 31, 30, 28. So I have moved to AAA with my first of two master class score early this year. A couple weeks ago I attempted to get my 3rd master class score but was not able to hit enough chickens. Did I ever mention how much I hate chickens!

    I pretty sure I have some time remaining in which I must shoot my 3rd score to make master class, but it will have to wait until 2019.


    For what it's worth I load my long range ammo for my .45-70 Hepburn using the same proceed with the only real difference being the caliber. That load in my rifle has won many long range matches for me and a few NRA Regionals. I am pretty happy with the accuracy this loading procedure is producing in both my rifles/calibers. The mold I use for my .45-70 is also custom designed for my rifle and it's application. I believe strongly in fitting the bullet to the specific chamber and keeping the loading procedure simple. My .45-70 has a paper patched chamber and the bullets are patched to bore diameter. I'll be shooting my last long range match of the year in a week and a half and I know the load will perform well. It's been a good year.

    DT

  15. #55
    Boolit Buddy dave roelle's Avatar
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    Nice shooting DT. Im a AAA shooter, using GG reciently in 40-65

    Carefull about that "Master" thing its almost irrevocable ��

    Time to start wrapping again and claim AAA with PP ��

    Don's dead on. Spotter. Spotter. Spotter and honed shooting form will take you across the finish line

    Stay safe

    Dave

  16. #56
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    I got lucky and shot a master score on my first outing with my scope. The very next week though I struggled. Missed 5 of the lay downs on both days in Alma.


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  17. #57
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    Don, you are right about practicing, but I guess for the most part we are guilty about trying to milk that last bit of accuracy from our rifles. I’m going to take your advice though.
    DT, My wife is a physical therapist and she is putting a program together for me to practice offhand shooting. I have a really bad back so she is trying to improve my core strength. In my first match I shot a score of 2, on my second match a score of 27. The only difference was going from a veggie wad to a LDPE wad. The ringing from a hit is nice music. My rifle is muzzle heavy and is difficult to hold in the offhand position. It seems with the little bit of experience that I have , chickens are the bane of good scores. I wonder if a rifle built more for offhand shooting, a shorter barrel and a smaller caliber would be the better way to go. I shoot with a DZ Arms scope so I would not need the benefit of a longer sight radius that iron sight shooters benefit from. Maybe in the 9 pound range.
    Nice shooting DT
    Regards, Richard

  18. #58
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    Ian, that can be frustrating but congrats on the Master shooting.
    Regards, Richard

  19. #59
    Boolit Grand Master Don McDowell's Avatar
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    Richard, your browning is just fine for offhand shooting. I don't know if you wrestled in school or not but a lot of the excerises we did to build arm and neck muscles for wrestling are also good for building upper body strength for offhand. Another thing you can do at home is work on your stance in the house. Take the rifle out once a day and work on your stance, find a comfortable stance and hold on the rifle, then hold it up aiming at something on the wall down the hall etc. Doing that just a few minutes a day will tone your muscle's and let you experiment with rifle position. Pretty quick 2+ chickens will come along in a match.
    Long range rules, the rest drool.

  20. #60
    Boolit Buddy Distant Thunder's Avatar
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    Richard, there's no flies on a 27! Good shooting.

    For years I had been shooting silhouette with my C. Sharps 1874 in .45-70 with iron sights because I believe the .45 gave me an advantage. With that rifle and shooting grease bullets I did ok, but I never came close to a 30, much less a mater class score. I was struggling to see the targets and shooting a rifle that made my not so good offhand shooting worse. Hoping to improve my scores I put a score on my .45-70, but I just didn't like it. I went back to irons and scores in the mid 20s.

    Then I got away from silhouette for about 4 years and a friend asked me to come back to the game. I didn't feel I was going to improve my scores with the .45 so I resurrected my old .40-65 and began a search for the right boolit. I gave paper patched a try because this rifle has always shown a liking for paper and I came up with my ppb that shoots very well. For load development I put my scope on my .40-65 and fell in love. The scope may come off on occasion but it will be rare.

    Then in May this year I shot those two just barely master scores and I am absolutely sold on this rifle for silhouette. Paper pathed bullets helps but another thing is I shoot this rifle better offhand than any other bpcr I own. The weight and balance are just better for me offhand. I now think there is an advantage to a smaller caliber (.40) and a lighter rifle both of which result in a more shootable rifle. YMMV

    As for using ppb for silhouette I don't see any disadvantage and I prefer ppb so why not. I did have the help of Brent Danielson to get a workable system. That and I have been shooting ppb in long range for the past nine years, but silhouette is a bit different. In silhouette you have to be organized because of the time limits, that's where I have a hard time. With a little practice even I can appear organized enough to do fairly well.

    I got lucky in May and shot those two master scores and I may not make master class with a 3rd, but I have to try even if I never or rarely shoot master scores again. I enjoy shooting silhouette a lot and I always try to shoot the best I can on any given day, it's just that some days my best isn't all that good, but those days when everything clicks make it all worth the effort.

    DT

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check