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Thread: Advice needed please

  1. #1
    Boolit Buddy
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    Advice needed please

    Iīm about as fresh as they come when it comes to PP. Please have that in mind.

    Thus i appreciate that iīm doing something wrong cause the net result at the range is laughable. Beyond poor.

    Altho i own a bunch of old originals,and those perform,the two newest guns do not.

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    First one up is a Wesson style rifle. An old original,that has been worked on before i enter the picture (bought it like 2 weeks ago). Have had it apart completely,slugged it and so on per usual.
    Rifling twist is approx 1:30

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    Second rifle up is a Schuetzen style one,Swiss made of course. Rifling twist 1:28.

    Both rifles are to be regarded as 41/43 cal rifles and as such the molds available are rather scarce to me where i live in Sweden so iīve opted to run with the LEE 379/250. A flatnosed job with grease grooves.
    In doing so iīve also made a couple of "shims" that elongate the given boolit to a weight of 370 grains.

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    Right. So for the Schuetzen rifle iīve PPīd with tracing paper,essentially. Diamond/rhombus shaped patch,of course. Applied wet.
    At the top end of the boolit the patch stretches into the ogive section of it,see pictures.

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    Wesson rifle in turn gets a heavier gauge paper,around here known as "heavy duty" such. A ribbed,for lack of better words,jobbie.

    Now.
    The Wesson rifle i really havenīt leaned into yet but one thingīs for sure and that is that the thing sure doesnīt print where the scope tells. Scope then having been set with a laser guide.
    The Schuetzen in turn though,that thing is literally all over the map. Regardless if i use the 250 or 370 grain boolit. Very similar results,and please have in mind that this rifle "should" run hole in hole at 100 meters.
    Weīre VERY far from that.

    Seeing their old rifles,both of them,the rifling of both is in a downright good state. Rifling is sharp and defined and thereīs about zero pittings and so forth. On a scale of 1 to 10 iīd give them both an easy 8.

    Muzzle loaders theyīre both,of course,and as such i use regular RWS 1075īs for ignition. Powder charge thus far all the way up to 90 grains worth of holy black.
    Have tried with T7 too..similar results.

    I canīt but be of the notion that iīm doing something wrong here. The little picket carbine or the Schuetzen no matter,and the one nomer theyīve got in common is the paper patching.

    Today i put like 35ish rounds through the Schuetzen at steel sillouettes at a mere 50 meters...and the damn thingīll hit where it kind of feels like it. Just partly better accuracy than a smoothbore scattergun approx.

    It all "feels" correct. The way i load and set things. Ignition is without doubt and to the point. The approx 15lbs Schuetzen rifle about laughs at what i hand it when it comes to fudder. Recoil is very manageable due the weight of the rifle.
    Ie;no issues what so ever firing the thing all day at 100 grains of powder,all day need be.

    So. Why is accuracy lacking as much as it is?

  2. #2
    Boolit Buddy
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    Oh!
    Edit.
    Load procedure is;
    Powder charge, 1/8" greased wad,PPīd boolit. Both of them.
    Have given thought to run sans the wad,albeit i doubt that being the issue.

  3. #3
    Boolit Grand Master

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    How do you want to do this bore riding bullet that can be loaded into the rifle all the way or a groove dia that seats deeper? Bullets' dia + ( paper thickness X 4) should equal bore dia or frooce dia depending on what you want. Wrap bullet with 2 wraps of paper tight and fold over leaving a small center of base showing ( about 1/8" or little less). One thing I see is my 40 cal I shoot 400-425 grn in is a 1-16 twist, your 1-30 and 1-28 may require a shorter lighter bullet to stabilize fully. in 41-43 caliber the 370 grns is probably 1 1/4" long ( Im guessing here as the 400 grn 40 cal I shoot is 1.4" long).
    I would load in this manner charge enough to fill case to base of bullet + .100 compression. a heavy wad, compress to depth before the rest, grease cookie, a light wad and typing paper wad. last hand seat the bullet onto the wad stack charge and lightly size neck down around bullet to desired tension.

    Find a paper bullet combination that wraps up to just under bore dia by .001 or less. Seat this bullet into case 1/8"-3/16" and load it into bore as far as possible.

    Having actual measuremensts to work with as ti bullet dia bore and groove dia paper thickness would help.

  4. #4
    Boolit Mold
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    You would be looking at bullets in the .750" to .850" or there abouts . Vic

  5. #5
    Boolit Master
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    With those slow twists, I believe you need to do with Shorter Bullets
    I KNOW that it takes only a 1.25" long forty cal bullet to stabilize in a 1:18 twist.
    You need to go shorter than that by quite a bit.
    beltfed/arnie

  6. #6
    Boolit Master
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    Looking again at your descriptions you need to go with 40 cal bullets below 300 gr
    beltfed/arnie

  7. #7
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    Thx a mill for all replies guys.

    Yes. Might very well be that the "original" 250grain LEE job is the way to fly here,for starters. An estimate,calipers at the shop,is that weīre talking around 23mm length (approx 0,9") Not ideal but should get us ballpark?
    Ogive starts at 15mm up the length of it (0,59").

    Have slugged the bore and that comes out to approx 9,83-9,84mm minimum. Thus enters the Q of paper quality. Onion skin is certainly available too,and the tracing paper i used comes in at 0,04mm thickness (0,00157).
    The brown "heavy duty" paper in turn..0,09mm (0,0035)
    Some quick math applied...iīm off mark with the thinner stuff. By a friggin landslide. Could i make do with the non calibrated boolit at 9,70? Sure,thatīd put us reasonably on mark. Issue with that is that the LEE mold hands me boolits slightly out of round and TBH i donīt know whatīs worse?
    So.
    Seeing what iīve got to work with the real answer here might very well be to turn a fresh calibration eye set to a diameter that lets me use the brown paper stuff instead?
    Then head for 9,83mm on the dot?
    Last edited by Racing; 11-24-2019 at 09:32 PM.

  8. #8
    Boolit Grand Master

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    With your target goal of 9.84mm ( .3874") and the paper thickness of .00157. we can work the bullet dia needed. .00157 X 4 ( 2 wraps of paper)= .00628 thickness added here. Possibly a little less do to paper stretch. So .3874 - .00628 = .381 should be the desired bullet dia. Here a 38 cal rifle bullet at .379 should get you pretty close or the mould could be lapped. A 250 grn 38 rifle bullet should hit pretty close.

    with your thicker paper at .0035 will add .014 to dia. So a bullet of .3735 dia. Again no super close bullets.

    If you could find slightly thicker paper Something in the .002 range here the .379 dia bullet would be very close.
    Cast your bullets from pure lead or very low tin 20-1 30-1 and they may also slug up some on firing. The heavier paper may give some problems shedding from the bullet at the muzzle.

    Slightly out of round bullets may not be an issue as they will be bumped up when firing. No not the best but it may work. Another trick that may help with this is to use a loading press to lightly bump the bullets up a little in dia then size down to fit.

  9. #9
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    Yes. As stated,newcomer to PP. OTOH have been a caster better part of my life (now 55).
    Of course i could have ordered a LEE sizer or the likes but that will take like forever to get here the other side of the atlantic so thus..simpler to just make one myself.
    That there is a simple push through turned,and honed,on my lathe. About as simple as they come,but works. Set to 9,55mm.
    As i donīt make thousands of rounds for this rifle exactly..itīll do. At least for now.

    But yeah. I AM doing something wrong here,and one clear cut fault on my behalf is that i havenīt even done the basic math,until now. My bad,really.

    One other such point though,that i DID take into account,is that the Schuetzen rifle is RH twist and the Wesson style rifle is LH. Wrapped accordingly.
    The Wesson rifle sports a somewhat looser bore why the unsized boolit and two wraps of the thicker paper is about spot on,hence why iīd really like to get a rematch with that carbine ASAP.
    Whatīs more the Wesson is a gain twist job,and as a carbine with a "mere" 21" worth of barrel. Should still shoot rather well IMO no matter.
    Have read up on the sugar loaf style boolits used for these rifles from the onset but truth be told i have no idea what a sugar loaf boolit looks like still.

    But.
    To size down the boolits need be yet another step isnīt the end of the world really. Turning yet another calibration eye,to a given set diameter,takes like a max of an hr so...

    What would be the better choice? That thicker paper,reason tells itīd take the rifling "more" than the thinner variant does? Would that be preferable?

  10. #10
    Boolit Master Lead pot's Avatar
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    A sugarloaf bullet is a very pronounced tapered bullet.

    It looks like a money bullet ogive cut off at the start of the shank

  11. #11
    Boolit Buddy
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    Ah!
    Cool. Thanx!

  12. #12
    Boolit Master
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    Generally, you want your paper layer (two thicknesses) to be thinner than your grooves are deep. So, for a .458" groove diameter barrel, you want a paper that will add about 0.008" or a little less when wrapped on your bullet. Your bullet has to be sized appropriately so that the finished, wrapped bullet is the same diameter as the LAND Diameter of the rifle. Let the bullet bump up to fill the grooves.

    You can size your bullets after they are dressed in their paper jackets.

  13. #13
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    On paper thickness,this is just me thinking out loud here,wouldnīt that be mandated by the rifling?
    Ie; barrels with deeper rifling can make good use of thicker paper?
    Nor the Wesson rifle or the Schuetzen one sports overly aggressive rifling depth. Thus,iīd do wise to stick with the thinner trace paper?

    Beat me to it BrentD

  14. #14
    Boolit Master
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    You have the right idea.

  15. #15
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    Whatīs more,for the sake of argument,these two are muzzle loaders.
    Keep brass rear ones too,but theyīre not up for debate here.

    That we size and so forth in a given manner and given goal for a rear loader,all good. A ML though will by pure nature have an "undersized" boolit as is but i presume the same principles still apply?
    Ie;as far as paper thickness vs rifling depth asf.

  16. #16
    Boolit Master
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    Yes, the same principles apply. In fact, the same everything applies, no matter which direction you feed your bullet from. Of course, the muzzleloader leaves no options, but the breechloader does best with the same sizing. I shoot the same bullets from my .45-70 target rifles as I do from my Alex Henry long range muzzleloader.

  17. #17
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    Ah.
    Then massive thank you.
    Point is i PP the hex boolits for my Whitworth,and that works just great. At 444 (from memory) it works just clockwork. But,never needed to "dive into" this entire PP thing due as that was a ready made solution,for lack of better words.

  18. #18
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    As it might be part of the equation,this is what i run - out of necessity.
    I appreciate that it isnīt optimal,but..as stated above for the moment itīs that or nothing. Lead times for molds that origin the US side of things is just laughable.
    It even happens theyīre sent back to sender due being "military material",and the funny part of that is that the "military material" is by no means prohibited or such.
    Ie;importing molds is within the law,no issues. Still happens though,no idea why.

    Ergo some molds,for other rifles,weīve CNC cut ourselves. Like for my Whitworth for instance (to go with the Pedersoli and Hensel mold)

    In other words,need be,i guess we could always cut one or two for these rifles as well.

    No matter,and correct me if iīm wrong,they should both shoot with the LEE offering at the top.?

  19. #19
    Boolit Master Lead pot's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Racing View Post
    Ah!
    Cool. Thanx!

  20. #20
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    Alright. So i took to shoving a slug down each barrel,and this is what came out the other end. Started with regular ,380" dia roundballs that i expanded in a small vise until they measured like 10,50mm diameter approx.

    As noted iīve been way off,so the truth of the matter is that sunday passed from an evaluation point of view was pointless.

    The Wesson style rifle indeed shows larger dimensions. Minimum diameter clocks in at 10,08mm,which in practice translates to that the boolits iīve patched with the somewhat thicker brown paper indeed is rather spot on.
    9,70mm + (0,09*4) very much equates to spot on according to what weīve been debating here.

    The Schuetzen rifle in turn,9,81mm miminum inner diameter,which basically means that when i used the rifle sunday i might as well have gone bowling,blindfolded.
    With the 9,55mm true diameter of them sized boolits and then 0,04*4 added..that comes to 9,55+0,16 which is basically a tenth of a millimeter off.

    Right. So what iīll do is cast me a few hundred fresh ones and take it from there. Be anal about "QC" when inspecting,both for blemishes and weight.

    But. This also means,seeing the depth of the rifling of the Wesson style rifle,that i could do well with a 9,90mm boolit for that rifle to be able to use the thinner tracing paper and done deal as the rifling depth isnīt massive for that rifle either

    First thingīs first though. So..cast,QC and wrap. Then range time...

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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
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LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
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