Paper Patching...my way.

[45 2.1]

Just keep on winnin them national championships CM.

I'm a little curious about this..........just which one of you on this thread qualifies for that (winning of them national championships, in the plural form used here)? To paraphrase another western fella, "when your good you get close, then sometimes your lucky". It seems to me that a fella needs some luck besides being an excellent shot, with an equally excellent or better spotter and some decent weather to do that. What say you?

[Don McDowell]

I say luck seldom if ever plays any part in a match win, of any level.
I also say you can't buy, parrot, or plagerize you're way into the winners circle.
You need good equipment, quality loads, and a lot of familiarity with it, a goodly amount of honest trigger time and a lot of determination. There's been a plethora of threads around lately "what sight setting" and there's been an abundance of internet experts giving all sorts of well copied and pasted advice, most of which according to the range books I've kept over the years are worth almost nothing. You can use computer programs and drawings and speculations to get a basic start, but the real world will soon show you what's what. Until you've actually experience a 30 pt drop in sight settings from one day to the next with nothing changing other than the calender , or even between practice rounds fired in the morning and afternoon , you and your computer program just won't believe it. Never mind a target jumping 5 minutes just during the course of a relay....
You have to hit every shoot you can get to, and you have to practice at home on a regimented basis.
A person can have all the 1/2 moa loads at 300 yds on your home range you want, but those will mean little to nothing when you hit the firing line at a range somewhere past walking distance from your back porch.
A person needs to be able to handle the noise and confusion at a shoot he/she may or may not be used to at home. Even practicing at a public range while helpful does absolutely nothing to prepare you for whats about to hit when the match begins.
Lots of things go into being able to even finish in the top 50%. Sometimes such as at the Quigley last year, I finished up only 10 pts behind the first place winner, and that was good enough to get me 126th.....
Just two weeks ago I got a 3rd place ironsight and seventh place over all in the 22 match, had I of had my head pulled out of my ass on the one target I muffed, would of taken the whole enchilada....
Lots of things go on that only first hand experience will know or understand.....

[Don McDowell]

I've experienced something else and I know of another here that has had the same thing. A load that up to 3-4-500 yds just shoots absolutely scarily accurat, yet when you go to the next distance won't even stay on target , and some rounds won't even thro dirt in the field of view of the spotting scope.
That's why my previuos statement a while back about a person has to render the loads for what he/she wants out of em. If the best you'll ever do is bust a disc blade at 300 from a bench, that's fine, but don't even expect that load to hit the target frame at 600 until you try it there.

[45 2.1]

I've experienced something else and I know of another here that has had the same thing. A load that up to 3-4-500 yds just shoots absolutely scarily accurat, yet when you go to the next distance won't even stay on target , and some rounds won't even thro dirt in the field of view of the spotting scope.
That's why my previuos statement a while back about a person has to render the loads for what he/she wants out of em. If the best you'll ever do is bust a disc blade at 300 from a bench, that's fine, but don't even expect that load to hit the target frame at 600 until you try it there.

I can appreciate what you just said, but wind and light play a big factor in what you hit, that is you or your spotter being able to discern just what you should do next..... thats where luck comes in as sometimes you have no idea what happened. Not getting an answer to the previous question, I would assume that none of you in this thread is one of them national championship winners. And I do understand about competition, some things are common to all types.

[Don McDowell]

45 2.1 there is absolutely NO luck involved. If you or your spotter miss a wind call it's usually a miss and thats that. It do or die.
I'm going to assume you've not shot any competition?
At Alliance 2 weeks ago during the buffalo match Sunday the wind changed fack and forth from needing 5+ minutes right to 3 plus minute left, and sometimes that happened before you could pull the trigger. One of the perrenial top finisher said it best when he said he was going home and rigging a cordless screw driver to his windage adjusment knobs.
During the long range match it took more windage than some folks had on their sights (me included) just to get on target at the 7 and 800 yd targets, at the 1000 yd line I finally found a tire off to the side I could hold on and get on target, by the time we hit the 900 target the sun was out the target had jumped and the wind was fishtailing from straightbehind to 90 degrees right.
LUCK? not a friggin bit, it took skill and experience.
NO Sir there's absolutely no luck involved you either do it or don't.

[45 2.1]

LUCK? not a friggin bit, it took skill and experience.
NO Sir there's absolutely no luck involved you either do it or don't.

Well.... I have been in a lot of different types of competition, some of which was long range rifle.... but none of it in BPCR. The others had the same problems with all the weather/light related problems and i've had the pleasure of shooting with national record holders in those sports. These men related some very interesting ideas and methods..........but when asked, none of them said there was no luck invovled. Perhaps your in need of some.

[Don McDowell]

Oh I coul use some luck alright, but not for my shooting.
So what competitions and where did you shoot?
Leadpot is not far from you he's got a stack of trophies from various smokeless venues, and has no small share of awards from various bpcr events.While we've joked about "luck" we all know luck really didn't play a part.
R Mulhern holds some records in Highpower and Palma, and in the many conversations we've had luck hasn't come into the shooting thing.
A very good friend of mine from Mattison shoots a good bit of highpower, and in all the conversations we've had luck seldom comes into shooting competition talk. Been working on him to jump into the bpcr game , after all I did buy his spare M1 match garand from him.... Lobbing a bullet into a braggin size buck deer now, that's different deal...
Kenney W besides the titles he's managed in bpcr represented our state quite well in highpower, and I'm pretty sure he'll not mention anything about luck, at least not with any seriousness in his voice....
So hows about it you going to proffer any proof to your words , or just keep the post count rolling?

[SharpsShooter]

This is a great thread. Bore vs groove. In my rolling block, the groove diameter is .455' while the bore is .450 My PP mould, a Tom Ballard adjustable gives me a perfectly round .450 bullet. I only shoot black powder, so patching to bore won't happen. I patched to .453 which is not groove diameter either, thereby breaking both rules. I compressed the powder to a seating depth of .500" and seated the diapered lead on top. I straightened the bell an d took them shooting. Cleaning with 1 wet, 1 dry with no magic elixirs or incantations produced this




Point it, the rules.......don't always apply


SS

[45 2.1]

Oh I coul use some luck alright, but not for my shooting.

This was a great thread till you got confrontational...............
So you don't need luck..... OK, thats fine, now answer me this "Why haven't you won a national". You made the crack and avoided the question. A fella that doesn't need luck especially for his shooting should have no excuse then. You put both legs into your pants at once too.
A lot of home grown boys did local things because they weren't rolling in money or had obligations that prevented them from doing so. Not every one that is good gets to try to prove it at some high end event. To say anything else denotes snobbery.

[Don McDowell]

SS a friend of mine shoots that same bullet in his lonestar roller, He meets limited success at 1000 yds with it.
I have a 400 baco mould that the bullet won't shoot worth a flip (yet) thru the 40-65, but even at the .408 patched diameter it shoots real well at 300 yds in the 405 with its .4115 groove using smokeless. Even managed to scratch a couple hits on the 800 yd buff at Alliance NE just practicing with it, but blew a patch and leaded the bore something fierce and have not returned to those since I got the barrel back to strictly molysteel content....

[RMulhern]

As for 'luck'....just let me add this little tidbit of info! I love watching Keith (Doc) Lay shoot long range because Doc is one HARD HOLDER for certain, he's meticulous to the inth degree, takes notes, and once he gets home enroute from here...I'm quite certain he's going over in his mind how the day went for ascertaining zeros, paying attention to his sight settings as how they possibly coincided with the days wind/mirage, temp, etc. Doc shot 800 yards all day long here from about 1030 hrs. up until around 1830 hrs. when we got run off by a huge thunder cell so he went through a good bit of ammo. During one of his strings I was watching....he had a less than 10 ring (20") size group working and about 3/4 the way through that string, up jumped the 'booger bear' with a hit completely off the 44" aiming bull, the hit occurring up at the 2 o/c position about 8" off the bull!! I asked him how that one broke and Doc replied "Right down the middle...it was a good break"! My comment was "Doc...this is what drives me bonkers about shooting BPCR! You can have everything going exactly right and with no visible wind/mirage change....you'll have a totally unexplained shot that goes off the map!" Doc just grinned...and kept shooting! The next round was back into the 10 ring! Now...was that an 'unlucky shot'? That I can't say but knowing Doc and his marksmanship ability what I will appraise it as is 'a naturally occurring phenomenon' that goes along with shooting all-lead cast bullets! Personally I believe I can cast bullets as good as anyone but in the final analysis...even though one may take the time to weigh each bullet fired in a match and have all say within.....2/10 gr. of each other...the fact still remains that we don't have an X-Ray tool that will allow us to go in an examine the inner core of the bullet! So if any individual thereby expects to plop every round exactly where you want all to go....well...I think that is a false hope! You do the best that you can and hope for the best! From watching scores from those whom win matches over the previous years I would make this analogy: "Of all BPCR matches fired across the USA each year, gong or Creedmoor less than 5% of all shooters will win 90% of all the matches"!! This DOES NOT OCCUR from chance; rather it comes about because of a regular regimentation of training, by paying attention to a hard-core set of iron-clad rules pertaining to marksmanship that are unyielding in nature! It does not come about through luck or chance!

[Don McDowell]

Confrontational??? no not hardly. If simply asking you for some inkling of your stated abilities and wins is confrontational.....
I stated clearly the reasons for My not winning. Lack of trigger time the last few years has really kept me from any real respectable finishes.
Don't even pretend the poor boy **** with me, I'm living well below the poverty level , and all the shooting I've done in the past two years has come from supplies laid in in the good years, and the number of shoots I've attended have been way more limited than I would like. I am a rancher and alot of the shoots I would love to attend don't coincide worth a damn with things that need done around here.
Matter of fact I've missed Kenny's creedmoor the last two years, and son it's not a long distance call to his house on the ranch...
I've not been shy about posting the results of shoots I participate in, no matter what my final finish score. Matter of fact I plainly and clearly state prior to any shoot I attend , " someone is going to have to work really hard at shooting sxxty to kick me out of last place.
No 45 2.1 there's no confrontation here, just merely a trust but verify. Anybody can make great claims on the keyboard as to they're shooting ability, putting it up for the world to see and judge is another matter...

[Lead pot]

45 2.1

Where do you shoot, what range??

Kurt

[45 2.1]

45 2.1

Where do you shoot, what range??

Kurt

I shoot at home........... Southern Illinois

[SharpsShooter]

SS a friend of mine shoots that same bullet in his lonestar roller, He meets limited success at 1000 yds with it.
..

No chance to shoot beyond 550 yards short of a 2-3 hour drive. I want to see if it will hold up out to 500 and I can be happy. To use it for white tails around here...250 yards is longish shot and I suspect it will be fine. I don't have the inclination to shoot competitively, but bang & clang buff shoots would be lots of fun. All my point was that the rules can be bent and still have a good shooter.


SS

[Don McDowell]

SS yessir that bullet should make a grand hunting bullet.
Most all of the shoots I do are the "gong" shoots. and I'll be the first to tell ya , don't try it don't even get close to one, they are as addictive as anything you'll ever get into...
Paper shoots are alright, if you're busy shooting, watching one has the attraction of watching paint dry on a wet cold concrete wall....
And yes I'm in full agreement, the rules can be broken in this bullet game. That's exactly what goes with my patched rounds in the 405. .004 final size under groove and smokeless shoots great, now all the expertise gathered will tell you that won't even work.....

[montana_charlie]

Anybody can make great claims on the keyboard as to they're shooting ability, putting it up for the world to see and judge is another matter...

For Don,
A couple of pages back you asked to see one of my targets. I posted a link. You did not respond.
I presume it didn't impress you enough to spend time talking about it, and that's fine. It wasn't terribly impressive, anyway.

Since then, you have voiced a desire several times to see more of my shooting results, but your 'wish' is comingled with those little disparaging asides like 'busting rocks'...'minute of five gallon bucket'...and 'snowbanks'.
It's fairly obvious you will stubbornly remain unimpressed until you see a MOA group fired at 700 yards or more.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I am not ready to try the long ranges, yet.

For everyone else,
There is a tenant of long range shooting that most BPCR types admit to. It is that a good group fired at a hundred yards may fall apart when the distance increases to 'whatever' yards.
Some even go so far as to say that a 'small group' at 100 actually doesn't prove anything.

Well, it proves the bullets are all going the same direction, and they are stable at that range...if the holes are round.

When the range increases, little things start to matter.
A low velocity may have been good enough at 100, but might be totally inadequate for 'whatever'.
An imperfection in the bullet may cause it to go haywire after it's been airborne long enough for the fins, or wasp waist, or slumped nose, or bad base, to have it's effect.
Then, there's the possibility that the bullet design is simply wrong for longer ranges.

The purpose of this thread is to explore the mechanics of patching bullets to groove diameter...and to find out if those mechanics will produce a flying bullet which is free from imperfections caused inside the chamber/throat/bore.
The method works, and photos prove it.

That does not say that other methods don't work, nor that they are not as good.
What it does say is that, if you are having problems with 'damaged' bullets while patching to bore, there is another option to consider.
If you don't know whether your bullets are damaged or not, then you must depend solely on performance on the target to satisfy yourself that they aren't.
If the performance is not there...you would find a snowbank to be informative.

The bullet I am using is known to be a 1000-yard capable design.
It is my belief that, if it can do well at 100 yards, it can be made to do well at any range...if it gets out undamaged, and with sufficient velocity.

I plan to 'develop' my load to achieve long range accuracy, for my own enjoyment, but there is nothing I need to prove to anybody in that regard.

Shooters who have exhibited their 1000-yard expertise have already proven this bullet will do the job. I have only proven that it's possible to use a different patching method to drive it out of the bore...undamaged...from a chamber that is not very well designed for paper patching.

That is why I started the thread...


And, Don,
As soon as this is posted, I will be leaving for Shonkin, Montana to help with a branding. It is an annual obligation that I have been satisfying for thirty-three years. I help them and they help me.
Because I am committed to being there, I cannot attend the BPCR shoot in Great Falls tomorrow...which I was hoping to make this year.

CM

[Don McDowell]

Well Maxwell as I see you are still on line as I post this.
No I have not seen a target from you that would indicate any thing but some generalized blasting.Would be interesting to see something a person could digest rather than random shots here and there....
As to my so called "disparraging" remarks. I'm sure you've seen my mention of the 500 yd bathtub, 800 yd kerosene tank, and the 1000 yd fuel barrel. I may not have ever mentioned the 200 yd kitchen stove I regularly shoot at. Also this granite and marble found in this country is pretty tough stuff. Have a clump of yucca that catches what for on occasion when I'm tring to get wind adjusments before I fire on paper......
As to the bit about a bullet shooting well at 100 and no good further out. Yup pretty sure someone has already covered that. Also that same someone mentioned that tailoring the load to what you have in mind of shooting to......

Have fun branding. Always good to help friends and family.
Maybe someday you'll grace us with your presence at a shoot, be good to put a face to the name once anyways.

[Red River Rick]

MC:

Did you get a chance to cast any boolits from that new mould and try them? Just wondering!

RRR

[montana_charlie]

MC:

Did you get a chance to cast any boolits from that new mould and try them? Just wondering!

I have a batch loaded up, and I hope to shoot them today.
CM