pp'ing homemade boolits in Uberti 1885.

[littlejack]

Hay fellas:
Now that I have the Uberti shooting very well with the greaser boolits, I want to
play around with my homemade pp boolits.
I am not equipped to post photos yet, so bare with my discription.
The boolit drops as a cylinder with a nose shape of the SAECO mould #265.
This shape, is because it is the way I ground the drill bit, and nothing intentional.
The base is flat, and a weight of 520 with 20-1 alloy.
Patched, the diameter is .450 front bore riding section, and .451 at the base. Again not intentional, just how it lapped out.
This is with 100% cotton rag paper.
The rifle (Uberti Hiwall) has the standard chamber. That is to say
(as I understand it), for pp boolits, one needs to have a pp chamber. Correct me
if I am wrong.
I loaded up 20 rounds a couple of days ago. Procedure was as follows.
Dropped powder. 10 with 70 grns; 10 with 75 grns. Goex 2F.
Placed one .030 card wad, compressed.
Placed one 1/8"wool felt wad soaked in Emmerts recipe.
Placed another .030 card wad.
Placed one newsprint paper over wad.
Finger seated patched boolit to a depth of .300. This left .750 of the boolit with
the bore riding diameter, plus the nose.
The boolits were definately contacting the rifling all around, it took force to
chamber the cartridge and close the action.
When firing, had to wipe the chamber after each shot, to clear the fouling for
next round.
Questions.
Is there any thing I can leave out of the loading procedure, or add to the loading
procedure.
I believe I am putting too many wads (not necessary) on top of the powder
charge.
Would a grease cookie be better than a grease wad, (one soaked in lube)?
What is the best procedure for cleaning the bore between shots?
The best group at 100 yards was about 3.5". I did not retreave the targets.
The 70 grain loads grouped the better than the 75 grn. load.
All advice and recomendations will be will be gladly appreciated.
Jack

[Don McDowell]

No you don't need a "paper patch" chamber.
Might try seating a little deeper. Might also try seating a little shallower..
Make sure you don't crimp

For wiping I've taken to using a 2 1/2 inch patch damp with Sagebrush extreme cleaner pushed thru the bore on the front end of a nylon brush mounted on a delron wiping rod.

[littlejack]

Thanks a bunch Don.
Will try your suggestions both ways, deeper and shallower.
About the wads and cookies, am I doing it correctly?
I do have a 5/16" nylon rod. Works great. Do you run a dry patch after the damp one?
Thanks again Don.

[Don McDowell]

Jack in the end there is no right or wrong way, there is however the way that you and your rifle can get along well with.
I use a .060 fiber wad and then the 1/8 lubed felt wad and then a .030.
I've also had some interesting results loading as per Remingtons instruction circa 1875. Charge the case seat the bullet , wipe the patch with a drop of spremicitti (jojoba oil is a good replacement since spermwhales aren't easily found) then wipe the excess oil off the patch and the case.By interesting results I mean I was able to keep about 50% of the rounds fired at targets at 565 yds and 404 yds in a really shifty and gusty crosswind.
One thing I got to thinking about tho is your bullet may be just a tad to long for the twist in your rifle.
Just keep on fiddlin with the thing, try a longer and shorter patch , and try different amounts of fold under the bullet base.
With your 3.5 inch groups, you're certainly close to a bell ringer, just finding the last touch to tighten those up is the trick.

[littlejack]

OK Don. I will keep playin with it. It ios a lot of fun getting them to shoot right.
Thanks again the for the help.
Jack