348 to 358?

[stocker]

A friend and I have assorted .348 moulds that cast flat nose boolits from 210 to 275 grains. They variously drop from .348-.350. We also have 35 Whelen rifles. As a winter undertaking we are considering paper patching the 348's to shoot in our Whelens which have .358 bores. Does it seem reasonable to attempt a .010 boolit diameter increase and get decent accuracy? Neither of us have paper patched previously and just trying to do a bit of homework before we attempt it. Thanks.

[303Guy]

That would be perfect. Lined notepad paper would do it. Printer paper would give about .015 diameter increase which might be an option for a tight throat fit if needed. Give it a go. There's nothing to lose and everything to gain. (Fun wise!)

[stocker]

Thanks 303. We thought it might work with a bit of experimenting. We have hunting loads in mind in the 2200-2500 FPS range as well as target work. Should be fun.

[geargnasher]

Check the fit of some of your different "as cast" boolit styles the muzzle of one of your rifles, hopefully they will be just a fuzz larger than the bore diameter. If you can push them in there with your thumb and the lands leave shiny marks that's a good place to start. I'd also say 16-lb paper would be a minimum to get the thickness you need to patch up, might need somethign heavier but you'll just have to "'spearment"!

Gear

[stocker]

gear: That preliminary fit method is a good tip that we will check on. Alternately we could size to get that fit I would think.Funny how one things leads to another. It has occured to me that my 314299 which does drop at a "fat" .314 might be a good candidate to patch for my Brno 22h in 8 x57 which has a "tight" .323 groove diameter.

[pdawg_shooter]

Slug your bore and size .001/.0015 over BORE diameter. Two wraps of 16# will give you right at .010 if you patch wet and use a lot of stretch as I do. Lube, and size to .001/.003 over groove diameter. Use a powder that will give close to 100% load density. Match you BHN to the velocity you are aiming for and go a shooten!

[flounderman]

I tried 338 patched for 348 and accuracy the first time would have been good enough to hunt with. not as good as I would like, but for the first time, looked like with some tinkering, it would be possible. I didn't size the patched bullets, rubbed some lee alox lube on them. it shines the barrel up and it is a pointed bullet. rifle is siamese mauser and most if not all 348 moulds are for lever action and flat nosed.

[pdawg_shooter]

That is the beauty of paper patching. I sarted by patching up .308 jacketed to work in an old 8mm Mauser with a .318 groove diameter. Got an old wall hanger back into the field.

[Nobade]

I have one of the BRP moulds that are designed to do exactly what you want. It casts out at .351" and 215 grains with grease grooves. Either shoot it in a 348, a 35 cal. muzzleloader, or paper patch it for 35 cal. centerfires. I just wish I had bought the heavier designs when they were available too!

[stocker]

I finally got to the range yesterday to test a series of loads using a 265 grain NEI boolit and a a 245 grain Mountain moulds bullet. The MM mould did not prove suitable for use in a M71 as the nose diameter was too large for the short throat in those rifles.

As it turned out that fat nose made a much better condition for use as apatched bullet for the Whelen. It constantly provided better groups than the 265 NEI which did not reach a good nose bore ride/contact diameter when patched.

I loaded both bullets with no gas check attached and identical loads with gas checks. Two types of paper, lined note book and Hilroy writing tablet paper. Both are close to .003 thick. The former is relatively weak by comparison to the latter. Patched wet and let dry, ran them through a .360 sizer applying light layer of CRed over the lube grooves.

End result quickly is that the boolits without gas checks shot very poorly, 8* spreads. With gas checks 5 shot groups ranged from 1.1" to 1.5" all at 50 yards.

As this was a first attempt I am not discourgaed at all as 4 of 6 combinations tested would do well for hunting at moderate ranges. All boolits were from a 60WW/40Pb/2Sn alloy and tested at BHN 11/12. Velocity should be in the 2100-2200 range for them all. There is probably opportunity to speed them up a bit more with this alloy. The only powders used were Re7 (42 grs) and IMR 4895 (47grs) with identical loads for both boolit weights. A convenient but not necessarily the best way to do it. The IMR 4895 loads were consistently more accurate and will not likely use Re7 again. Thinking of 4831 with PSB to test some more of the unchecked boolits.

Will do some more work and in partciular will examine use of base wads and/or PSB filler to see if the boolits without gas checks can be made to work better.

After nearly 50 rounds yesterday my shoulder is telling me these loads have considerably more authority than the loads I use with unpatched boolits.

[geargnasher]

You're already on the track I would suggest next, but skip the gas checks. If everything is close to right you won't need them. Just twist the tail over the base and let the twisted knot of paper make a paper wad on the base, and press the knot flat when you bottom the boolit in the sizer. I'd also try a really slow powder. The .35 has a different expansion ratio than .30-'06, but I have great luck with Reloder 22 and Winchester 780 Supreme, nice and clean burning in the '06. You might need a bit faster powder than those in the .35 Whelen, but the really slow stuff might still be worth a try. Start with copper-jacketed bullet starting load data for similar weight bullets if you can find any. Making a compressed powder load with enough PSB to at least half fill the shoulder area or even go to the shoulder/neck junction works well in the .30 caliber version of this cartridge.

I'm eyeing a used Savage 200 .270 with intent to rebarrel in .35 Whelen, perhaps soon I'll be able to share some firsthand input.

Gear

[stocker]

geargnasher: That is how the tails were done. Disappointing to say the least after reading references. Pretty long throat in this rifle. May be damaging the base paper before it gets into the lands. Will be experimenting for a bit. Slower powder may be the key.

[geargnasher]

If the patched boolit isn't seated so that it's tight against the ball seat when chambered, it can leak gas before the front band moves enough to get fully engraved and seal the bore. Gas leaks can damage the patch, particularly on the base band. Compacting filler helps prevent this gas early gas leakage as well. The usual advice for a minimum clearance between chamber neck and loaded case neck, and boolit to throat fit applies too, of course.

Gear

[bcp477]

[QUOTE=stocker;1404245]gear: That preliminary fit method is a good tip that we will check on. Alternately we could size to get that fit I would think.Funny how one things leads to another. It has occured to me that my 314299 which does drop at a "fat" .314 might be a good candidate to patch for my Brno 22h in 8 x57 which has a "tight" .323 groove diameter.[/QUOTE0.


0.314" is exactly where I start, for my 8 x 57. Two wraps of lined notebook paper makes it about 0.3243 +/-. I then tumble lube with LLA and run them through a Lee 0.323" sizer. Irons out any wrinkles in the patch and smoothly spreads the lube. After "snap back", the final diameter comes out at about 0.3235" . That works perfectly for my Mauser, which has a bore dim. of 0.3138" and a groove of about 0.3228" . As for seating depth/ COA length, I simply seat to 1 bullet diameter. This gives an overall length (with the bullets I use - 174 grain flat-point) of about 2.85". The chamber will take up to about 3.10" overall, so this is rather short (with a big jump to the lands). However, it doesn't seem to be a problem, as I get good accuracy (1.5" or better at 100 yds, all day long). More than good enough for hunting, anyway.

Don't worry about flat-point lever action bullets. These are actually an advantage for hunting - more effective than plain round nose or spire points, for that matter - as long as the shooting distances are modest (say 200 yards or less). Of course, at long ranges, flat-points do lose velocity at a faster rate than more aerodynamic designs...and thus have a steeper trajectory.

[stocker]

geargnasher: The loaded rounds get a good land imprint on the forward 3/16 inch of the paper. Any further out and closing the bolt requires too much effort. Don't think the ball seat is a factor. Will advise how the slower powder with compacted PSB topping goes in a week or so. It's snowing hard up here right now.

BCP; flat points are my choice for pretty much everything, bolt or lever. Nothing new there. Your 8mm groove sounds much like mine but with my micrometer I would have to guess at the .0000 level- so I call it a "tight" .323 and a "fat" .314 for the boolit referred to.

[6.5 mike]

You might also try folding the base of the boolit, 4 or 5 folds close up very well. I've had good results with a number of sizes this way. I think this protects the boolit base better.

I cut my patchs long enough to nearly cover the base after wrapping, then fold them under. After this is done I set them base down in the fac trays I get from the range, then set another full tray on top, helps keep the base fold flat.

This has worked from 25 cal up to 45 cal. Most of this is done with tracing paper, but it does work with notebook & printer papers. I have not tryed it with anything heavier, yet.

[MBTcustom]

Not trying to confuse you or add more variables to your project, just want to mention a few things that I have found through a lot of testing.
I guess the first thing I want to tell you is that I found that having an even and consistent patch length boolit to boolit helped me pull together some groups with PP. I firmly believe that if you were to unwrap all of your PP boolits and lay all the patches side by side, that you would see a big difference in patch length and the trailing edges of your patches would look like a rat bit through them (that is if you twist and clip). I believe that when you are shooting at higher velocities and pressures, that your patch must be exactly consistent for each boolit on the base. There are two ways that I know of that you can make this happen, one is the fold method like 6.5 mike suggests, if you do it that way you must fold them the same way, with the same overlap every time. The other way is to "roll" the edge of the patch over the back of the boolit like 303guy does. I personally subscribe to this method. Even though there is an exposed "dot" on the base of the boolit, I cannot see any difference in performance. (That is, I see much better accuracy, but no leading.) You can see both of us make patches in this way on this sticky thread:http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=135957
The other thing that I would like to pass on to you is that my testing indicates that, in addition to consistent length, the actual overall length of the patch makes a huge differance in accuracy. I theorized that one should "tune" the patch length to the barrel and load combo to make the paper just strong enough to get out of the barrel. If the paper is too strong (ie. too long) it will cause inaccuracy. I was seeing long strips of paper flipping off the boolit as it left the barrel on some loads, while on others I was seeing nothing but a bunch of fibers blow out the end of the barrel, and had leading in the last inch or two of my barrel.
To tune the patch length I made a special tool to trim the patches to specific lengths. I made the patch short enough that just the leading edge is pressed into the rifling. I adjusted it until I got the patch to blow out like dust but no leading. Here's a link where I show my tool and others show how to make one on the cheap: http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=122856
What I found is that accuracy demanded that both of these points work together to provide a consistent launch for the boolit. Everything must be the same every time and some methods lend themselves to perfection more than others.
Good luck and dont get discouraged! Working up a PP load is educational and time consuming but there is no better feeling than finally getting it right.

[6.5 mike]

Goodsteel has a very valid point about patch lenghts being consistent, if not by only a little, the boolit may not engrave at the same point when chambered. This may effect how it starts down the bore, or allow gas cutting around the boolit.

Right now most of my patching is with single shots, sharps & hiwalls. I cast, wrap & load my cases, then all are cycled though the action checking for fit. What I'm looking for is that all of them have the same 'feel' when chambered, this tells me each round is engraving the same way every time. I thumb set each before firing.
This will also work with a contender or others of this type.

A bolt gun is a little harder to learn the 'feel' in. Those that I use are mostly mausers or something that is easy to remove the firing pin in, without the extra weight it's easier to feel the patched boolit engrave. Does take some trial & a bunch of error,lol. Dummy rounds are you friend.

Stick with it, your trip has just begun. It really is great when it all comes together.