Grease cookie

[Beekeeper]

Is a grease cookie necessary when you are shooting P/P?
Was at the range the other day and a BP long range shooter was there trying out some new P/P boolits.
We talked and his answer was never use a grease cookie with P/P as the boolit itself never touches the barrel.Thought he was wrong but held my tongue and decided to ask someone here.

Reason for asking is as in a diferent post I asked about fouling and someone said to up the charge.
Kinda hard in a 43 Mauser bottleneck case without compression.
Have been told here and have read several times "Never compress BP in a bottleneck case " so am leary of doing it.
Best I can get in the case and still use a grease cookie is 70 grains and still get it to chamber.

Any advice or ideas accepted!


beekeeper

[montana_charlie]

Is a grease cookie necessary when you are shooting P/P?
Was at the range the other day and a BP long range shooter was there trying out some new P/P boolits.
We talked and his answer was never use a grease cookie with P/P as the boolit itself never touches the barrel.Thought he was wrong but held my tongue and decided to ask someone here.
The lube (grease) on a grease grooved bullet has two jobs. It reduces the chance of leaving lead in the bore, and it softens the black powder residue left in the bore.

The purpose of the grease cookie under a PP bullet is only to keep the powder fouling soft because the lead is unable to touch the barrel steel.
If you wipe the bore between shots, you remove the fouling, and softening is not required. I bet the PP guy at the range was wiping ... no?

CM

[Chicken Thief]

Problem with no lube is rock-hard fouling, and that will rip the next paper jacket.
Lube + moisture = soft fouling.

So either wipe clean after each shot or: Lube cookie and blow tube, or else precision goes south in a handbasket, fast!

[.22-10-45]

Hello, BeeKeeper. When Sharps brought out their .45-100 2.6" for 1000yd. Creedmoor shooting..they were loaded with a lubricating disk under the P.P. bullet.
Later, when the marksmen found it more reliable to clean between shots, Sharps brought out the .45 2.4" case (the so-called .45-90)..the extra space for the grease wad wasn't needed. Don't know if the hunters prefered the longer case, as they undoubtedly did not want to have to swab after each shot & would have to give up some powder room if a grease cookie were used.

[Nobade]

I know my own rifle, a C. Sharps 45-70, will not shoot for beans with fixed PP ammo and no grease cookie. But it is quite accurate with one, actually two 1/8" felt lubricated wads with a .030" card on either side. Now if it is muzzle loaded with enough powder to get the bullet past the throat then it shoots well either way. The wads must be stopping gas blowby going through the throat. Plus I can keep shooting and not have to wipe between shots with the lube wads. Of course I have to wipe between shots if no lube is used.

[Lead pot]

I checked out a lot of PP loads with and with out using lube wads. One can use loads with out a lube wad but you have to work up a proper wad stack to keep the gas from passing by to keep from gas cuts cutting the bullet base.
A single card wad under the bullet wont do the job 100%. I find more bullets that look like a mouse nibbled at the bullet base or the whole shank wall is eroded out.
If you work out a proper wad combination and material it will work very good with out a lube wad.

Alloy composition plays a big part also helping to seal the bore.

[Nobade]

Good advice there Lead Pot, I haven't spent much time trying to get lube-less PP ammo to work. Now that I have Dan T's reamer I need to get that dedicated PP 45-70 going so I can start working with PP a little more seriously. I have a lot to learn!

[Beekeeper]

Does anyone have ideas or advice about compression in a bottleneck case.
Have always read it is a no-no
Do not think I can increase charge without it ( at least not very much).


beekeeper

[Grapeshot]

Does anyone have ideas or advice about compression in a bottleneck case.
Have always read it is a no-no
Do not think I can increase charge without it ( at least not very much).


beekeeper

When the Brits first came out with the .303 Lee-Metford, the case had a compressed pellet of BP dropped into the case prior to forming the neck and shoulder and then the bullet was loaded in the case.

I see no reason not to compress the powder in a BN case. You compress the powder in the .44-40 and .38-40 and they are BN cases.

[Seth Hawkins]

BN cases are no different. I shoot a .44-77 BN and compress the powder at will.

[powderburnerr]

like seth I use 75 gns of 1F and it comes 1/2 way up the neck with a drop tube I compress it to the base of the neck and add my goodies and the bullet , after three shotds the barrel does not change all day............literaly

[jbrower]

Well, the British definitely used a grease cookie in the 577/450 which certainly qualifies as a bottleneck, paper-patched cartridge. I reload 43 Mauser too but with GG'd bullets so I don't know about PP'd loads with them. If Germany used them, I'd try to find out what the Germans used. Certainly they did plenty of experimentation to find out what worked and what didn't.

[cgtreml]

I'm new at this black powder cartridge stuff so here is my problem. I load a 44.77 in an original rolling block. Bore and chamber are damn near perfect. The problem I have is there is so much fouling that I have to wipe between shots or I can't chamber the next round. Do you guys think a grease cookie would cure this??? By the way 75 grains of FF, fiber wad and a 340 grain bullet. Fairly accurate but needs work.

[powderburnerr]

you are not building good pressure with that light bullet load , you need to build the correct pressure to get a clean burn, a heavier bullet would be a good start if you have one ,, dont know about the grease cookie and a gg bullet , it might help hold the pressure in,
Just as an example I shoot a 405 pp and it is not as clean as the same load with a 500 gn bullet in the 44-77

[kokomokid]

cgtreml: We shoot at so many matches with triple digit temp and near single digit rh that wiping between shots has become a good thing. Still less fouling is better and heavy bullet helps. Try a different primer and powder combo. The KIK powder we are using is nasty to drop tube but is shooting pretty clean. Try a .100 lube cookie and see if it works.

[montana_charlie]

The KIK powder we are using is nasty to drop tube
Can you expand on that?

CM

[kokomokid]

CM;Guess maybe it is the graphite but sure puts me to sneezing and leaves a powder coat on the brass rim.

[montana_charlie]

CM;Guess maybe it is the graphite but sure puts me to sneezing and leaves a powder coat on the brass rim.
Thanks for the explanation.
I've never been tempted to 'sock' a can of powder, but KIK might benefit from doing it.

CM