Will this work... or is it going to rearrange my face?

[webradbury]

This is my first entry into the world of black powder paper patching. 45-70 with 70 grains of Goex ffg compressed 1/4". Then a .030 fiber wad and a 1/8" lube cookie. the projectile is a 520 gn .441 paper patch bullet from an accurate mold wrapped in nine pound onion skin which brings it up to .449. This is hand seated to about 3/16" and then a slight taper crimp.
70046
It chambers like a dream... very smooth and I can feel the patched projectile slide right into place in the bore... just a tiny bit of resistance. I extracted the cartridge just as easily and the lands leave no marks on the paper.

I just wanted to run it by the pros before I drop the hammer on this one.

[country gent]

Should work okay. You may want to add a second wad over the grease cookie to isolate the paper from the lube also. Looks good other wise.

[webradbury]

Gotcha

[country gent]

Recovered patches will tell you alot. Have someone watch the muzzle foreward from behind you and slighlty off to the side. They are watching for the confetti/base wrap and where it is coming off the bullet. The first wrap will normally come of in strips or confetti cut by the riflings, the under wrap and fold under could be intact.On a calm day you should find the patches 5-10 ft in front of the muzzle and the wads 15-30 ft out. Watch for a grease starforming At the muzzle. depending on barrel length 1/8" may not be enough to keep fouling soft. Give the barrel 2 -3 long deep breaths with a blow tube between shots also will help to keep moisture in the fouling.

[RMulhern]

Might work even better if....when extracted you could see land marks ON THE PATCH!! When the patched bullet is only seated very shallow into the case....say .125" to .150" and using a very light taper crimp....the bullet WILL NOT on most occasions be concentric with the overall length or center-line of the case, however.....the benefit of having the outside diameter of the patched bullet engraving upon the lands and seated shallow helps to ensure that the patched bullet will line up concentric with the bore. It's the nearest thing to using the 'breech-seated' method of shooting!

[Rattus58]

This is my first entry into the world of black powder paper patching. 45-70 with 70 grains of Goex ffg compressed 1/4". Then a .030 fiber wad and a 1/8" lube cookie. the projectile is a 520 gn .441 paper patch bullet from an accurate mold wrapped in nine pound onion skin which brings it up to .449. This is hand seated to about 3/16" and then a slight taper crimp.
70046
It chambers like a dream... very smooth and I can feel the patched projectile slide right into place in the bore... just a tiny bit of resistance. I extracted the cartridge just as easily and the lands leave no marks on the paper.

I just wanted to run it by the pros before I drop the hammer on this one.520 grain is 520 grains... and that is what the stories of recoil is made of... however... a lot of it is also going to be determined by how much weight the bullet is pushing.. the lighter the rifle the more the push. I shoot this exact load, except 3f/Pyro P and a good recoil pad solves all problems... :grin:

[webradbury]

I still haven't had a chance to get to the range...hopefully Friday morning, though. I am going to do some loading tomorrow morning and I am probably going to revamp my wads and lube a bit to get the bullet a little further inside the case.

As far as recoil, I have shot some 500 grain GG boolits with 70 grains of the same powder and it will definitely wake you up...even with the rifle weighing 12 pounds! It's ok though, I'm that guy that is chuckling while getting up off the ground spitting up blood.

RMulhern, I am going to check again for any marks from the lands on the patch. The bullet slipped into the bore with some resistance and seems to me it would probably line up pretty well. I might try to put something on the patch that the lands might remove so I could see for sure. Thanks, Bradbury

[Gunlaker]

I wouldn't bother seating it deeper. Just make sure you have a wad on top of the lube cookie and shoot them :-)

I think you'll be pleased with how well they work. My CSA 1874 sounds like it's about the same weight as yours and I load that one with 83gr of Goex FFg Express. The recoil is quite tolerable for long strings and certainly a lot less than shooting 105gr in my .45-110.

A snug fit on the bullet is nice for sure if you can get there with your bullet/paper combo, although I've had surprisingly good accuracy from a bullet that is 0.001" under bore diameter.

Chris.

[webradbury]

Ok, I'm not knew to reloading but I am just getting started with this whole REALLY nice rifle and BP cartridge loading so I feel I should ask. Are the powder amounts in these loads described here and elsewhere on the forum measured by volume or weight. I think I remember reading that the original 45-70 loads were volumetric. Is this a dumb question?

[Gunlaker]

I go by weight and I believe that the majority of target shooters do too these days.

EDIT: either way, don't worry too much about the charge weight, just fill the case leaving just enough room for wads and bullet seated to the depth Rick mentioned. Once you get the PP bullets shooting some sort of group then you can start fiddling with charge weights and some compression if needed.

Chris.

[Don McDowell]

Ok, I'm not knew to reloading but I am just getting started with this whole REALLY nice rifle and BP cartridge loading so I feel I should ask. Are the powder amounts in these loads described here and elsewhere on the forum measured by volume or weight. I think I remember reading that the original 45-70 loads were volumetric. Is this a dumb question?

Weight, even back in the 1870's the Sharps and Remington catalogs lectured the readers on the importance of carefully weighed charges for the best accuracy. Sharps in their last catalog even gave conversion tables from apothecary to grains.
Volumetric stuff never really entered into the realm of blackpowder shooting much , until the advent of Pyrodex, and the weight vs volume thing has confused the snot out of some folks ever since.

[RMulhern]

I still haven't had a chance to get to the range...hopefully Friday morning, though. I am going to do some loading tomorrow morning and I am probably going to revamp my wads and lube a bit to get the bullet a little further inside the case.

As far as recoil, I have shot some 500 grain GG boolits with 70 grains of the same powder and it will definitely wake you up...even with the rifle weighing 12 pounds! It's ok though, I'm that guy that is chuckling while getting up off the ground spitting up blood.

RMulhern, I am going to check again for any marks from the lands on the patch. The bullet slipped into the bore with some resistance and seems to me it would probably line up pretty well. I might try to put something on the patch that the lands might remove so I could see for sure. Thanks, Bradbury

Powdered graphite!!

[Kenny Wasserburger]

The .441 bullet and a thicker paper giving a patched sizeof .447-.448 will give great hunting accuracy too 300 yards. Been there done it, dead buffalo to prove it.

However if your wanting nats *** accuracy and keeping em in the black at 800 to 1000 yards. A .444 or better yet a .446 bullet with 8# seth cole tracing paper patched up to .451 will give you world class accuracy, best groups in match conditons was 2008 5@200 Pedersoli Challenge match. 1.336 inches. Still the world Paper Patch record for that match. Have two such Trophies from this match both shot with PP and a scoped 45-110 Shiloh Sharps with 108 and 110.8 grs of Fg Goex Express compressed on order of .385 and 3 wads under the Paper patched bullet.

KW
The Lunger

[Digital Dan]

How ya doin' KW?;-)