Two steps foreward, three steps back. Good thing easy isnt as much fun as a challenge

[Radarsonwheels]

Now I have a little experience loading and shooting 45-70 black powder paper patched cartridges in my dp 1874. Thanks to you all that gave me tips when I didn't know where to start, especially Charlie Montana who was kind enough to write me some thoughtful and detailed PMs to get me started.

I'm feeling good about making cartridges- at least I have a starting point so I can fix mistakes and try stuff. I am using a taper crimp die to hold the bullet so that it spins easily but doesn't fall out of the case. I decided to just use an over powder wad cut from a milk carton and rely on 1 damp/2 dry patches for fouling control. I'm using 70gn ff goex (almost a full starline case) compressed so that 3/16" of bullet fits in on top. I have paper that adds .012 wet wrapped that worked great for groove sized smokeless loads so I bought a baco .438 money bullet mold that makes nice smooth slugs. I think it was a mistake to not ask Charlie if such a small diameter was a good idea before buying it since he was helping me get started, but I am trying to make it work.

My first time out I tried it with a thinner paper wrapped to .4465 in my .450 bore. I figured it might allow follow up shots but all I got was tumbling bullets and many perfectly sideways bullet holes at fifty yards in a shotgun pattern. My next outing was with the thicker paper- the final package was at or just over .450 and took a firm push to chamber but wasn't difficult. I had high hopes! This load sucked too but at least 9/10 made round holes and not bullet profiles! Accuracy was bad. I was excited to see some 'confetti' for the first time (hard to find in snow on earlier range trips) but after I went and got it I found it was all strips cut clean around the base of the bullets! I was using the template from the stickys here so there is a line printed on the patches right where the base's corner rolls on. Here's a pic of the template, a cartridge, and all my confetti. I was getting slivers of lead on my cleaning patches too. I only found the one patch from the shank. I wonder if the way it's sliced toward the back tells me that the bullet is slugging but in a tapered way fatter at the base.
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f324/PhiladelphiaR/8D36FEA5-BBE4-4BFD-8385-2E0BBF6F4702.jpg (http://s50.photobucket.com/user/PhiladelphiaR/media/8D36FEA5-BBE4-4BFD-8385-2E0BBF6F4702.jpg.html)

I have three things in mind to try next.

#1: I ordered some 45-90 brass to trim for my chamber. I wonder if this would fix a lot of my problems? The 'rings' of paper cut by shooting this load seem to be saying that the bullet is slugging up into my extra case space and freebore then getting cut by the leade? I'm going to put up another post (short & sweet to hopefully get concise responses) concerning this process.

#2:If filling my chamber better with brass doesn't get me 3-4 moa as a starting place for more detailed load tweaking I would strongly consider either trying some swaged or cast bullets or even just buying a mold that can use thinner onion skin paper to get to .450". Around .444 to .446ish depending on my choice of paper. Hopefully this would slug up better and allow the rifling to cut the paper more reliably. I only found one piece of confetti from the bullet shank so it is possible that the bullets are wearing streamers, especially if only the base is fattening and the wraps aren't cutting thru.

#3:A member here was kind enough to offer the use of his custom reamer for the cost of postage. It cuts a nice taper leade up to .459 then stays there as deep as you wanna spin it in. This seems like an awesome way to cleanly chamber a .458 package seated out as far as you wanna cut. Right now my chamber will hold a Lee 500gn bullet sized down to 452 then patched back up to 458 seated pretty deeply into the case- just a hint of patch shows. I know it would work great with smokeless patched to groove but with smokeless I wouldn't need as much powder capacity so then I'd be messing with dacron. Also I only really want to shoot BP in my 1874 pedersoli sharps. I already shoot grease groove smokeless in my 1895 marlin. I know most people shoot bore size with BP and have read pages and pages here and on bpcr forum. It would be neat to have a custom rifle and my gun does shoot factory jacketed ammo around 2.5moa so I figure it does what it's designed to. It would be a shame to whittle on an expensive gun if I don't have to. I know that the long taper 'paper patch chamber' vs the abrupt sammi chamber used to duplicate the bullet's experience is a muzzle loader is somewhat of a hot debate.

If you read this far I really appreciate it and I would love to hear any opinions on my load development experiments and options. My goal is to ring a 4" gong at 200 yards. Unfortunately I don't have long range or silhouette options near home. There are no 1000 yard comps in my future. I think my goals are pretty modest.

Thanks
Radar in Bucks county

[Bent Ramrod]

I am by no means fully up to speed on paper patched boolits (you'll know when I am because I'll start referring to them as "PP":grin:), but here's a few thoughts based on my own experiences and the counsel I've gotten.

At least until you have the other variables down pat, clean and dry your bore between shots so it looks ready to be put away. I didn't start getting the results I was told were possible until I started cleaning like that. Check out Brent Danielson's advice on the use of bore pigs; this is about the speediest route to a consistently clean and dry bore. However, don't get stuck with a program (i.e., two wet patches and a dry; one bore pig and one dry patch, etc.) as a substitute for the bore condition per se. If it requires another patch or two, do it. After you have the load that works, you can see about how far you can abbreviate the cleaning without compromising accuracy.

What is your alloy, or, what is the hardness? I use slugs that are a nominal .440 to .441, and find that anything out of the range of BHN 8 to 10 gives flyers. I recently made up some 16 to 1 lead/tin boolits that were BHN 8 by my SAECO tester, and a lot of paper patch shooters swear by 16 to 1. The paper that worked best for me was in the 0.0012-00015 thickness range. Trying thicker paper to make up windage for a running fit in the bore didn't work as well. So by these results I figured that the boolits needed to be soft enough to slug up in the bore but hard enough so the nose didn't slump to one side or the other while this happened. Thick paper fell further from the muzzle than thin, and in bigger pieces, which may have affected the boolit's flight.

I also discovered a rule of thumb that states "When in doubt, add more powder." The original Sharps loading for the .45-2-1/10 was 75 grains, and I found that things didn't start happening until I got to 80 grains of Swiss 1Fg. This is almost to the top of a full-length-resized case, with just enough room for a thin wad. I would then compress 0.125" or so and seat the boolit, holding it in with a slight taper crimp as you do.

Hopefully Brent will check in here, but it looks to me like your patch fragments are getting burned along the rifling cuts. This would certainly expose some lead to the bore, which you say you noticed.

Finally, don't give up. I am convinced that this paper patch stuff is something of a "psi" talent. Some people, like me, read everything, try everything, over analyze everything, and slog along for months anyway until it comes together. When it does, we are amazed at how simple it was, all along. Others get it right away. In the middle of my travails, a friend loaded up a few for his rifle, just out of curiosity. He got a better group at 600 yards with his pick-up load than I was getting at 400, and announced that his curiosity was satisfied and he was going back to his grease-groove boolits because paper patching was too much hassle. Not much good for my morale, but I didn't give up.

[Radarsonwheels]

Ha! Yeah sometimes things that come too easy are no fun. I'm melting a one pound ingot of tin into a full Lee 20lb pot of pure lead. Not the most scientific but somewhere around 19:1? Expensive compared to range scrap pistol bullets I usually cast for my big bore handguns!

Thanks for the encouragement- Brent is helping me out so hopefully that'll shorten the learning curve.

[Nobade]

Sounds like you're not using a drop tube. 80 grains of powder should fit no problem, and will make things work a lot better as will a bigger diameter bullet. Does that rifle have any freebore in it, or do the lands come all the way to the case mouth? If it has freebore, I haven't been able to get bore diameter bullets to work at all. But if none, it should work well.

-Nobade

[Gunlaker]

If you follow Brent's advice you'll shorten your learning curve considerably.

Chris.

[BRUCE MOULDS]

radar, 20/1 is not a bad starting alloy.
using baco 9 lb paper you will need a 0.444 bullet, and seth cole 55w 8 lb tracing paper in 12" rolls a 0.445 bullet to fit nicely into a 0.450 bore.
the bullet you are using has to bump up a lot, possibly too much, to obturate and take the rifling instantly, allowing gas cutting and skidding.
a 0.444 bullet might suit you as you could use it with baco paper wiping for target shooting, and it would be a little smaller with seth cole for hunting.
if paper is too thick it won't work for bore dia bullets.
keep safe,
bruce.

[Radarsonwheels]

Sounds like you're not using a drop tube. 80 grains of powder should fit no problem, and will make things work a lot better as will a bigger diameter bullet. Does that rifle have any freebore in it, or do the lands come all the way to the case mouth? If it has freebore, I haven't been able to get bore diameter bullets to work at all. But if none, it should work well.

-Nobade

You got me! Building a drop tube is high on the list of things to do. I have been tapping my cases 10 times each on my bench in an effort to load some test ammo while I get all my kit together. Most of my BP experience is flintlocks and cap n ball pistols. I love the sound, smell, well you know. I got a k-31 and shoot a lot of 1-200 yard big bore pistols for fun and I got hooked on the challenge of iron sights. That combined with an interest in black powder lead me right to the sharps rifle. Funny that I didn't go with a high wall- I'm a huge browning fan.

Thanks for the advice! I will use it!
Here's a pic of my pedersoli 1874 chamber cast. Not my best work but it's in line with specs for the dp 45-70 reamer I've seen posted. DONT BE FOOLED its not a ton of freebore- its a short hornady leverrevolution case. My starline is 2.095" but my chamber allows 2.129" brass. I have 45-90 ordered to fix the .034" gap before the tiny amount of .4595" diameter freebore.
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f324/PhiladelphiaR/766180F3-22C8-4DBD-9C05-119A3BD409D4_9.png (http://s50.photobucket.com/user/PhiladelphiaR/media/766180F3-22C8-4DBD-9C05-119A3BD409D4_9.png.html)

[Bent Ramrod]

That is a generous chamber all right. IIRC, Montana Charlie has a contact who makes a case stretcher that should bring your shells up to the proper length. A PM to him ought to get you the info.

[Radarsonwheels]

Generous? I don't know I haven't cast a ton of 45-70 chambers. Don't forget that's short hornady leverrevolution brass. My 2.096" oal fired starline brass is only .033 short of filling the 2.129" space for brass. Then the chamber tapers to .460 and the rifling begins almost immediately. I've heard the ruger #1 & 3s have tight or nonexistent throats. I don't know what the shiloh and C sharps 1874s are like. I do know that this gun shoots factory jacketed ammo well.

[Radarsonwheels]

I already bought some 45-90 brass to fit to this chamber. If I was competing then Charlie's porta power die setup would make financial sense but as it stands I can just use all my 45-70 for my marlin levergun and keep a small supply of 'match' loads for the sharps. Thats the plan anyway- I have to be able to hit the broad side of barn from inside it first!

I also ordered a fatter bullet mold to use with thinner paper, a drop tube, and a compression die. Hopefully I'll have some positive results in a week or two!

[Nobade]

You should, that will make all the difference. Welcome to the addiction!

-Nobade

[BlackPowderBen]

45-70 is one big round!

[BRUCE MOULDS]

ben,
not comparatively.
keep safe,
bruce.

[Radarsonwheels]

Hey Bruce!

Not to hijack but I think the 500+ grain paper patch .45 sticking out of a 2.1" rimmed case is pretty impressive to someone used to shooting a modern cartridge rifle. Like me for instance! I don't have the friends or the money to have ever handled two four or eight bore doubles, nor do I have a need for 338mag or 50bmg. (I wouldn't say no to any of the above!) I do cast 12g slugs but they are not so impressive looking in plastic hulls.

So what I'm thinking is I'd love to see a picture of your 50-90 with a 700 grain paper patched bullet seated .1" into the case, or whatever monstrosity you are loading!

As far as my own progress I have a small amount of 45-90 cut down to barely chamber that I need to fire form, and final trim. My new baco mold should be here maybe Monday or Tuesdayish and I sprung for a drop tube too since I seem to be too busy to make one. Hopefully I can whip up a load that will at least start to group so I can work on tightening that up.

[BRUCE MOULDS]

radar,
I shoot a 40/72 with 84 gns powder pushing a 440 gn pp bullet 0.125 in the case, and a 45/2.4 with 100 gns of powder behind a breech seated 540 gn bullet.
these loads with the 45/70 are sort of middle ground in bpcr.
you start getting up there with the 45/2 7/8 case, which can be more than a 50/70.
yes compared to a 223 or a 243 these are big loads, but that is apples and oranges.
in the overall scheme of things, the 45/70 is just about like a 308 in some ways.
when you get your brass fireformed, learn the amount of powder to droptube to the right height in the case you will have a start.
then get the patch template to suit the paper and bullet and it will be all systems go..
as you increase compression the right load will show itself.
you might try compressing up to 0.150", and just keep allowing the bullets to seat deeper as compression increases.
with swiss it will most likely be in that range of compression.
the biggest gun I have ever owned was a 450 nitro 3 1/4".
not pleasant to shoot, and not comparable to any bpcr round.
keep safe,
bruce.

[Radarsonwheels]

Howdy!

I have a progress report, just loading misadventures. I started with 20 45-90 cases and now I have 9 cartridges! I trimmed four too short before fire forming but they're still fine for my marlin 45-70. The rest I cut to 2.035. I shot them with 6 grains of titegroup (45 colt charge) under a full case (40gn) of cream of wheat. It made my 15lb sharps feel like one of those pop guns with a cork in the muzzle! The cases shrunk about .005 OAL and I trimmed them down to 2.025, .004 short of max in my chamber. So far so good.

I've always measured BP by volume, checking my powder throw against a sliding muzzle loader measure. This time I filled a case with my new drop tube and weighed it. It was a little over 80gn so I weighed out the rest of my charges at 80 grains with an RCBS automatic dispenser. I noticed a slooow pour settled slightly but noticeably tighter. Still looking good, now I have sixteen annealed fire formed trimmed primed and charged cases.

Next up- a card wad and a tiny bit of compression to get uniform seating depth. Time to use my new BACO rcbs cowboy die with powder compression plug. I could not get the darn thing to reliably go into my case mouths! After crushing a few cases I gave up on it and began using my lee flaring die backed off to seat my card wads and give a tiny crunch to the powder.

Maybe if I can get the compression plug to hang way below the die mouth I can guide it in with my fingers? The bevel in the Lee flare die's plug is not ideal for powder compression. I dropped the wrapped .444/.4495" bullets in (1/10" seating depth) and used my lee seating die with the plug removed to give a little crimp. Just enough so that an upside down cartridge won't drop the bullet out.

I asked how much for a box of 45-70 the other day at a gun store. Yikes! No way! It was around $2 a shot or something! I now have nine cartridges that probably cost over $20 a shot in my posession! Ha! If they work I will need to go into production and shoot a lot of them before the cost averages out to something that doesn't make me wince.

I sure am having a lot of fun though! Thanks everybody for the help and encouragement, and wish me luck getting these to group at the range!

radar

[Don McDowell]

A simple way to trim the cases down to the length you need is to use a Lee 45-70 case trimmer set up in a drill press, once you get the first case done to your desired length simply set the stop on the press for that length. It helps to keep things running smooth and cutting clean if you use just a touch of cutting oil.

[Gunlaker]

I use a .44 rifle compression plug for my .45 cal PP rifles. It is much less likely to damage a case.

Shiloh makes a compression die that is interesting, the plug protrudes from the bottom of the die and you can guide the case into it by hand as you raise the press lever. It indexes off of the case mouth. It's pretty neat, but it was designed for greater than 0.1" compression so is not quite as useful if you seat the bullet barely in the case.

Chris.

[montana_charlie]

To avoid crushing cases when compressing powder:

Raise the ram until you feel the case mouth touch the compression plug.
With your other hand, slowly spin the case back and forth in the shell holder until you feel the plug drop into the case mouth.

Keep a very light pressure on the ram ... very light.

[country gent]

Lightly lubing the cutter and pilot on the case trimmer makes a big improvement in less effort and the cuts cleanness, also may help with those pesky chips coming off. I simply put a little water soluable cutting oil in a small shallow container ( A bottle cap works good) and dip the case mouth into it before inserting into trimmer. This puts a small amount of lube on and in the case mouth. I have used SPG or the emmerts Improved for this with good results also. As to compressing powder a light chamfer on the plugs edge helps alot and "feeling" the case up onto the plug is a big help. I use the seating die and a modified seating stem to compress powder in a seperate step. Another way that works for me is to make up a dummy bullet from steel, aluminum or brass. Dia for 45 cal should be .450 or so form of your bullet. This allows the seater to be used un modified. set it into case and use the seater to compress powder. If the dummy bullet is close to form of the bullet your loading no resetting of the die is needed. I have used the dummy bullet to compress powder with both PP and GG bullets. Its simple and works for me

[Chill Wills]

radar,
I shoot a 40/72 with 84 gns powder pushing a 440 gn pp bullet 0.125 in the case, and a 45/2.4 with 100 gns of powder behind a breech seated 540 gn bullet.
these loads with the 45/70 are sort of middle ground in bpcr.
keep safe,
bruce.

All, this is a little OT for the thread so sorry all....

Bruce, what is the twist ratio on that 40-72? Wondering because I am about ready to rebarrel a 40-70 SS using a 13"-1 twist. It really shoots well and then throws a few out and then shoots well and then does not ...and like that ...
I have gone through everything else and I am down to twist. It is only $ and stubbornness that keep me trying. I should have rebarreled a case of powder and a ton of lead ago!

[BRUCE MOULDS]

twist is gaintwist, ending at 1/13.
the rifle shoots ok.
keep safe,
bruce.

[Chill Wills]

twist is gaintwist, ending at 1/13.
the rifle shoots ok.
keep safe,
bruce.

Hmm - OK. I will keep at the 13 T 40 one more summer.

Sink or swim for it.

Thanks!

[BrentD]

Michael, what about a longer, heavier bullet? If you can come up with some, it might be the cure.

[Radarsonwheels]

Great suggestions thanks fellas and hijack away I'll learn any way I can

[Chill Wills]

Michael, what about a longer, heavier bullet? If you can come up with some, it might be the cure.

Yes, I went that route, I have a 430gr Money bullet and a fine shooting 445gr Hoch (in my 14.5 twist in my 1877 Sharps) Maybe I still need to work the long bullet angle.

BTW- Rick sent me a copy of the Oak Ridge match, Nice Shooting!

[BRUCE MOULDS]

Michael, I have used bullets 1.420" to 1.550" long out to 1000 yds, all o.k.
I have played with the shorter ones in case wind shear ever became a problem with long ones.
1.550" should be well and truly o.k., but my mainline bullet is 1.530" to hedge the bet.
these bullets have been either money or elliptical nose forms.
a greaser I designed at 1.530 long wanted to shoot, but displays stability problems at 500 meters.
this bullet was an experiment in shooting dirty, and the nose is 0.010" under bore diameter, with the front 3 bands at bore diameter.
it is suspected that the nose could be bending sideways when the light comes on, going off centre.
keep safe,
bruce.

[Radarsonwheels]

The new load shot horribly. Shotgun pattern at 50 yards with several keyholes.

It was 81gn goex ff drop tubed, cci benchrest LR primer, 45-90 cases annealed fireformed and trimmed to .004" short of max that would chamber, baco money nose .444 PP bullet cast from 20:1 with two wraps baco onionskin making a final package just under .450 that chambered with thumb pressure, compressed to .1" seating depth in the case over a wad cut from a milk carton.

I was hoping for at least a group that could be a starting place for load development. I am stuck between enjoying a challenge and saying screw it and just shooting .458-.460 patched or greasers

[Radarsonwheels]

Oh and I was wiping three patches moist with moose milk and one dry inbetween shots. I'm not sure what the next move to try is. I did recover one horribly mangled slug from the berm. The one clean side showed good rifling engraving and a decent base. It struck the target/berm sideways...

[semtav]

Radar.
Maybe you should consider something in the line of 40-1 alloy and or more wads. Try sticking a .030 ldpe wad on top of the other one.

[Gunlaker]

That was more or less how my .45-110 worked when I first got into paper patching. A fellow here named Dean Becker suggested a 1/8" lube cookie between two 0.030" veg wads. The transformation was instant. The rifle instantly became my most accurate BPCR. I have others that are better now, but I still use that basic load in this rifle and it worked well enough to win one of our local gong matches with targets from 550 to just under 900 yards.

Chris.

[Bent Ramrod]

Sounds like a pretty normal beginning to me:-P.

I haven't tried Goex, or even Olde Eynsford for paper patch loads. Swiss 1F is what I settled on, as you can compress it a little if necessary, or not at all if you don't want another variable to mess with. Goex often needs as much as 0.4" of compression for best burning. I've been able to seat a boolit as deep as 0.230" with good results, but again, that was with Swiss 1F. I use Olde Eynsford 1.5F for grease groove boolits, and it works fine there.

What does your final dry patch look like? Faint even gray, darker even gray, dark gray streaks, dark gray circle with dark gray streaks, black streaks, solid black circle, solid slug of black goo? If my dry patch isn't always the first or second, it gets another wet patch, then another dry patch.

I seem to do better with 1/32" or so cork wads beneath the boolit. A lot of modern experimenters who seem to be able to agree on a standard loading also seem to have special chambers cut for paper patch boolits only. And, even there, disagreements occur.

That Money nose is for improved air resistance on the way to the target, not for concentric transition up the bore. My slugs got markedly more accurate when the lead was hardened. Below BHN 8, I would get a core group with flyers; much above 10 and I would get scatter and keyholes. Try 16/1 or even a little harder and see if that helps.

Endeavor to persevere.:mrgreen: I'm still having ups and downs too. Finally got a scope setting for my load at the Turkey line. Several dirt diggers related possibly to thicker paper but also to the mounts coming loose. Didn't notice it for a while in the hurricane wind that came up as soon as I had the stuff set up. Those Turkeys at Three Points are also a lot harder to get a tight group on than the big squares and rounds at Ridgecrest.

[Radarsonwheels]

Wow! You guys rock. I suddenly have more stuff to try next thanks to y'all.

I am dropping 1lb tin into a lee 20lb furnace. I'm not sure how full it needs to be to hold an actual 20lbs so my actual alloy is at least 1:19 already if not 1:18ish. I'm afraid to try harder without going to groove size bullets. I definitely can go softer easily, my pot is 1/2 full so I can just top off with pure.

80-83ish grains of ff are fitting into my trimmed 45-90 cases before compression. It should be easy to try .4" compression and take up the space with a wad lube wad deal. I am thinking I can double boil some nasa lube and pour it into an old cookie tin lid, then cake cut it with a charged case thats already compressed with a wad? I hand smear lubed some 45 colt once but pretty much always use the lube sizer. Or I can use the Matthews drop a pea of lube in trick?

I have a reamer loaned from a generous member here that cuts the chamber to .459 as deep as you want with a tapered leade. I can cut the chamber to hold 80gn of BP under a 500+gn .458" bullet shallow seated, and probably not worry much about hardness since it will be engraving not obturating into the rifling. I am trying to pull out all the stops first trying to get my pedersoli sharps to shoot bore diameter slugs. I have $ tied up in molds and whittling on a $2k rifle is a last resort (that would probably work but require a new mold that drops .452...)

[Gunlaker]

If you want to try a lube cookie I would recommend either buying a lube ribbon extruder, or pouring a lube cake and cutting the wads out with your case as you load them.Chris.

[country gent]

I use a brownie sheet pan. pour 1/8"-3/16" water in it and measure up 1/8" mark set on stove top and a low flame melt lube to form an even sheet to the mark. This does 2 things it gives a nice sheet to cut cookies from and the water levels giving a consistant thickness. Or you can put lube on a sheet of wax paper with a 1/8" thick piece of flat stock on each side, another sheet of wax paper and roll it to thickness. The ribbon extruder is quick and easy also.

[Don McDowell]

Put some spent primers along the edge of any flat bottom pan, pour your melted lube in to the top of those spent primers. Then when it cools you can drop the cake out and punch the charged and compressed cases thru the cake. Push the cookie on down to the wad, seat a thin wad and your bullet..
Money bullets work best at 16-1 or a bit harder. I'ld suggest you try that before anything else.
If you're going to start dinking around in that chamber why not just take it on out to a 45-90 or 45-100 and be done with it?

[Bent Ramrod]

I would send the reamer back to the nice man with thanks. You don't need any more open space ahead of the chamber unless you want to seat groove diameter patched boolits well out.

Don't worry about a bore diameter 16:1 slugging up, especially if you have a 0.446" slug already. What I had trouble with was water dropped lino-wheelweight mixtures. Cooled slowly in air, they were still 10 or 11 on my testers, and worked, but water dropped they were 14 or harder, and gave wild shooting at 300 yards. My boolits are 0.440-0.441" so they have a lot more expanding to do than yours.

When I make lube cookie material, I put a thin layer on hot water in a tupperware container. When it melts, the container goes into the refrigerator. I pour the cold water out of the container, blot the cooled and hardened layer with paper towels and cookie cut with the shell mouths. If the lube is melted in a pan in a double boiler, it goes into the freezer for 15 minutes and the lube cake separates from the bottom by itself. Then cut the cookies likewise.

[BrentD]

Radar, Definitely try 16:1. But also, tell us what your patches look like. Were they all nicely sliced or were some of them pretty raggedy?

If your bullets are not bumping up, the patches will tell you.

You should be able to get superb accuracy without grease cookies, but it won't hurt to try them either. There are a million ways to make good cookies. I usually use a rolling pin or wine bottle to roll the lube between two sheets of wax paper with a pair of thin sticks (the desired thickness of the final cookie) on either side.

melting lube on top of hot water and allowing to cool will do it too. More or less what Bent Ramrod suggests.

[Radarsonwheels]

I only found the paper that had been folded over the bases. Perhaps I carried the paper too far in front of the ogive beginning? I was hoping for more confetti. Somebody said .446- I am using a .444 baco mold that drops at .444 and wet wrapping to .4496ish with baco onionskin.

[Don McDowell]

When you were wiping between shots, are you sure the bore was dry with no "puddles" somewhere? That will give you fits. Also did you thoroughly scrub the bore and especially the throat , to make sure any leading left over from grease groove shooting was removed? A bit of leading in the bore will absolutely wreck a paper patch load.

[Radarsonwheels]

When you were wiping between shots, are you sure the bore was dry with no "puddles" somewhere? That will give you fits. Also did you thoroughly scrub the bore and especially the throat , to make sure any leading left over from grease groove shooting was removed? A bit of leading in the bore will absolutely wreck a paper patch load.

I had leading from my previous experiment with a .438" bullet patched to .450. I got out the chore boy and the bore light and my bore was spotless. I doubt there were any wet spots, my wet patches are more like damp and I was pushing one wet one through and getting out a ton of black fouling, scrubbing the chamber and first couple inches of rifling with the second moist patch then pushing it through, then spinning a dry one through the chamber and pushing it down the bore. This is with a brass jag on a flexible carbon or fiberglass cleaning rod. I was hoping to get the chamber really clean and get the bore decent. The bullets wouldn't chamber if the leade and first inch of rifling were fouled. It would still take four or more additional wet patches pushed through to get to brown smudges instead of black smears but the heavy fouling was all pushed out.

My first shot was a nice round hole in the target then it got much worse. I don't imagine the competitive shooters are wiping and scrubbing for five minutes or longer between each shot? Maybe the Goex needs a lot more compression before it gets less fouling?

I am also concerned that I only found patch bases again- cut neatly around the 90° angle at the bullet base. I don't know if the sides went into the berm or what? I can pull the bullets out of the cases without damage easily by hand- they are not crimped in hard.

[Don McDowell]

A lot of us that shoot patched in a match use a nylon brush on the end of the rod, and push a 2-2-1/2 in round patch thru on the tip of the brush. If the ambient temp goes up and the humidity goes down it can take 3-4 damp patches before they come clean enough to push the dry thru.
I would add more powder and get a bit more compression, regular Goex shoots pretty dirty without a bunch of compression and even then it's not the cleanest powder.
I would also suggest a thicker and or stiffer wad,.060 minimum, you could be getting a lot of blow by and gas cutting.

[montana_charlie]

Ask someone to stand behind you, off to the leeward side a foot or two, to try to see your patches (or a cloud of confetti) fall from the bullet.
It should flutter long enough to be seen by someone whose sole job is to watch for it.

[Radarsonwheels]

Howdy all!

I spent the spring and summer working 80 hours a week expanding my business and opening a second shop. I finally got my head out of my behind and the cool shooting weather is coming back right on time. I am currently getting ready for hunting season and shooting pistols here and there but I haven't given up on the bore diameter paper patched black powder cartridge dream for my pedersoli 1874 sharps.

I was using this thread as a public load journal of sorts to get suggestions from you all here. I am getting some beefier wad packages in the works- I think the flame cutting theory is a good one concerning my terrible keyholed 50 yard groups.

Anyway, I'm not giving up!

Radar

[country gent]

Adding a little more powder and compression may help in another way as the added omph may help to expand the bullet patch combo to dia quicker and a little tighter Helping it to grip the rifling and not slip in the bore