Jim B.
05-28-2008, 05:00 PM
Well, after years of putting it off I finally tried some paper patched bullets in my Marlin 1895 .45-70. Following Paul Matthews' advice I tried one of my regular cast bullets just to see how things would work. I cast some bullets from my Lee 457-340F mould with pure lead and gave them 2 wraps of standard copier bond paper and twisted a tail on the end. Once the bullets were dry I sized the patched bullets through a .459 Lee push-through sizing die (a little case lube applied to the patch first) and clipped off the tail close to the base. The sizing die ironed the patch smooth and very hard.
I loaded these bullets over a moderate charge of 3031 and headed to the range. I had rather low expectations as I had violated so many of the rules (as I understood them) related to paper patched bullets - my cast bullet was grooved and too large, the paper was too thick, the resulting bullet was sized down more than it should be for good accuracy, the patch was ironed onto the bullet and the load was pretty generic. Imagine my surprise when these things printed 2" groups with ghost ring sights at 100 yds! I am sure I could have cut the group size with a scope. Every time I pulled the trigger I got a little cloud of fine confetti just in front of the muzzle, so I imagine the patch was stripping off just fine as the bullets exited the barrel. Recovered slugs from the backstop looked like a stepped-on piece of bubble gum.
I am tempted to do more load development but I can't imagine much improvement over the current results - perhaps a bit more velocity as this load clocked in at about 1700 fps and Paul Mathews reported velocities around 1900 fps as possible. But as it stands, I think this is an excellent bullet to take out after whitetail. I might play with it some more, but this is likely the bullet/load that will go with me this fall.
I loaded these bullets over a moderate charge of 3031 and headed to the range. I had rather low expectations as I had violated so many of the rules (as I understood them) related to paper patched bullets - my cast bullet was grooved and too large, the paper was too thick, the resulting bullet was sized down more than it should be for good accuracy, the patch was ironed onto the bullet and the load was pretty generic. Imagine my surprise when these things printed 2" groups with ghost ring sights at 100 yds! I am sure I could have cut the group size with a scope. Every time I pulled the trigger I got a little cloud of fine confetti just in front of the muzzle, so I imagine the patch was stripping off just fine as the bullets exited the barrel. Recovered slugs from the backstop looked like a stepped-on piece of bubble gum.
I am tempted to do more load development but I can't imagine much improvement over the current results - perhaps a bit more velocity as this load clocked in at about 1700 fps and Paul Mathews reported velocities around 1900 fps as possible. But as it stands, I think this is an excellent bullet to take out after whitetail. I might play with it some more, but this is likely the bullet/load that will go with me this fall.