Cast Boolits with Cloth Patches?

[Josh Smith]

Hello,

When I first got into muzzleloading, I had no round ball molds.

The rifle was a sidelock .50 with a 1:48" twist, plastic stock, real beginner's rifle. A CVA Bobcat, maybe?

Was shooting one day and ran out of round balls. I did, however, have some unsized .452 boolits cast up and so I patched those and shot them.

Now, that was a pretty undersized load, even with thick patches. Still, I got no keyholes and accuracy was OK. Not great, but OK.

Since then I've considered this some more. I'm not into paper patching or sabots. I also don't like lead to contact the bore of my muzzleloaders. I've therefore considered trying to cloth patch conical boolits to see what happens.

Any thoughts on this?

Regards,

Josh

[johnson1942]

it was done in the later muzzleloading days. the cloth was probably but not for sure thin tight weave linen. you are going to have to work on the right bullet, cloth and the how to load it. i suspect when paperpatch came out it ended the cloth patched bullet days. one thing you can do is attach a round ball used for patching to a round ball that is slightly over sized. the round ball for patching becomes the patched ball and the oversized ball becomes the bore rider. i did this and then made a mold for that design. it shoots dead on in the right twist rifle and is no harder to load than a patched ball. the bullet is a 540 grain and works in 50 cal 1/28 twist rifles.

[jim147]

One of those little bobcat's was my first muzzleloader. It shoots good with patch and ball but never had much luck with lubed lead so this gives me something to try.

my inlines shoot those powerbelt bullets pretty good but I have never compared twist and bore diameter between the different rifles.

[longbow]

How did you patch? Like with round ball? Or cross strips? Or...?

Just thinking that with any length of bearing surface the regular one piece patch would tend to wrinkle at the top edges so may fit at the bottom and be very tight at the top or be loose at the bottom and fit at the top.

Cross strips strips should work with cloth but would likely need an over powder sealing wad.

I have to think that johnson1942's ball-bullet looks a little odd but it would certainly address the patch issue well. Good idea. In fact, darn good idea! I'm guessing you sized the bore rider to be very snug to the bore or to engrave slightly at loading?

[725]

I use those bobcats at the Boys & Girls camp where I teach muzzleloaders / history to the kids. I know one of them has over 5,000 rounds through it and they're still going strong. Minor repairs over the years but very, very good cleaning / maintenance and they shoot as good as they did new.

[johnson1942]

the front is knarreled up so it ingraves some the back ball is patched. shoots as good as any bullet can.