Is my rifle a candidate?

[Wolfmanjack]

I have a rem700 ml 50cal. I got it many years ago when I was a teen and had only experience with cleaning cf rifles. I cleaned the 700ml the same way shooting pyrodex. Needless to say I experienced some rusting and pitting. The lands are pretty good with some minor pitting in the grooves. I get decent accuracy now with pyrodex rs, 1.5" hundred yard groups with sabot and cast boolit. My question is: does the bore have to be pristine to paper patch or is a mildly neglected bore ok? I don't want to buy a mold if I will be wasting my time.

[nagantguy]

In my limited and humble understanding a slightly pitted,rough or oversized or shot out bore is the point in paper patching

[Wolfmanjack]

I didn't know if the rough bore would rip the paper?

[country gent]

You may need to experiment with paper used as to thickness, make up or contents, and bullet dia. 2 wraps of paper and bullet dia should be bore dia or possibly + .001 over. Paper thickness X 4 and bullet dia gives a very close Idea of wrapped sizes. One other thing is paper will polish smooth the barrel some what due to papers abrasiveness. I would start with a paper that's 25% or more cotton fiber as it is a tougher paper. Seth Cole drafting paper is also good and Buffalo Arms has Onion paper for patching.

[Wolfmanjack]

Another question, can you shoot paper patch bullets in a warm/hot muzzleloader barrel? Accuracy suffers with my saboted rounds if the barrel doesn't fully cool off. I dislike the 10minute wait between shots very much.

[Hardcast416taylor]

I have only two suggestions about your question. First is to try some patched boolets thru your rifle. Patches will, to an extent, do some smoothing of a rough bore. My second suggestion is, if you already haven`t done it, is to do a conversion to using 209 shotshell primers ignition system. I did this conversion on mine and never regretted it.Robert

[martinibelgian]

Fot those stating that the paper patch will polish the bore, my experience with rough bores has been that a smooth bore is a requirement for PP - a rough bore will tend to strip/shred the patch, and you don't want to end there - mining lead in a barrel...

[54bore]

I have a rem700 ml 50cal. I got it many years ago when I was a teen and had only experience with cleaning cf rifles. I cleaned the 700ml the same way shooting pyrodex. Needless to say I experienced some rusting and pitting. The lands are pretty good with some minor pitting in the grooves. I get decent accuracy now with pyrodex rs, 1.5" hundred yard groups with sabot and cast boolit. My question is: does the bore have to be pristine to paper patch or is a mildly neglected bore ok? I don't want to buy a mold if I will be wasting my time.

I would get a .499 sizing die, wrap your bullets with 2 wraps of 9# onion skin paper and send them through the .499 die, Buffalo Arms sells correct paper patch bullets, you are looking for .492, i would go with the 450-500 grain bullets. My reason for pushing them through the sizer is to slightly tighten the paper up. But With a .492 bullet it would not be needed. I had custom molds made for my Muzzleloaders, i like 3-4, example being my 45 cal bullets are .443, my .50 Cal bullets drop from the mold at .494, my .54 Cal bullets drop at .533, i size 1 thou under bore, again i am not sizing the bullet, it drops from the mold undersize, i wrap up with paper, then push them through a sizing die 1 thou under bore, just tightens the paper up nicely. You need to use a good over powder wad, like Vegetable fibre .060 Thou, you want to create a good solid gas seal behind the bullet.

my sizing dies are Lee push through style .449 for .45 Cal, .499 for .50 Cal, and .539 for .54 Cal

[Wolfmanjack]

I had read some of idahoron's reports and am trying to replicate his method. I got my Lee s&w 500 mold yesterday. I also got a Lee .501 sizer. I casted a few bullets yesterday and wrapped with tracing paper. I sized them to .501 and pushed them down the bore. They slide down snug without too much force. I removed the breach plug and the paper was all intact when it came through. A couple of times the sizer would tear the paper but that seemed to be related to my patching technique. I got that ironed out with practice. I can't wait till the fields dry so I can go try em out. Can I shoot these paper patch bullets in a warm or hot barrel.

[54bore]

I had read some of idahoron's reports and am trying to replicate his method. I got my Lee s&w 500 mold yesterday. I also got a Lee .501 sizer. I casted a few bullets yesterday and wrapped with tracing paper. I sized them to .501 and pushed them down the bore. They slide down snug without too much force. I removed the breach plug and the paper was all intact when it came through. A couple of times the sizer would tear the paper but that seemed to be related to my patching technique. I got that ironed out with practice. I can't wait till the fields dry so I can go try em out. Can I shoot these paper patch bullets in a warm or hot barrel.

Warm, Hot barrel won't make any difference, be kinda tough to get a Muzzleloader very hot though? You will need to swab between shots or the fouling will compromise the paper, I use a 50/50 solution of blue windex (the one that says ammonia) and 91% isopropyl alcohol, Shoot away! And good luck!

[Wolfmanjack]

The barrel temperature seems to play havoc on saboted bullets. In order to maintain accuracy I am having to wait about 8-10 minutes between shots. I don't like the wait so I was hoping it wasn't a factor with paper patch.

[BrentD]

WMJ, if a warm barrel is an issue, I suspect your rifle is the problem, specifically they way it was improperly barreled. But that said, I shoot 30 shots in an hour and a half or 20 shots in an hour and that's only because I can't shoot faster. The rifle, properly built, shoots well enough to repeatedly win matches out to 1000 yds. Barrel temperature in a muzzleloader is simply not an issue, or your rifle is screwed... (been there done that).

[Wolfmanjack]

Wow, the guys on modernmuzzleloader site gospel teaching is that heat is the enemy of plastic sabots. I listened to their advise and let the barrel cool all the way down and shoot 1.5" groups at 100yds with pyrodex rs and cast saboted bullets. If the barrel is warm to the touch then the groups open up to 3-4". Hell those guys use aluminum rods cooled in ice water to insert into their muzzleloader barrels after a shot to speed cooling! There must be something to it because I have witnessed this heat send accuracy right down the crapper. This is with plastic sabots.

[BrentD]

Hell, I don't know squat about plastic sabots except for killing a deer or two with them. They suck basically.

I shoot competitively with muzzleloaders out to 1000 yds. I don't really care for modern inlines and don't know much about them. I do know you cannot win anything with pyrodex, even where legal. Real BP is what works if you are serious about accuracy at long range. You should be able to hold a minute of angle for 10 shots as far out as you can read the wind adequately.

Chances are it's your rifle is poorly barreled, not the sabots. I have had this happen to me, with a cartridge rifle. If yours is a production rifle (or even if not), that is likely an issue that real BP and paper patches cannot solve.

What are the land and groove diameters of your barrel (and twist for that matter)?

[Wolfmanjack]

It's an inline Remington 700ml built on the 700 action. It is supposed to be a surprisingly accurate muzzleloader. The trigger on my gun is not great and I can shoot 1.5 " groups at 100 yds. The twist is 1in 28". I'm not a long range shooter just a hunter. I have really enjoyed making my own black powder and casting my own bullets. I like to tinker and figured paper patching would be a new thing to learn.

[BrentD]

You can definitely do it. Absolutely no doubt. But what you need are some accurate barrel dimensions. Depending on your paper, and your groove depth, you might want something like a bullet that casts about 0.007" smaller than tour land diameter. You will add two wraps of paper to get something that slides nicely down your bore, but NOT a free fall. Put a 0.060" thick fiber or LDPE wad under the bullet. Seat just barely firmly on a good dose of Swiss 1.5fg powder (I'm impressed you've made your own, but try this first).

If I knew your bore dimensions, I might suggest something slightly different.

Do you have the ability and access to a metal lathe?

[Wolfmanjack]

No lathe. Barrel is .501 as best as I can measure. Don't know groove depth. Lee mold drops a .501 boolit. 2 wraps of paper and size through .501 Lee push through sizer. Boolit goes downbarrel nice and snug without tearing the patch. I have no idea what will happen to the patch when it's fired but I will let you know. Tomorrow afternoon I will be catching speckled trout after work in the Gulf of Mexico. If we don't get any rain then I will be able to shoot Friday evening.

[Wolfmanjack]

No lathe. Barrel is .501 as best as I can measure. Don't know groove depth. Lee mold drops a .501 boolit. 2 wraps of paper and size through .501 Lee push through sizer. Boolit goes downbarrel nice and snug without tearing the patch. I have no idea what will happen to the patch when it's fired but I will let you know. Tomorrow afternoon I will be catching speckled trout after work in the Gulf of Mexico. If we don't get any rain then I will be able to shoot Friday evening.

[BrentD]

Okay, you have it going about right for starters. Sounds like your bullet is a nice fit. How long is the bullet? 28" twist is probably pretty decent for a .50 cal. Very slow for the .45s that I prefer.

What I don't know now is how deep your grooves are. Most muzzleloaders are made with very deep grooves. This presents a problem if there is gas blow-by before the bullet bumps up to fill the grooves. The gas will burn through the paper, then melt the lead and solder it to your barrel, i.e., leading. SO, COLLECT SOME PATCHES after firing. I'll try to find some pictures of what good and, esp, what bad patches look like. They need to be sliced, no burned, not torn.

Second, USE A WAD! This is important. I like 0.060" thick. You can probably find some on Buffaloarms.com. Fiber (John Walters) or LDPE (King) are good.

Last, expect to wipe between shots - for now. I know you won't want to do this when hunting but bear with me for now. One or two damp (water) patches and then a dry.

[BrentD]

196222

Enlarge this if you can. It is what you DO NOT want to see. The patch has been burned through where the bullet passes over the grooves. This, or anything similar (generally, the pieces will be smaller), is bad news.

[Wolfmanjack]

I will definitely be wiping between shots that's a given. Looks like I will be able to test my boolits this afternoon after all. I will take some pics and post tonight. I'm using soft lead to cast with. The bullet is cast from the Lee 500 s&w mold. How much of the bullet should we hope engages the grooves or is it desirable that the paper only engages the rifling?

[Wolfmanjack]

Thanks for the help

[BrentD]

Ideally, no LED should touch the barrel.

[Wolfmanjack]

I would say my first outing was a success. That flyer was due to patch ripping on the way down the barrel.
196271

[Wolfmanjack]

196302
These are the fragments I collected, I have no idea if this is good or bad? Most are just the bases of the paper wad. There is definitely room for improvement but I was pleased. I didn't have proper wadding. I used cardboard a piece of felt and then a small piece of meat tray styrofoam all cut with a hole saw.

[Wolfmanjack]

Sorry about the thumbnail I didn't mean to put that up

[BrentD]

WMJ,
I think you are definitely headed in the right direction. I don't like the looks of your patch remnants and I don't like the description of your wads either. But that's great! As well as you are shooting with what you are using, you should be a whole bunch better with a few simple changes.

Start with the paper patches themselves. They are too long from top to bottom. it looks like you are twisting the tails underneath the bullet creating a knot that will only deform the bullet.

Here are two videos of how I roll the paper on the bullet. Notice how much of the base of the bullet is showing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AvKalQipeY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1DmoZnYIQE


FWIW, this is an easy way to make patches
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM23a_tbE-M&t=135s

So, shorten up your patches from top to bottom. Some picts of bullets, patched and unpatched would be great. How long is that bullet?

Next, you wads are creative, and probably not half bad, but they also probably don't fit great and may give you some blow by. A simpler wad would be either a single fiber or LDPE plastic wad that is 0.060" thick or a felt wad used in combination with one of these. For hunting and shooting a fouled barrel the lubed felt will help in ways that we can talk about later. But for now, wipe the barrel after a shot, pour in your powder, then start the wad(s) and bullet and push both wad and bullet down to the powder together. The wad will help clean, protect and maintain the patch on the bullet as it goes down the barrel. That's why you want to push the wad and bullet together.


Last, if you shot that well with pyrodex, you can cut that group in half with black. Order some Swiss 1.5 FG from Buffaloarms.com and you will never look back at the other stuff. It's far less corrosive and easier to clean also.

Here are some sources for wads and powder. I can't find the LDPE plastic wads in .50 caliber, but someone must make them.

Fiber wads
https://www.buffaloarms.com/50-caliber-060-vegetable-fiber-walters-wads-bag-of-1000-wal512060?___SID=U

Felt wads
https://www.buffaloarms.com/50-cal-lubed-ox-yoke-originals-wonder-wads-bag-of-100-rmc5000?___SID=U

Real powder - the best
https://www.buffaloarms.com/swiss-1-5-f-black-powder-swiss1-5f

[Wolfmanjack]

196323
Bullet is .905" in length. What source of ldpe are you using for wads? I will order some fiber wads. Is the type of paper the most critical variable in the whole production? I am sizing after wrapping.

[BrentD]

I buy my wads precut from that same website. They sell them in .45 caliber but I can't see them listed for .50s and apparently they don't sell them. But it would pay to call those guys and ask because the website search is a bit problematic.

Here is the material you could use to make your own.

https://www.buffaloarms.com/2-sq-ft-060-white-bulk-poly-wad-material-060poly

But if you do, be sure that the wads are bigger than groove diameter in your barrel. I mine are 0.460" for my .450/.458 bores. The job of the wad is to seal the bore before the bullet bumps up and, in the case of muzzleloaders to do a little scraping of the fouling when loaded from the front.

I ran your numbers for that bullet length and twist and guessed at the velocity and groove diameter. All of the various calculators came back saying you were easily stable, so that's not an issue, and your bullets' holes look nice and round from what I can see. So, that's good.

Gotta lose those tails on the base of the bullet. NO TAILS!

[Lead pot]

The cup based bullets were developed for the twisted patch tails that where common in the past. The cup, not hollow base, would keep the twisted tail flush with the base. Twisting the tail on a flat based bullet creates a problem like using a bullet you drop on a concrete floor and damaging the sharp base edge letting the gas give the bullet a push when it clears the muzzle a push that starts the tumble.

[Wolfmanjack]

What if I put the patch on with a tail ang cut it off flush with the base? When I try to patch like brentd's video with the smaller patch it is wanting to unravel. He is putting his rolled bullet into a brass casing where as mine is sitting there to be loaded at a later date.

[Lead pot]

I don't think you can get the base flat enough doing that but it would help. If you cast a bunch and wrap them for later use put them in a Styrofoam .40 or .45 pistol bullet tray that factory pistol ammo comes in and put the wrapped bullets in the tray and stack a few trays on top of each other and that will hold the folded over wrap. You can find a bunch of them at the rifle range.
Brent does not fold the wrap over more then what you see on these .45 caliber wad cutters and this is the best way for good results.
Like I said keep the wrapped tails for a cup base bullet flat base you wand a spot of lead showing.
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b302/940Leadpot/th_f102a5f0-d70e-43ad-9887-0abe11e4f81e_zpsntfob3ti.jpg (http://s22.photobucket.com/user/940Leadpot/media/f102a5f0-d70e-43ad-9887-0abe11e4f81e_zpsntfob3ti.jpg.html)

[BrentD]

Wolfman,
part of the problem with your patches wanting to unwind is the paper and how you put it on.

First, I like paper that adds about as much thickness to the bullets are the grooves are deep, or a little less. My paper adds about 0.007" to the diameter of the bullet. The bores on my rifles are all .450+ and the grooves are all .458 or .458- so give or take a bit the groove diameter is about 0.007-0.008" more than the land diameter. Matching these diameters is not critical, but thinner papers will grab lands well, and also conform to the bullet well, including the fold around the base of the bullet, and then stay there. If your rifle, the grooves may be much deeper (or not). If they are, I would NOT chase them with really thick paper, but I suppose it might work. Generally, thinner is better, up to a point. That point is somewhere around 8 or 9 lb paper.

You can apply the paper to the bullet after first soaking it in plain (that's important) water. In those videos, I roll the paper on dry and I do that for all my rifles, including the muzzleloaders. But you can do it wet. This will cause the paper to shrink more tightly to the bullet and that helps keep it on the bullet too. I think it is a hassle, but it works.

It also can help if you "precurl" the patch so it wraps around the bullet better. I do not do this unless I'm working with a really difficult paper like cooking parchment (great hunting bullet paper). This is sort of painful to watch but it shows one way to do this easily. You can adapt it to your patches easily. You will have to be careful to get the direction right, but that will take only 2 tries at most to figure out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkon9QqmJCs

There are a few more tricks that I have used, and they work to a degree, but I don't use any of them anymore. I have learned how to wrap, carry, and load bullets so that I don't need those tricks. Once you get your rifle shooting where you want it, you can experiment with them to see if some of them might work for you in special situations.

You really need to 1. replace those wads with better stuff, 2. wrap that paper w/o a tail on it, 3. use real Swiss 1.5 fg powder. Those three things will make a world of difference.

As for types of paper, they aren't so critical as their thicknesses are. I use 9 lb Eaton paper that is either 25 or 100% cotton rag content. I don't find 100 better than 25% but at 25% really does seem to make the paper easier to wrap because it is stronger and it seems to take folding under the bullet better. This paper is largely discontinued, but you can find lots of it on Ebay if you search for "onionskin" and "paper". There are a number of different companies and I am happy to help you find some.

You can also do real well with a slightly thinner paper that is often sold on Amazon.com as "tracing paper". It is usually 8 lb paper and 25 or 100% cotton. Sometimes it is sold in rolls sometimes in pads. But it works. A number of companies make it. Staedler (or something like that) is one of the better ones.

If you have a sharp punch, you can thread your patchs' tail through the punch and then press it hard against the base of the bullet and twist. If the punch is super sharp, it will cut the tail off and leave the center of the bullet more or less naked. That gets old pretty fast and few punches are really that sharp, but it works after a fashion.

So, there are a few ideas to try.