Alloys and patches

[shooter93]

Anyone here played around with harder alloys like 16/1 for papaer patch bullets or more than two wraps with a thinner but tougher paper like lens paper?....Curiousity strikes again

[Molly]

Anyone here played around with harder alloys like 16/1 for papaer patch bullets or more than two wraps with a thinner but tougher paper like lens paper?....Curiousity strikes again

I've mostly used harder alloys (wheelweights and harder) with good results. Col harrison used Linotype for paper patching slugs for full power 300 Mag loads.

I haven't played around with multiple (>2) wraps a lot except for some really strange loads, but others have posted that more than two wraps is a waste. I sure haven't seen any advantage for >2 wraps unless you're trying to build up a really undersized bullet. The general rule of thumb seems to be to select a paper thickness that will give the desired diameter (or a little more) with two wraps. If the rifle will take the larger diameter, that's not a problem: Just use it that way. If it won't, then size the patched bullet down so's it'll chamber and go with that.

Molly

[longbow]

I've used ACWW for paper patching for .308 and .303. The .308 didn't seem to care but the .303 was not producing very good accuracy until I knurled the boolits.

I am not sure if the paper patch was slipping on the smooth boolit or not but knurled on that basis and suddenly I got good accuracy. Maybe better grip between boolit and paper, maybe larger diameter boolit (about 0.003") helped (though patching was still to groove diameter). or maybe a bit of both.

The .303 has deeper rifling than the other guns I paper patch for so maybe that is part of it.

I guess the comment is that with a hard alloy a roughened or grooved boolit may help the paper grip the boolit.

As for more than 2 wraps, I have used 3 wraps of .002" tracing paper to get the right diameter when 2 wraps of other paper was too much or too little and it worked fine.

More than 3 wraps I haven't done but Ross Seyfried wrote an article on paper patching for odd calibers and even on jacketed bullets with roughened jackets and I think he went more than 3 on some.

Give it a try and let us know!

Longbow

[StrawHat]

I have patched some jacketed bullets to use in odd calibers so I don't see why it wouldn't work for 16-1.

Heck, it works with 20-1 and that isn't too much softer.

Good luck,