Anecdotal or scientific evidence??

[David todd]

Talking to the wife this morning over a coffee about this paper patch thing - and internet advice/instructions in general.
Her being a retired English teacher and genealogical researcher posed the same question she always does " Is the evidence for accuracy anecdotal or scientific?"8-)
"I dunno truthfully, some say you have to do such and such, others say the opposite and never the twain shall meet!" I said!:-D
Experts on both sides for sure, as far as grease cookies, cleaning, and paper patching in general! LOL
However, one thing I have discovered over the 55 or so years whether it is traditional muzzle loading, smallbore, fullbore, Palma match ,BPCR, or any of the other disciplines I have pursued is that for every one thing that a person says, another will dispute, so you had best figure a lot of it out for yourself as to what works!
The basics you can learn with books and talking to people, "separating the wheat from the chaff" is another matter however and that can only be done with trigger time!
There is a mountain of advice on this and other forums, some good, some bad, all of it entertaining though, and for that I thank everyone here for it!
David

[Bent Ramrod]

Anecdotal evidence is a bunch of people saying, “I had a Risin’ Riz on my kneecap that the Dr.s couldn’t set right no how, but I just smeared summa that there Swamp Root Oil from Possum Holler Distilleries on it and I started feelin’ some better immediately!”

Scientific evidence is a bunch of people saying, “We took a population of people suffering from Risin’ Riz Kneecap Syndrome, and split them into three groups. We gave the first group a dosage of 5ml of Swamp Root Oil from Possum Holler Distilleries once a day, the second group a placebo of 5ml unscented Baby Oil once a day, and the third group got nothing, once a day. None of the groups knew what treatment they were getting, as they were blindfolded when the technicians rubbed the oils (or not) on the kneecaps and the Risin’ Rizs were kept dressed between applications. At the end of a month, the following percentages of each group improved, the following got worse, and the following showed no change. On the basis of these observations, we conclude...”

Some of the reports of paper patch shooting On Line are anecdotal, like the first instance. “I got a mold, cast me some heads, wrapped ‘em with some paper I had lyin’ around, loaded ‘em up, and they shot reely good!”

But although a lot more reports might be anecdotes by an individual experimenter with one rifle trying several loads, powders, papers and boolits, if they record their data and results (successful or not) carefully, they do, at least, have some loads that might be worth trying, as a starting point, by others with the same rifle. At least the loads can be duplicated because everything is spelled out in detail. If it succeeds or not, it is at least a place to start.

If enough people report success with more or less the same combination, then that’s probably close enough to a statistically valid scientific conclusion for a popular science like rediscovering lost 1870’s loading technology. If it’s only some people reporting success and others saying they can’t get it to work, then the successes are still in the anecdotal area, particularly if the success stories show minimal loading detail and no targets.

There’s enough data around from paper patch experimenters with certain popular calibers that someone with a rifle in the same caliber might have little more trouble concocting a good load from such data than a smokeless shooter has of finding something good in the starting-to-maximum charges for a given load in a handbook. Other calibers are still “out there;” some report success, some have barrels, brass and loading dies for sale.

Some of it might be voodoo, or coincidence. I never seem to get as good diagrams when I don’t use overprimer wads as I do when I use them. Others report they make no difference. But it isn’t a major effort to load a few and see what happens. Grease cookies generally are reported to degrade target accuracy with paper patch boolits. But you might get lucky and be able to fire a string without wiping and still hit stuff. It would probably take all of ten shots to see.

I’ve found the Internet, as with most things, is reliable or not depending on the size and quality of the sample. Signal-to-noise ratios aren’t hard to establish. People who win matches with their loads, for instance, or a bunch of people who say “I want to thank (name here) for his help; his load works great,” constitute pretty solid evidence that the load is likely worth trying, at least.

[MUSTANG]

:goodpost:

[David todd]

ome of it might be voo


I’ve found the Internet, as with most things, is reliable or not depending on the size and quality of the sample. Signal-to-noise ratios aren’t hard to establish. People who win matches with their loads, for instance, or a bunch of people who say “I want to thank (name here) for his help; his load works great,” constitute pretty solid evidence that the load is likely worth trying, at least.
What I have found is that some guys are winning matches with loads that contradict others who are winning matches, and if you read some of the forums, these guys always seem to be going at it tooth and nail! LOL
David

[Don McDowell]

Trying to label this shooting stuff to a scientific level isn't going to work real well. Due to the fact rifles seem to have their own characteristics. Take a look at the modern smokeless stuff, particularly target type 22's. One rifle may shoot something costing 25$ a box really well, but the next rifle may spray the stuff like a .410 shooting 00 buck at 100 yards.
Anecdotal evidence can be interesting, one guys shoots reasonably well might be able to keep 1/2 of his shots on a 6 ft square target, but to the next guy that sort of accuracy won't even come close to being good enough.
Bottom line is the only way to find what your rifle is going to shoot well is to get busy loading and testing. When you find something that your rifle and the target agree on, that suits your requirements, and does so regularly, then you've touched on the scientific result of what works, in your rifle.

[Bent Ramrod]

Looking for rigorous scientific proofs in a venue like sporting firearms load accuracy is not going to be very satisfying. The only person rich enough and interested enough to do real ballistic experiments in the scientific sense was Dr. Franklin Mann. Phil Sharpe did a little testing, but more for his own curiosity; I don’t think he published much of it.

The rest of us can’t afford shooting piers, covered ranges, universal receivers and getting Harry Pope to make us another barrel whenever curiosity strikes. Those ballistic scientists that are around work in government or ammo company labs, and are too busy for such investigations. We make do with what we have, and if the procedures we use and the observations we make are more or less reproducible in somebody else’s gun and loads, then it’s the beginning of a database, which becomes more useful the more successes are reported.

I don’t see a lot of polar opposite advice in these recommendations, at least the current reports that are documented and detailed. I don’t see detailed success stories by people using bore diameter bullets with smokeless powder, patching with Teflon or tinfoil instead of paper, twisting excess paper into a tail and folding against the boolit base, shooting strings of 10s without wiping the barrel, using pure lead boolits at long ranges, or extreme caliber reductions with heavy powder charges to maintain the accuracy and knockdown power with no recoil. Certainly, a given rifle will have its preferences, but there are now loads, calibers and procedures with a better chance of working well than others.

Looking over everybody’s posts from the mid-90s on paper patching, there was a lot of polar-opposite stuff being tried at the beginning, mainly because few really knew what worked (present writer included), but over the years most of the flawed notions and unworkable practices fell by the wayside, and the stuff that worked started repeating.

Certainly there’s enough data to enable one to choose a caliber, chambering, powder, and boolit design with a reasonable expectation of some level of success.

[David todd]

It certainly is interesting, and II am in complete agreement about finding out what shoots best in a particular rifle .
Right now I am having some issues with left over rings of paper in my chamber, and can only find one article about the brass possibly being too short. I will have to check my chamber cast tomorrow and see if that is the case. The rifle shoots pretty well at 100 and 200 meters, and reasonably well at 500, but I have more work to do with it yet. I may have to resort to my greasers to hunt my elk with this fall and leave the PPB's for the range!
David

[Don McDowell]

Are those nasty paper rings causing misses? if not then why worry about them.
At a match sometime back, not long after one of those long protracted paper ring discussion broke out on one of the forums, me and my highwall were on fire, lots of x's and tens rolling up. But my shooting partner and I got to laughing, because every time I'ld pop the action open the case would come out, and a paper ring would come rolling out, Eddie would say when the target came back up, well I'm not going to let you have that 10 or that x because you had a paper ring.

[Lead pot]

I can give you a suggestion on reducing the paper rings.

Change that 45º chamber end transition to a lesser degree and leave that 45º to the smokeless HP using jacketed projectiles it was designed for.
People that say that they don't get paper rings using the 45º transition are not looking for the rings, paper or lead.
When you match the case length to the chamber end tight you develop other issues you really don't want to deal with.

Kurt

[David todd]

Dan McDowell, no they are in fact very accurate, the issue I have is not on the range at all, but I want to use the PPB's load for hunting, I do not have any BPCR competitions up here any more, and at times the ring jams the next cartridge- not good if a subsequent follow up shot is needed!:dung_hits_fan:

Lead Pot, The chamber angle was also a thought I had with another buddy of mine when we were talking about those cursed rings.. I am about to phone an old friend today ( noted barrel maker Ron Smith) and see what he says. I fear however, that the Jedi Master is so backed up even in his old age that he may not be able to get my rifle back to me in time for hunting season!
I also fear that I may end up with a new barrel on the rifle, needed or not - every time we talk I seem to leave a gun and my wallet with him ! LOL
David

[Don McDowell]

I use a dual diameter patched bullet for hunting. Paper rings don't cause much of a problem when shooting those in a hunting situation, where 2 maybe 3 shots are fired.
Let you in on a little secret, you can get paper rings with a 7 degree lead too....

[Lead pot]

Let you in on a little secret, you can get paper rings with a 7 degree lead too....

Well Don, I guess that I fall into that group that don't look hard enough using a 3.5º to the 7º :D

[David todd]

Well guys, it seems instead of falling down the proverbial rabbit hole I just jumped into my pick up and drove right in! LOL:veryconfu
Until I get things figured out I guess II will go back to the greasers for hunting this Fall.
David

[Don McDowell]

Even shooting greasers, it's best you carry a wiping rod when hunting.

[MichaelR]

David
Since I don’t have any information on your hunting load, I have to guess about your load details. My experience is, two things cause paper rings. The first is short cases. But since you are working on hunting loads and probably are trying to get some bullet expansion, I would guess your bullet alloy is too soft. Try 20:1 alloy to resist the bullet upsetting into the small space at the case mouth.

[David todd]

MichaelR, I am currently using a CCI pistol primer,55 grains of Goex FFG, and a poly wad with a 20:1 or slightly softer alloy
I found some of my resized cases this morning that were from an older 40/65 I used to own, and they are very long, so I trimmed them to match the chamber cast of my rifle, which also seems to be very long for a 40/65, but whatever, it is what it is.
I loaded all the cases , all have been checked for chambering in the rifle, and just run into the M die enough to keep the bullet in place.
Each shot will be documented and details as to paper rings, extraction, target impact, etc . will be noted and I will also reload them on location to see if things can be replicated with each individual case.
Grabbing gears and down the wabbit hole we go!:happy dance:
David

[Red River Rick]

...........I do not have any BPCR competitions up here any more......David

David:

Btw, there is a BPCR shoot this coming weekend in Two Hills, AB.

RRR

[David todd]

David:

Btw, there is a BPCR shoot this coming weekend in Two Hills, AB.

RRR

Two Hills? it may as well be in Winnipeg , I don't get out of town much these days:sad:
David

[David todd]

Well, out to the range today and found that my long cases pretty much did away with paper rings but i did get two out of 15 cases.
What we did find interesting is that we got two distinct groups at 200 meters ,15 high on the steel about 4 MOA across but only 1.5MOA vertical, and the other groups was about 3MOA down , same thing!
My partner normally went into the lower group and myself, into the higher group, but at times it was reversed, some were high, some low, from both of us , and we also shot some grease lubed bullets as well.
Cleaning, no cleaning, PPB, greaser, we could not predict the outcome.
Every bullet at 200 however would have killed a White tail deer ,et alone an elk or moose!
I did put 3PPB's onto a 200 meter target to check and all were very close to the bull with no cleaning in between, but I may end up using the greasers to hunt with anyway.
David

[bpcrshooter]

I dont think there is a "better" design but, you do run the chance of getting leading with a GG bullet after she gets really hot and only blowtubing, and or your lube fails because its ment for the 75deg weather you practiced in, and now it 90 and dry out. Im NOT saying you or anyone here does, but its a chance you can, and accuracy will be affected by so. If you have a dry chamber, you wont get leading w/ a PP bullet design, unless you do not remove fouling, but to get thee most from either bullet design you must remove it or at a min keep it very soft. MANY people have won many shoots using a GG bullet but, is that because more people choose to shoot them? or is it because they are a more superior bullet?? lets turn the table and say more people shoot and win with PP bullets, are we going to have this same discussion about GG bullets not being superior??

I think the advantage's a PP has over a GG design is being able to put more powder in, in turn using less MOA. I have found it easier to find a "load" with PP especially the DDPP designs than GG designs. You can also run very soft lead and not get leading, for hunting purposes.

For hunting purposes a groove dia PP would be better than a bore as you dont have to wipe just to get the cartridge in the chamber but, a GG design may be better yet as you dont have to worry about the elements effecting your paper but, you can keep them high n dry in your shirt pocket too........
In the end I think its a personal choice to use either design and mine is PP.

For the paper rings I found that being .004 from chamber end is about the limit for my .002 thick paper. keeping your brass as close to the end as possible and not curl over into the leade is critical.


matt

[David todd]

Well holy smokes, I was in the garage today, and for some reason decided to stick my bore scope down the barrel with a case in the chamber, well THAT was an eye opener!:mrgreen:
Even the cases I thought were long enough weren't, and most were short by a big margin.
Sooo, I dug out a bunch of 45/70 cases I had and sized them down and trimmed them until the matched the chamber when I had the scope in there. The range session today went very well, using lubed greasers, powder coated greasers (unlubed), and the PP bullets as well.
One paper ring in 35 alternated rounds, and it may have been because I was not cleaning at all in between shots, shooting five at a time.
I think I will still use the greasers for hunting this year however.
David

[Lead pot]

Also, bore scope can and will get you into trouble :D

[David todd]

Also, bore scope can and will get you into trouble :D

You are absolutely correct, most times one is better off not knowing - what they don't see won't bother them ! LOL
Chronographs as well.:shock:
David

[MichaelR]

Matt

If you are having to wipe to get your bore diameter PP bullets to chamber in a hunting load, you need to rethink your bullet dimensions and reloading methods. Even with the worst powders, you should be able to get off 5 shots without any blow tubing or wiping under 2 1/2 MOA. I usually try to get 10 or more shots with this accuracy.

MikeR