Anyone Paper Patch for a 44 Special/44 Magnum rifle ?

[bcraig]

I hve a Stainless Rossi 92 44Special/44Magnum 16 inch barrel and curious whether anyone has Used PP with their 44 Lever action rifle ?

If so I would be interested in hearing about your results.

Did you uses the patching over the lube groove's of a Semi-Wadcutter or Round nose Flat Point?
What about if the bullet was already lubed ,did you go ahead and just go ahead and put the patch on over the lubed bullet?

Seems like it would be a good way to shoot undersize Lead bullets in the 44 and shoot
Pure lead in your'e 44 Special or 44 Magnum rifle or carbine.

[longbow]

Yes, I read an article in Petersons... Hunting? Many years ago where the author decided to paper patch for .45 LC in rifle and revolver. I decided I had better try in my 1894 .44 Marlin

I made a mould that cast 0.421" smooth boolits. The mould is similar to the old Ideal Cylindrical moulds, not a split mould. My choice of diameter was to suit the microgroove rifling which if memory serves is 0.424" bore diameter and 0.4315" groove diameter. Normally you'd want the boolit to be about 0.001" to 0.002" over bore diameter then patch to groove diameter but how with microgroove?

Anyway, it worked well for me. I had visions of patches being damaged during loading and feeding but no problems at all and accuracy was good.

So, yes it works but you'll need to slug your bore if you haven't so you can cast or size then patch to suit the bore and groove diameters. If the rifling is 0.005" +/- deep then you should size boolits at bore diameter to maybe 0.002" over bore diameter then choose paper thickness to fill the grooves from there. IIRC I used paper that was approx. 0.003" thick. If paper is thinner you will need a slightly larger boolit. Buffalo Arms sells paper for patching that is ~0.002" thick.

While I had good success, I am lazy and found that for .44 mag. I could shoot plain base boolits without issue and papre patching is work so I stopped paper patching for the Marlin.

I am currently working on an 1881 Marlin in .45-70 and have already tried some PP boolits with reasonable success but needed the case necks expanded more so made an expander and have another batch of PP boolits loaded and waiting for testing. No problems with patch damage loading or feeding in the 1881 Marlin either.

I reread your post so will calrify... all the boolits I have used in both the .44 and .45-70 were smooth boolits so no lube grooves. You can use lube groove boolits but you need to size them to suit the bore/groove/patch thickness and no, do not patch lubed boolits! I have not done that but have read that the patch will stick to the lube then not shed properly at the muzzle. I have also read that even wiping lube on the patch after wrapping can result in the patch not shedding at the muzzle properly. Just a heads up.

There are a number of good tutorials on how to paper patch. Most wrap with damp paper but some wrap dry. I wrapped damp. All I used was a polypropylene cutting board and damp paper cut to a template with 30° angle ends, start the tip of the paper at the shoulder of the boolit, press the boolit down onto the paper then roll away from your self. Direction of wrap should match rifling twist so right hand twist rifling should have boolits wrapped with the open seem facing right so rotation will help peel the paper off. Some say it doesn't matter and I won't argue. ideally the rifling cuts the paper and it turns to confetti at the muzzle.

So, the short answer is yes it works so if you want to try it read up a bit on paper patching then select a mould and sizer, if required, to size the boolits to suit then patch away, load and shoot!

Longbow

[Nobade]

I have run quite a bit of paper patched ammo through my Marlin 1894 44 mag. It's actually quite convenient, since my paper adds .006" so I run unlubed bullets through a .427" sizer (44-40 size) and they patch to .433", perfect for the Marlin's barrel. They shoot exceptionally well, and of course there's no leading no matter how fast they are pushed.

[Digital Dan]

Ruger 77/44, groove at .430”. Smooth swaged.422” pure lead of 300 gr with a 3/16” flat nose. Paper was .002” thick w/cotton rag, commonly referred to as 9# onionskin. 18 gr of L’il Gun gave ~1600 fps and sub MOA precision at 100 yds. Never needed a second shot on hogs or deer. Boom- flop.

[bcraig]

Thank’s for the information guy’s

Is there a good YouTube video that would be good for me to watch to learn more about paper patching ?

[longbow]

Not videos but this should help:

http://www.researchpress.co.uk/index.php/firearms/ammunition/paper-patching-bullets

https://svartkrutt.net/articles/vis.php?id=42

Longbow

[trapper9260]

Not videos but this should help:

http://www.researchpress.co.uk/index.php/firearms/ammunition/paper-patching-bullets

https://svartkrutt.net/articles/vis.php?id=42

Longbow

Thanks for posting the links . It give some good details. I know there is other post about it on here , one of these days during the winter I want to try it .