Paper Patch Sleaves

[303Guy]

I have been having so much fun with this paper patching and sleaving and of course, getting feedback and tips from the great folks on this forum!

So here is my Paper Sleave adventure
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-026F.jpg
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-016F.jpg
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-019F.jpg
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-028F.jpg
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-013F.jpg
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-021F.jpg
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-015F.jpg

Now I know I did not invent this method, so why isn't it more common? This is really such an easy procedure (provided one uses a strong enough paper - these are tracing paper sleaves). After making ny first sleave and realizing that it was a 'paper sleave' I remembered hearing mention of it somewhere.

More infomation would be greatly appreciated.:drinks:

[docone31]

I was trying to find out if someone had tried that system.
Looks good to me.
What are the sleeves soaking in?

[303Guy]

What are the sleeves soaking in? A glue solution. I am using a 'Glue Pen' which is just ordinary water soluble paper glue. I apply some to the training edge of the wrap on the mandrel and stick it down. When that joint is dry, I soak the sleaves in a 25% (or weaker?) solution of the same glue. I am aiming for enough glue to hold together as the sleave dries but not so much as to leave a film of glue on the paper surface.

Sizing the paper and the mandrel is quite important but also quite 'flexible' Too much shrinkage and the joint pulls apart. Not enough shrinkage and there are gaps under the sleave on the nose section.

I have been given the idea to soak the sleaves in a 'holding block' and this idea works a treat. The boolits just get 'dropped' into the upright sleave. Brilliant!:bigsmyl2: The piston effect opens the sleave just nicely.8-)

(Someone put the idea - challenge really - in my head to PP boolits for the hornet and I just had to try!:mrgreen: Well, it aint easy so that's were the sleave idea came in and then it went up to the 303 Brit boolits.:Fire: It has turned out to be so easy that it's a pleasure to do!):drinks:

[303Guy]

This may be of interest.

See the sleave joint? It was slightly overlapped so I simply trimmed the excess with a sharp knife. Easy. The paper is so brittle with the glue soaked into it that it just shaves off! There is no gap and no overlap - a perfect joint.

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-029F.jpg

I should mention that I have not tried angled patch edges yet. I first want to perfect this technique.

[docone31]

What would happen if you mixed some water soluable lube, with the glue?
Two birds with one stone.

[303Guy]

.... mixed some water soluable lube, with the glue?
Now that's an idea! OK, I will have to start by finding out what water soluble lube is. I have heard of it but don't have any - yet!:drinks: Great idea - thanks!

I just had to try sleaving over a gas checked lubed and sized boolit! That should assist in cutting the sleave in the rifling. (I hope).[smilie=1:
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-030F.jpg
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-023G.jpg

[6.5 mike]

Docone 31's has a good point, mix the lube & glue to cover both bases.
Are you tucking the extra under the boolit base? Can't see for sure in the pic's. If it dries brittle, does it just break up on firing, or are you still getting confettie?
I was only kidding about the .17 cal thing but, this looks like it would work. Where do you dream this stuff up from? I thought I had alot of time to let my mind wander but you've got me beat hands down. I look for your posts when I get the chance just to see what kind of weird stuff you come up with next. It's great.

[docone31]

Where he comes from, the toilets flush backwards and they have mushrooms!!!
Seriously though, it is a simplification of hand wrapping. The trick is to get the patch to shrink on the casting.
It might just work.

[runfiverun]

i believe it is either rooster red or zambini that is water soluble.
lee sizing lube is water soluble also.

[303Guy]

I've been at home sick and without work! I hope to be back on my feet tomorrow and finding work. I am now a freelance contractor. Point is, I had lots of playing around time!:mrgreen:

The sleave overhangs the tail by just a smidgen. The lost boolit I fired out the hornet broke up but not on a rifling edge. That can't be good. But then I would call the test boolit ideal either. I need to find some way thinner tracing paper for th hornet, I think. I'll see what I can find on my rounds tomorrow.

Right now I will go load up a test load with that lubed and g/c'd boolit an see what happens to the sleave.

[windrider919]

I use Rooster Labs water soluble bullet lube. I tried various glues and did not get the accuracy I was searching for. I think the glue sometimes causes the patch or a portion of the patch to stick to the bullet in flight instead of all of it pealing / blowing off at the muzzle. Recovering some flyer bullets downrange I found shreds of patch 'glued' on the bullet which I believe acted like an air brake or something. The paper patch has to come cleanly and evenly off the bullet or it will affect the bullets flight. The glued patches confetti would be non-consistant in size, like it was not comming off evenly. I found that even just gluing down the edge of the patch gave less accuracy than I knew was possible. I do not know what one might use to substitute for the Rooster Lube. Water soluble yet dries to a hard un-soluble wax. In fact, I now dilute my Rooster to 1/4 strength because full strength also sometimes glued the patch to the bullet. at 1/4 strength it glues the patch down and makes it so tough that I can carry rounds in my pocket with keys and change while hunting and the patch is undamaged. And they are so tough that when feed through the magazine, up the feed ramp they used to catch and tear but now do not. Yes, I try to make everything myself and buy as little as possible but sometimes you just have to admit you cannot do it all and buy what works. You might find it amazing but I must have tried 45 or 50 different kinds of paper before breaking down and ordering some cotton rag bond paper and for less than $10.00 I have a lifetime supply. and I tried all kinds of patch shape before going back to the traditional trapezoid, two wraps w/ no overlap. Every step taken in reloading PP bullets I tried as many different ways as I could think of. Yet time after time I found the traditional way was either easier or just produced better results. I do do it differently than the BP PP shooters but found that the advice I got from the smokeless PP shooters was just easier to follow than to waste a lot of time re-inventing the wheel. One quart bottle of Rooster Lube cost only a couple of dollars and I have shot over 2000 rounds and still have half left. I have patching down to a science and now just concentrate on finding the perfect load for my perfect bullet.

And as per what Fiverunfive said, thats right, Lee sizing lube IS water soluble but it stays water soluble. when used as a patch lube I found it picked up moisture sometimes days later and made the patch soft. Bullets wrapped a couple of weeks before patches tore when trying to load them. With the Rooster, once it dries it is waterproof and the patches are less prone to tear or wrinkle when loaded.

[303Guy]

Test result using the lubed, sized and g/c'd boolit.

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-032F.jpg

The bigget piece was caught with the cotton filler in the first layer of catch cloth. The long sliver was in some wet cloth underneath, having past through four or five cloth layers. Could it have followed the boolit wake? Mmmm.... Yeah... right!

The piece of patch from the hornet boolit. That looks like the inside wrap although it seems inside out.

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-033F.jpg

Well, it would have been pretty dull if things had worked out perfectly the first time![smilie=1:

So far I have a sleave that is easy to make and fit but only if the paper is strong enough when wet. That makes the patch too strong to come off on firing. So, what next? Find a way to use weaker paper, thinner tracing paper, find a way to strengthen printing paper (making it brittle at the same time)?

At this time, ideas and suggestions from the team would be most welcome!:drinks: This method seems to have too many advantages to not find way to make it work.

Want to know one of my favourite expressions? "The Americans put a man on the moon 50 years ago. And we can't solve this small problem?!"

Hey .... ! We don't have a 'smiley' of the American flag or the solute! OK then... next best! :drinks:

[303Guy]

An update - I tried using a bit of envelope paper. One sleave on same mandrel, one on an 8mm mandrel, one dry wrapped boolit and one wet wrapped. On soaking the first sleave, I was unable to get the prime casting into it but otherwise it was strong enough. The 8mm sleave just slipped onto the casting dry. Then I soaked it and let it dry. Well, that on shrank firmly onto the boolit drive bands but not thr bore ride section. I soaked the dry wrapped boolit and dried it. That shrunk to conform to the boolit. The wet wrapped one measures 0.01mm larger than the dry wrapped one. Obviously, handling the wet paper swelled it a bit (surface loosening).

What paper is used for envelopes?

No time for pics now - I'm off to find work!:drinks:

[longbow]

I was going to ask if you had used this method for larger calibers and see your last comments on 8mm.

I had thought about a sleeve "sabot" but didn't think it would work and did not try it. I certainly never thought about rolling on a mandrel then swelling by soaking then sliding a boolit in. Very clever!

For some of my first PP boolits I used a very dilute mix of wood glue and water but found they did not shred and leave the boolit every time. I went to plain old water and had no problems after.

Have you tried rolling dry on the mandrel then just putting glue on the edge of the paper to hold it? I suppose if you use a water soluble glue then that might let go when the sleeve is soaked later. Hmmm.

Here's a thought. What if you made some short slices along the nose bore riding portion like petals on a shotcup? A sharp utility knife should slice through easily and if you have enough glue to keep the paper stiff then it may make it into the barrel intact but when it leaves the muzzle those "petals" should open up and rip the patch off.

Another thought might be to use a larger diameter boolit and very thin paper. I find paper of 0.003" or thicker leaves large confetti when I shoot but the tracing paper of around 0.0015" shreds so fine it is hard to find the bits.

I will certainly have to try this out. Keep up the good work and keep us posted!

Longbow

[303Guy]

Well, I've been going through what windrider919 posted. I have found a non-tracing paper strong enough to roll by machine while wet. The thicker tracing paper is too strong to come off but I'm not sure how well this stuff will come of. It's just lined A4 note pad paper. This stuff is thinner and stronger than printer paper.

longbow, I have been glueing the edge to make the sleaves then soaking them in a diluted glue. There is no bonding to the lead but the tracing paper does not form confetti. In fact, I am finding bits of paper and cotton filler quite deep into the wet rags. The note pad paper did not fair any better.

I tried this note pad paper on a hornet boolit
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-036F.jpg

The boolit did not enter the bore straight. This is the other side. Note the absence of a rifling mark on the heel.
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-037F.jpg

[303Guy]

What if you made some short slices along the nose bore riding portion ...I have thought about this but am not sure that I can actually cut such strong paper nor that the petals would stay in place. When I trim off the excess on the nose, the off-cut bit just falls away.

However, this notepad paper seems promising. I did a glue test on it (dipped it in the glue solution) and found that the unglued paper is tougher than the glued, which is brittle. But, the strength accross the grain increases! I am doing a few un-glued patches - wet - and this paper works just fine. I'll put a few boolits through the gun and see.

Question
Does the patch 'confetti' better with higher velocity? (My tests are all with small charges).

[303Guy]

What would happen if you mixed some water soluable lube, with the glue?
Two birds with one stone. I found the water soluble wax. It only comes in larger quantities and is not too cheap so I didn't get it. The was itself is not soluble but is carried in an emulsion so when it dries it forms a water proof coating. I'll try get a sample from somewhere.

In the meantime, I have tried a dry sleave of boolit diameter which I then wet and slip on. This works on a smooth sided boolit. The only advantage is in getting a perfect joint. The paper shrinks on getting damp so the join edge must be glued. I have taken to cutting the patch angle to match the rifling for this test. We'll see if it works!:roll:

[303Guy]

What would happen if you mixed some water soluable lube, with the glue?
Two birds with one stone. I found the water soluble wax. It only comes in larger quantities and is not too cheap so I didn't get it. The wax itself is not soluble but is carried in an emulsion so when it dries it forms a water proof coating. I'll try get a sample from somewhere.

In the meantime, I have tried a dry sleave of boolit diameter which I then wet and slip on. This works on a smooth sided boolit. The only advantage is in getting a perfect joint. The paper shrinks on getting damp so the join edge must be glued. I have taken to cutting the patch angle to match the rifling for this test. We'll see if it works!:roll: