PP in H & R Buffalo Classic

[giz189]

Hey guys, this is what I have encountered in loading for my Buffalo Classic. I wonder if any of you have come to the point we are looking for with this rifle, good accuracy.
First, I tried some 500 gr straight sided cast bullets from my mountain mould mould bore size .450. I had the devil trying to seat the bullet in the case and getting it to chamber in my rifle at the length I had determined it needed to be, which by the way was wrong. I corrected that later. Anyway, with cases trimmed to 2.1, 70 grains of FF trickled in a 24" tube with a .060 over powder vegetable wad 1/8th grease cookie of spg lube, then a .030 veg wad between the bullet. When I tried to seat the bullet to the correct length, I squirted my grease cookie out of the case mouth and had a blown out ring around the case about where the grease cookie was. Hmmm.So I talked to the guy at Buffalo Arms, he was very helpful. Said to start out with the oal of .250 for my rifle. Still could not get 70 grs of FF in case and keep grease cookie inside. So started compressing powder, 5/8" compression. Didn't know but thought it was a bit excessive. Could load the rounds after that though. Did not group well at all. OAL finall ended up being .248 for that bullet.

Next I ordered some 500 gr tapered and 30-1 temper and some 40-1 500 gr .440 diameter bullets from Buffalo Arms. I am using 16 pound onion skin paper for my patch material. So, I loaded up 10 rounds with the tapered bullets with 65 grs of FF under them , same wads and gc as before. Shot about 3" to 31/2" group at 100 yds. Felt better about it then. Kept reading some books over again and I read that Randolph Wright used .440 dia bullets PP'd to just under grove diameter. Mine measure .4496 ready to shoot. Have not had a chance to fire these yet but hope to in a few days.

Know this is long, but I just wondered if anyone else has had good accuracy from this rifle with Paper Patch. I would rather have an 1874 Sharps but as I am financially embarrassed right now, it will have to wait. I am not looking for tack driving accuracy from this rifle, just acceptable hunting accuracy to 2-300 yards. Maybe 4-5" at the longest distance. Is this acceptable do ya'll think?

[docone31]

I have no experience with that rifle, but I do have experience with paper patching.
You will need to slug the barrel. Believe me, slugging the barrel will save you some real R&D time.
You will not use a grease cookie with a patched load. As a matter of fact, you will most likely use no lube at all.
You will need to be .001 over bore, and .001 at least over groove. At least with smokeless powder.
When I patch, I use water dropped wheel weight alloy. I use standard lube groove castings for the caliber. That helps a lot. I patch for my .30s, and .303 British. That is my experience pool with patching. I have no experience patching for BP, or caliber over .303. With that said, I down size my prime casting, straight out of the mold, then two wraps of lined notebook paper, or computer printer paper. I then size the patched boolitt to, in the .308 diameter bore, .309, with my .303 I size to .314. That one calls for a .312 jacketeds, I size to .314 with paper.
I have heard good things about the accuracy potential of that rifle. I have had a Sharps, and I was not comfortable with it on my shoulder. I loved the rifle, but it did not fit well. I am real tall. I was thinking about the same rifle you have.
Down sizeing the prime casting, almost eliminates the lube lands. There is a shadow left. I feel this helps hold the patch in place during firing.
If I had this rifle, I would fire lap the bore. I would make 10, or 20 castings, and use valve lapping compound as lube. To do that, I would final size with dish soap in the sizer, I use Lee Push thru sizing dies, then wipe the compound on. I probably would only do 10, but I would have 10 more on hand. I could always wipe most off.
I have found, when the rifleing is not as sharp on entry, I get better confetti on firing. I also wrap soaking wet. The wrapping squeegees off most of the water. I do make tails. I twist my tails and set them to dry. On final sizeing, I use Auto Wax lightly to make it and easy pass thru the sizer. With my .303, I do a large sizeing, at least in my opinion. Sometimes it dries at .321, and it still goes thru the .314 sizer with relative ease. That is a large jump down.
If, and when you get your size down, I think you will be impressed.
I found my final diameters mostly by gosh, and by golly. I had gotten a long time ago a box of .309 Herters jacketed 180gn bullets. I was looking into wrapping and wondered, if that would work with my .30s. I got a sizeing die. I had gotten one at .308 to start. I sized to .308, wrapped to .317-.318, there is variance with wrapping, then sized to .309. Bingo!, right out of the box! Dead on, better than jacketed. My .303 took some work. Actually I almost gave up on it. I found my load by accident.
I had wrapped to .3135 useing two wraps of traceing paper. I got 20 minutes of berm at 100yds! I was about done with it, when I smeared some lapping compound on the remaining patchs I had left. I immediately got a clover leaf at 100! I had a shiney bore, a slightly thicker patch, and I was happy!
My thoughts, on not haveing done any .45s, is get a sizer die .001 over factory bullet diameter. You can always flap wheel it out a bit if needed. Start at minimum smokeless loads and see what it does. If it works ok, play with the load a bit.
I have absolutely no experience with Black Powder aside from smoke poles/front stuffers, so I have no help there to offer.
By the time you have dialed in a good load, I wonder if you will feel like the rifle is a compromise. It looks like a good basic rifle. A trigger job, and lots of range time. Might do well.
It is kinda food for thought. I know what patching has done with my .30s, and .303. Better than jacketeds. I run hot loads, and they do well! I have reserved my pure lead for the front stuffers, so I only use wheel weight alloy. I like them hard with paper. I also have some zinc in the alloy. I have yet to acquire a fired load from the berm. They go in too deeply! No key holes on the paper. I love makeing a bowling pin jump up the bank at 100yds from the pin crowd that just leaves them there. A lot of us make them jump. If you hit them on the neck, they spin and jump!.
Give it some thought. You might like it. I am sure some of the experienced wrappers in that caliber will have some definate thoughts on what works for them.
Welcome to paper patching.

[wonderwolf]

I messed with my classic for a while and mostly used it as a intro to paper patching...Kinda regret selling it but I needed to fund the sharps. Try to take a chamber casting of the barrel that will tell you alot of what you might want to know for how long your throat is or isn't.

[Southern Son]

Giz,
I have not PP with black powder yet, but I have launched a gew GG with the holy black. The rules change when you load with black, whatever the projectile.

The tapered boolits you mention, where on the boolit do they measure .440? They are tapered so that you can seat them further out of the case, this lets you shove more of the good stuff in the case behind the boolit. When you wrap the projectile, measure the boolit along its length. Where the the boolit is larger than you bore (about .450 in a normal 45/70 barrel), that is about where you will need to seat the boolit into the case.

Are you wiping between shots? If not (you mention hunting accuracy, so I am guessing not), then you will need the grease cookie you have been using.

Stick to it, keep us posted. You really don't want to know how bad my first loads with black powder were. 3-3 1/2 inches on you first attempt shows that there could be potential in the rifle to do a little better, and to get the accuracy you are talking about, you don't need to make that big of an improvement.

I know what you mean about wanting to start shooting something but not being able to start out with the rifle you want. They did not import the H & R rifles into Oz when I started BPCR. Options were Uberti, Pedersolli or import a US made for 3 times what the Pedersolli cost (and I could not afford that).

[cajun shooter]

Giz189, I too have a BC in 45-70. Your posted load is too much to work and as you have been told you don't need the grease cookie. I would try just dropping around 68 grs of 2F and then using one .030 wad. You did not say if your cases were annealed, if not they need to be. Those groups will go from three to 1 in a hurry by just annealing the cases. The BC rifles are capable of some good accuracy if you feed them with the correct things. You might also want to consider putting a tang site on it. I put a Marbels on mine, that I bought from Buffalo Arms. I bought the improved model that you can change out the center post. Buy the one that is meant for the 1885 Browning without tang. I epoxyed two 10-32 brass female fittings into the stock so that I could use regular screws and not the wood screws that are sold with the sight. Later David

[Junior1942]

My Buffalo Classic likes the Lee 450 FP in soft lead. If you squirted out the grease cookie you seated the bullet way too deep.

1. Drum the charged case with your fingers to settle the powder. There's no need to heavily compress the powder.

2. Use just enough powder so that the seated bullet compresses the powder/wad column maybe 1/32" to 1/16".

You're way overconcerned with velocity and underconcerned with making a perfect finished round.

[John Boy]

Giz, I shoot a very accurate H&R BC, vintage 2003 but have never put PP's through it.

Here's some suggestions that you can apply to your BC PP reloads:
Measure the bore and grooves. My actuals are: Bore 0.4525 and 0.454 grooves. Measure your bore and order bullets under bore diameter so when they are wrapped, they are the 0.003 over bore diameter. If you have bought bullets that are too big, you can resize them down using your H&I die of the proper diameter

For BP wrapped PP loaded rounds, 0.003 over bore diameter. So the naked bullet should be a minimum 0.003 less than bore diameter

If you feel you need lube in the case - use a lubed felt wad. Guarantee the lube won't squish out. Some folks put a wax or fiber wad on both sides of the felt wad. I'm a fan of wax next to the powder and a fiber next to the bullet base

OAL of the loaded round. You want to have the nose slightly engraved by the leading bore cut. Here's a way to determine what the OAL of the round should be:
* Take a 45-70 empty case and make a slit down from the mouth with a Dremel cut off wheel - about an inch long
* Put a wrapped bullet in the slit case and then chamber it with your finger - just to the point where the receiver will lightly finish seating the round
* GENTLY, extract the round and measure from the bullet nose to the back side of the case rim. This is the length you need to make your rounds. Do a couple of measurements to make sure the length is correct. I can chamber a 2.563 COL round in my BC

* Put 0.001 to 0.002 neck tension on your fireformed case to finger seat the bullet and finish with no crimp. If you have a bell on the case, just tap it out lightly with your crimping die

You will be able to have a 68gr minimum charge plus the wads with a seated bullet to the measured COL of the round ... and IMHO - your in business

[giz189]

Southern Son, the .440 bullets are straight sided. Tapered bullets measure .4270 at end of bearing surface and .4485 at base of bullet. These tapered bullets are 500 gr and they have shot the best so far, but I had reduced powder charge to 65 grains and did not have everything so cramed together in the case. Still working on it. Thanks for reply.

[giz189]

Cajun Shooter, I have been annealing the case necks after each firing. As for sights, I almost bought the very sight you are talking about, but decided to go with the Williams Receiver Sight at last minute. Might go with a tang sight yet.

[giz189]

My Buffalo Classic likes the Lee 450 FP in soft lead. If you squirted out the grease cookie you seated the bullet way too deep.

1. Drum the charged case with your fingers to settle the powder. There's no need to heavily compress the powder.

2. Use just enough powder so that the seated bullet compresses the powder/wad column maybe 1/32" to 1/16".

You're way overconcerned with velocity and underconcerned with making a perfect finished round.

Junior, did the drumming on case and on later loadings, I reduced my powder charge to 65 grs of FF.I guess I was just trying to make it live up to it's .45-70 name, but with solid head cases, they don't hold as much as with the old balloon head case. Thanks for the reply.

[giz189]

Giz, I shoot a very accurate H&R BC, vintage 2003 but have never put PP's through it.

Here's some suggestions that you can apply to your BC PP reloads:
Measure the bore and grooves. My actuals are: Bore 0.4525 and 0.454 grooves. Measure your bore and order bullets under bore diameter so when they are wrapped, they are the 0.003 over bore diameter. If you have bought bullets that are too big, you can resize them down using your H&I die of the proper diameter

For BP wrapped PP loaded rounds, 0.003 over bore diameter. So the naked bullet should be a minimum 0.003 less than bore diameter

If you feel you need lube in the case - use a lubed felt wad. Guarantee the lube won't squish out. Some folks put a wax or fiber wad on both sides of the felt wad. I'm a fan of wax next to the powder and a fiber next to the bullet base

OAL of the loaded round. You want to have the nose slightly engraved by the leading bore cut. Here's a way to determine what the OAL of the round should be:
* Take a 45-70 empty case and make a slit down from the mouth with a Dremel cut off wheel - about an inch long
* Put a wrapped bullet in the slit case and then chamber it with your finger - just to the point where the receiver will lightly finish seating the round
* GENTLY, extract the round and measure from the bullet nose to the back side of the case rim. This is the length you need to make your rounds. Do a couple of measurements to make sure the length is correct. I can chamber a 2.563 COL round in my BC

* Put 0.001 to 0.002 neck tension on your fireformed case to finger seat the bullet and finish with no crimp. If you have a bell on the case, just tap it out lightly with your crimping die

You will be able to have a 68gr minimum charge plus the wads with a seated bullet to the measured COL of the round ... and IMHO - your in business

John Boy, my actuals are, to the best of my ability, bore .450 on the nose and grove .4535. When I wrap my .450 straight sided, I get a finished round of .4545 to .455, so my measurements are a little over what you recommended, but I will try them and see what they do. I checked my COL 3 times and averaged it out to 2.4883. I had measured it with another system and got nearly the measurement, so I'm thinking that is gonna be pretty close. These boolitts are 485 grain straight sided from a mould by Dan at Mountain Moulds. They are 1.133" long and hace a bearing surface of .781 before it starts to taper off to the nose. They have a meplat of .304. I hope to get the .440 straight sided or the 450 straight sided to shoot well because I have moulds for those two and I don't want to be buying bullets all the time. Thanks for you reply.