?????

[XWrench3]

so, i have heard about paper patch boolits way back when i was a kid (and that was a LONG time ago). now that i have started casting, i have a small intrest in doing this. i will not start off with a ton of newbie questions, as there is a LOT of good quality reading to do here first. but the question i will ask is, so with paper patching, at least theoreticly, you could paper patch almost any material you wanted and shoot it out of a caliber that was at least close in diameter, right? i mean if you wanted to, you could shoot hardened tool steel, or titanium through a rifle, as long as the length of the projectile was within the range of what the barrel rifling would stabilize. or you could shoot plain lead at a pretty good clip without barrel leading?

[longbow]

You wouldn't want to be shooting anything hard unless you had very thick paper patching so there was no chance the rifling would contact the hard core. Then I doubt you would get good accuracy ~ maybe but I doubt it. A simple test without any danger to you barrel would be to use copper or brass rod of approriate diameter (or turned to such) then patch, load and shoot.

Typically with lead boolits, even hardened lead Boolits, the rifling impressions make it into the boolit.

Normally paper patching is done with paper from about 0.0015" to 0.003" thick so two wraps (which is normal) is about as thick as the grooves are deep.

To patch a hard, non-yielding material, you would need a well undersize core and thick enough paper to fill the grooves. Also, if the paper tears in the throat or during feeding, or cuts through in the barrel you will get contact.

As for softer lead, yes, that is one of the benefits of paper patching ~ being able to shoot softer alloys that will give good expansion.

Anyway, I am no expert here but if you do some reading in this forum there are many here with vast experience in paper patching. It is a good place to learn!

Longbow

[pdawg_shooter]

You will find that you can take pure lead up to around 2200fps with paper patching. In large bore (40+ caliber) this makes an awesome hunting bullet. By upping the BHN of the bullet you can match bullet hardness to velocity and make hunting bullets for any caliber.

[RMulhern]

Hardened tool steel???

No!

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

i mean if you wanted to, you could shoot hardened tool steel, or titanium through a rifle, as long as the length of the projectile was within the range of what the barrel rifling would stabilize.

You'd have to take care that the hardened steel/titanium was not over bore diameter!!!! I know of no one on these boards that has attempted it, but I don't see why you couldn't experiment.

For example, a rifle might have a bore diameter of 0.300". Many paper-patched shooters will use a soft lead bullet that is at or greater than 0.300", and simply use the patch to fill in the groove diameter. So with soft lead the shooter will have fine results shooting a 0.301" diameter bullet patched to 0.309". However, a 0.301" diameter titanium slug would be disasterous!

[45 2.1]

You'd have to take care that the hardened steel/titanium was not over bore diameter!!!! I know of no one on these boards that has attempted it, but I don't see why you couldn't experiment.

I've shot some. Make sure they are undersize with a thick patch. This was done as a matter of course by Whitworth in the 1800's in blackpowder rifles. They shot patched steel slugs at sea against enemy ships.

[RMulhern]

You can also shoot rocks, gravel, sand, BS, and 'ground up' glass....but that doesn't mean it's good for the bore!!

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Yes indeed there is a chance that shooting hard metal bullets would ruin the bore. But the way the question was presented seemed to be open to some risk.

In other words I understood the question more along the lines of, "would it be unsafe to . . .?"

If you work within certain limits, I would think the worst that would happen is it would make a small-bore shotgun out of a rifle. It is up to the original poster to decide if he can afford to ruin the gun.

I could see doing this experiment with some junky military surplus gun. I wouldn't even do it with my Savage. Although . . . I do have the .30-06 take-off barrel still laying around not being used for anything. . .