The Jacketed Patched Bulle

Many years ago when I first got my model 71 Winchester ( .348 Win. caliber ) a friend
thought I said that I had a .338 Win. and gave me a box of Hornady 200 grain jacketed
round noses that he no use for. At first I didn't know what I'd do with them as well. So
I squirreled them away in my cupboard with the rest of my goodies and that was that.
Factory ammunition was readily available then yet, and I had about 6 or 7 boxes and
I figured that I would shoot these up and have the brass for reloading. When that time
came or there abouts, I went to a number of gun shops that I had been buying my
reloading stuff from, but 348's anything were not to be had. So I ordered a box of 180
grainers from Speer and a box of 200 grainers from Hornady through a local dealer.
Those were slower times back then and the bullets were 60 to 90 days out.
Now for some reason that just bugged the heck out of me as in my mind I just had to
have bullets now !
The gears in my brain started to turn when I came up the brain fart of patching those
338s that I had squirreled away. Patching jacketed bullets? Was I nutzo? That never
stopped me before!
In anticipation to to the future realoading of this cartridge I had already picked up an
RCBS die set. I still had to flare the cases to allow the finnished PPB to enter without
damaging the wrap. For this I used a 3/8" ball bearing lightly tapped into the case mouth.
In patching the bullet, I had 9 pound onion skin dampened with water, made a double
wrap, twisted a tail and allowed to dry. The tail was clipped flush with the bullets base
after drying. I covered about 5/8 of the 338's body from the base up. The resulting
diameter was .351" and I left it at that. I did lube the patch with STP ever so lightly.
I forgot just how deep I seated the bullets, but I remember that I seated them so that
they cycled through the action without problem.
The primer was a CCI 200 And the powder charge was 50 grains of 4320.
At the range of 100 yards I set up a sheet of card board fo about 4 feet square figuring
the worst. My rifle had consistenly shot 1 1/2" to 2'' groups with factory ammo.
I have a Reddfield reciever sight on the rifle and I always thought that this was good
deer hunting accuracy. And it still Is!
Back to my PPBs. My first shot was to the left of center by about 3 1/2" but even with
the center. The second was 5" left and an inch lower, the third was just under 4" left
and a little high, and the fourth was 5 1/2" and even with center. WHOA!
Just a little sight ajustment to move things to the right and I was getting roughly the
same grouping that I did with factory rounds. NEAT!
I don't have a need to do this any longer, and I do believe that the jackets on the
338s are more heavily constructed, BUT it does show that it can be done with success.
I personally do not see any reason that this idea cann't be applied to any other caliber
that is in reasonable range to the caliber that one is seeking.
I'm much further along now than I was 40 some years ago, but it is still very rewarding
( FUN ) to try things that don't seem common usage, just to find a " new " way of
approaching a problem and seeing that it works!
FWIW
DUST

BTW, I know that this site is about Cast Boolits but I just wanted people to be aware of the possibilties. Sizing up a cast boolit would work as well, I'm sure ! Paper Patching does work! And they can be driven at good speed and accuracy. I believe that the paper patch in many ways is as good and in some ways better than metal jackets!
IMO
DUST

Firstly: I know this site is about Cast but I think this topic is valid. I do recall an article in 'Guns & Ammo' some years back about this topic. They were paper patching 'J' word bullets up for use in large calibres. I tried some of their ideas with .308 ppj bullets in a .303" British. Unfortunately, my notes are gone and I can nolonger recall the accuracy results or charges. They did work.

John.

Very interesting post. Anything that furthers our knowledge of cast boolits is a valid post. I too am drawn to projects that are just a little out of the ordinary.
One of my recent projects has been a squib load for my snub nose 38 which shoot at slingshot velocity.

The article Bigjohn is talking about was by Ross Seyfreid about 4 or 5 years ago (maybe 6?) or at least I read an article by Ross Seyfreid on paper patching "J" bullets about 4, 5 or maybe 6 years ago. I lent the magazine to a friend who did not return it.

Ross's goal was to use commonly available bullets for uncommon bore sizes such as some of his old English rifles.

He also tested out things like 7mm bullets patched to .30 cal. with success.

One of the things he mentioned was that he found roughing up the copper jacket by rolling the bullet between a file and steel plate helped in patching and helped give the patch some grip to the copper when fired.

I have been paper patching smooth sided boolits in both .44 mag and .303 British (also a few .308 Winchester). So far the .44 mag seems fine with smooth sided lead and results have been very good. The .303 was a bit of a problem until I grooved the sides of the boolits with a little tool I made up. This increases diameter by about 0.003" and puts tiny grooves all along the bearing surface - that seems to have improved things a lot and testing continues. The .308 worked fine with smooth sided boolits and gave good accuracy right away.

The comment I will make here is that the .44 mag loads have been shot through a Marlin with microgroove barrel so very shallow rifling. The .308 has a bore like a mirror and visibly quite shallow rifling. The .303 British has a nice bore but visibly deeper rifling than the .44 or .308. I think the rifling depth/boolit diameter and hardness, and patch thickness all have to be right for a given barrel/rifling depth.

The microgoove rifling is only about 0.0025" deep, the .303 is .303" bore x 0.315" groove so about 0.006" deep and the .308 I haven't slugged but I'm guessing about 0.004" deep - definitely deeper than the microgroove but not near as deep as the .303.

My .44 boolits cast at 0.421" and I patch to about 0.433"+ for the Marlin with a 0.4315" groove. The .30 cal. boolits cast at 0.301" and oddly enough when patched to 0.315" they shot fine from the .308 which is 0.309" groove!?! but didn't shoot well at all from the .303.

After grooving and using a thinner patch the same boolit shot well from the .303. I think the smaller boolit and thicker patch may have let the patch strip off the boolit in the barrel or at least not grip well enough - not many keyholes but poor accuracy.

From what I have read the black powder cartridge shooters using paper patches like soft boolits patched to bore size or just over so the boolit enters the rifling easy and slugs up to fill the grooves. With smokeless loads it seems approximately groove diameter is the goal.

I would expect that a paper patched "J" bullet would be a lttle pickier about paper quality and fit since the copper isn't going to conform to the rifling as easily as lead - even ACWW. Likely paper with a very high percentage of coton or linen rag would be best.

I have been using 30% cotton bond, drafting velum and tracing paper for the lead boolits and all have been unsized.

I will do some searching here and see if I can find the magazine with the article. I believe I would have kept this for future reference. I'll repost if I succeed.

John.

Odd but very interesting.
Ken.

"Paper Patches for Hot Handloads' by Ross Seyfried; Guns & Ammo, April 1990, starting on page 66.

One of his suggestions was to 'roll' the Jacketed Bullets between a rough file and steel plate to give the paper some grip on the smooth bullet.

"Paper patches allow the use of cast bullets at high velocities and undersized bullets in larger bores. They even allow the use of .357 and .454 (.45 Colt) bullets for reduced loads in some big bore rifles." R.S.

While looking for this article (which I can only find a photocopy of), I find some targets shot with my PP loads in 1992.

Using CBE's 310-165 (or 155) weight projectiles cast on Winchester 308 cases and IMR 4064 powder; I had tried two different loads 37grs to start with and stopped at 39.5grs. The 37 grain charges appear to be the more accurate for me and my rifle.

Unfortunately, in the move to where I'm living now; many notes went missing including all the .303 british notes. I have not been able to reproduce these tests as both the rifle involved were sold off to buy something else.

John.

I have a friend with a prewar commercial 98 Mauser in 8mm with a .318 barrel. Two wraps of 16lb paper on a .308 bullet works great. There are a lot more quality .308s out here than .318s. Helps to roll the bullet under a sharp mill bastard file first to help the paper stay in place.