I've been away from my Sharps rifles for a couple of years now and have taken them back up again. At that time I was getting up to speed on PP a BACO 525gr money, 75gr 3F Swiss/or Kik, 30 over powder wad .125 cookie and another 30 under the boolit. I fell away for the love of another woman(gun) and finally just this weekend went back to my true love. (gawd what cornball ****) Anyway I wasn't impressed with my first efforts then and shot the remainder of those rounds. I had 14 left. My idea was to build a load that would just allow me to use the blow tube like I did with the greasers. Well that didn't work worth a damn. First shot 4" high next two touching in the bull and two more lower down the target. As I remember correctly that was typical for the loading and why I fell from grace. I've read a lot of you fellas doing various forms of wiping so I thought I'd try that and I started getting an actual group forming. Two damp patches brought that group way down from the pattern mess of before and then I just did one damp and it put the next five inside the group from the two damp patches. So now that I decided to finally heed the experience of my betters I'm happy to sully forth and not short circuit my learning curve running after loose women(guns).
The paper I am using is .0013" thick and brings my .446 BACO slick up to 451. I think maybe getting a .444 slick and patching with that paper will bring me up to .4492 will yield me better results. Is my thinking flawed or am I heading down the right track? I don't know why I ordered a .446 mould and not a .444 mould if I was trying for bore diameter not over. Well anyway I'm to restart my education again. Thanks fellas.