Can someone tell me what the advantages/disadvantages are to paper patch bullets???
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Can someone tell me what the advantages/disadvantages are to paper patch bullets???
High speeds with soft lead makes them particularly good for hunting deer. Cool look factor! Only disadvantage I know of is learning to patch them right. All in all, I tend to agree with Paul Matthews when he suggests the paper patched bullet was/is the finest hunting projectile to come down the pike. -JDL
You get to play with your bullets a lot longer, you get finger therapy while playing and you can use softer alloys in your bullets. You dont need gas checks.
It CAN be a very rewarding experience,or a frustrating night mare. You will have to buy rag paper as most type writer papers don't work.I haven't done it for a few years and things change . There may/must be things around now that I never tried when paper patching.
If done right no leading and one h**l of a shiney barrel.
Ken
I just finished a week of working loads for an original Sharps in 45-80 PP and like it so much I am throating my Sharps for 45-75 PP. The only down side I see is that I have yet to get more than 6 shots without wiping. Accuracy is as good or etter than naked lead and everybody at the range goes,"wow, thats neat". Paper patching is kind of slow for stiff old hands and compared to naked lead bullets you will probably wear out your barrell in 20 thousand rounds or so.
KCSO;
If you reserve paper patched bullets for hunting and sighting in, they will have NO effect on your barrel life.
FWIW
Dale53
http://www.fototime.com/0FDEA25C2215222/standard.jpg
Sixty rounds of 577-450 with patched Lee 458-405F's. In this case they're patched up to .472" in order to fit the throat and leade of a MkIV Martini-Henry.
http://www.fototime.com/EC358FE0A59E106/standard.jpg
The above are slugs I've used in a Whitworth and Rigby long range match rifles (muzzle loaders). Those skewed 6 sided ones only work in the Whitworth :-)
http://www.fototime.com/F5B2831828DBFE3/standard.jpg
Some more long range muzzle loader slugs. No difference in these and cartridge rifle types except for the diameter over the patch.
I work 12 hour unsupervised shifts and I don't do anything except tell drivers I can't help them and to call corporate, and hand out toilet paper and bags of coffee. I have no responsibilities except to show up :-) I suppose if the building caught fire I'd be responsible for calling the FD. At least I think so. I'll have to check that out.
Anyway, I can do lots of paper patching and get paid while doing it. Besides being able to drive dead soft lead slugs to full jacketed velocities in many cartridges it has other uses too. As I mentioned patching up the Lee 405grs slugs to .472" for the Martini. Not having a correct mould, patching up 'as cast' 45 cal rifle slugs is a way to get boolits.
Ross Seyfried's first published article was on paper patching and he'd patched up some Hornady 500 gr jacketed slugs to use in a 470 Nitro double rifle. I've patched up 45 cal cast pistol boolits to shoot from a 45-70 over mild charges of fast powder and also some 30 cal slugs to try and get a $39 M91/30 Mosin-Nagant to shoot, and it did too. But I'm danged if I'm going to patch up 30 cal slugs to plink with! BTW, the slugs were Lyman 311284's patched to .316" and they did exceedingly well.
Paper patching is a very flexible means to get slugs for oddballs or to get heavier or lighter then normal slugs, like patching those 200 pistol slugs for the 45-70.
Do a search here on the board for "Paper Patch" and you'll get several hits.
.................Buckshot
I bought an RCBS mold for a 500 gr PP bullet to use in a 45-70 Browning BPCR. Never did get it to work with black powder. Have cast and shot hundreds of them from my 458 WM. Like jhalcot says ,you get to play with your bullets more before shooting them. I like the raised eyebrows from my shooting buddies when they see them.
I would question the claim that they wear the barrel more than lead or copper bullets. Paper is fiberous but still much softer than copper. The barrel is nice and clean after shooting them.
If you run them through the lubesizer they should be good to go, I'm thinking. Mick.
Lotta dittoes to the above info from this quarter.
Paper patching has been a mixed experience for me. An attempt to get an undersized Lee 500 grainer to work in the Ruger #1 x 45-70, the abrupt throat leade angle (probably) stripped the jacket and allowed the soft lead slug to plate, coat, and bush down the bore to about 37 caliber. After reading Paul Matthews' "The Paper Jacket" from Wolfe Publishing, there are "fixes" for those conditions that might get the system humming along. Since plain boolits of the proper size shoot very well from the rifle, there's not much vigor in pursuing paper patching further with that rifle. If I were to really want to shoot the paper patched slugs in the Ruger, a throating job would be a good plan--but since it does well with regular old unpatched boolits, I'm leaving well enough alone.
The CZ-550 in 9.3 x 62 did VERY well with pure lead Lyman #358430 RN slugs patched up to about .368", then dipped in LLA. I am tempted to get a PB mold of about .359" casting a 270 grain pure lead boolit ginned up for PP work in this caliber, but again--the MM 270 grain conventional boolit does so well, I've enjoyed its work enough to not be motivated to roll up PP's.
There is a time investment involved in paper patching that argues against extensive use of the practice for everyday shooting, in my view. For limited use venues--big game load development comes to mind here--it makes sense to me. But at some point you have to ask yourself if the time invested is worth the gain received. The practice is a damn sight cheaper than gas checks if you're trying to extend velocity, but the back edge of that sword is the time required to prepare the slugs.
I would respectfully suggest the Matthews book for a very in-depth but quite readable plain language guidebook to paper patching.
I hope to be forgiven for going a bit off topic, here.
Buckshot, a question about those 'hex' bullets...
I understand they are shaped that way to comform to the 'rifling method' in the Whitworth and Rigby barrels.
But (as in starting a bolt into a tapped hole), do you need to 'screw' the cartridge into the chamber as you load so the hex bullet gets lined up and 'threaded' into the hex bore?
This is just idle curiosity on my part, but others may have more than a passing interest in your answer.
CM
Barrel Life/20,000 rounds
I should care if my grandkids will need to rebarrel my Sharps.
Having just finished patching and firing a goodly number of P/P in two different guns and having finished "THE SCHUTZEN RIFLE" by Ned Roberts I will offer a couple of observations.
I think the major problem we have today with P/P is the rifling in the barrels and our choices of powder. Although Ned mentions wiping ever shot for target shooting he also sys that he expected his hunting load to go 10 shots without wiping. In an original Sharps I was able to get 5 shots without wiping pretty easy and with the moden gun I am still working with lubes trying to get off of three. Ned also made a point of saying that each rifle had a lube preference and what worked in one might not work in another. Having shot a goodly number of black powders over the years i think that Swiss is the best we are likey to get anymore. The quality of the powder is directly related to the quality of the charcoal and the millling time and milling is the dangerous part and so is skimped on now days.
Even with these limitation I think that with a proper leade and good lube 5 to 6 shots without wiping are attainable. I am planning to do a lot of P/P work this summer with both the 45-70 and the 38-55 and I am making up a throating reamer so I can by degrees try and match the old Sharps leade. My expiriments so far have got me convinced that I will shoot my next Buffalo with a paper patched bullet.
Now for the bad news..
Quoting Ned Roberts...
"By the 1890's we had determined that the naked lead slug surpassed the paper patch slug when breech seated." This was from the best target guns of the day and were in rifles capable of minute of angle shooting. Paper patch does have some advantage for hunting, but the naked slug was superior in accuracy and that is why the P/P went out of fashion.
...........The Whitworth is a muzzle loader, so no cartridge involved. Yup, you do screw them in at the muzzle, so to speak :-). The Rigby's didn't have Whitworth's skewed bore. The closest cartridge gun having a Whitworth type bore form is the Henry. Basicly the Whitworth but with small lands at the intersections of the flats.Quote:
Originally Posted by montana_charlie
BTW, more conicals were fired out of Whitworths, even in their heyday of the 1860's, as they provided accuracy just as fine and conicals were much cheaper. The patched hexagonal one on the left was produced in a multi-piece swage die. It's design and operation unknown to me. They were about a buck apiece.
..................Buckshot
:killingpc:groner:[smilie=b:[smilie=p:[smilie=w:[smilie=w::violin:
Are you thinking of paper patching for blackpowder or smokeless? There are some big differences between the two.
For smokeless, the only disadvantage, if you can call it that, is having to learn a new skill, of paper wrapping bullets.
Lots of advantages, especially compared to grease groove bullets. A paper patch bullet will do anything a grease groove bullet can do, and then some. Velocities can be easily pushed over 3000 fps, and often you can get higher velocity with a paper patched bullet than you can with jacketed bullets.
I won't comment on blackpowder use, other than to say I've read enough to know that the methods and requirements are very different.
This thread was active in June of 2006.
Additions may be of interest to some, but I doubt that the author is still reading.
CM
D'oh! My apologies. I saw the last post before mine was recent, and didn't look at the others.:killingpc
It's of interst to me. Well, it's fun!Quote:
This thread was active in June of 2006.
Additions may be of interest to some, but I doubt that the author is still reading.
A comment by KCSO.
Ummmm .... that's before one needs to change the boolit profile a bit for the next 20,000 rounds!:mrgreen:Quote:
Barrel Life/20,000 rounds ....
I'd really like to hear a little more, from those with actual experience, on the issue of barrel life. It seems that most white paper has a lot of clay in it. Is the bore nice and shiny because the paper is taking off metal? I cast about 1k bullets this weekend and I'm curious to know before I invest a lot of time into this method.
Thanks to both Don and MTCharlie for their help on this. Catboat writes an excellent article in "Paper 101". Monday night I finished three pages on an Iphone before my eyes got droopy. He does say there is clay in paper, BTW. As I read more, I've learned that I need lead that is slightly over BORE size. Unfortunately, my molds don't match my barrels since I tried to buy molds .001-.002 over GROOVE size and Lee does not make a .301 push through to swage them down. The learning continues.
Well I don't know about the lead being over bore diameter part, under or right at is what I prefer, but I think going over bore diameter with the bullet it's self is not a good route to take. When you do that you end up having to seat deep so the bullet will chamber without messing the leading edge of the patch, that removes powder capacity and as patched bullets have a hard time getting greaser velocity , that's just to much backing up to suit me.
Howdy!
for my 1874 Quigley Sharps, a Pedersolli, I love the PP bullet. See attached.Attachment 78054
Triple 7 BP sub. Mag primers and primer flash hole trued to .06" gives 3" groups, on a good day, at 200 yards. I love PP bullets.
If your still following this thread.
I hope a lot of the posters over the years this has been running have picked up a few things :smile: When we had the last primer shortage several years ago I kept the primer bricks marked for the rifle I used them in. In one of my Shiloh's I use the most I was on brick #16 and the biggest percentage; guessing 85-90% were shot with PP using 25-100% cotton, some Velum that has a lot of sizing in it and the bore still has sharp land edges and is as good as it ever was. Yes the reamer marks that were smoothen out when the button was pulled through are gone and it looks like it has been lapped but the bore is still .400 and the grooves are still.0039" deep and this has shot many more bricks of unmarked primer boxes since the last primer shortage.
At my age I will never get this bore shot out in my life time.
Just shoot the PP and enjoy the extra work wrapping them :smile:
LP.
Howdy LP,
I didn't keep my promise to the Sharps to never use lead to steel but it was just for a short time. She will never see another bare projectile again in my life time. I use a lapped oak plank 4" x 9" x 1" with a 3/16" slot parallel to the bottom so I can line up the paper to the long edge leaving the tail just over the bottom edge with the paper that is only just wet by my own saliva but not awash. The slot aligns the bullet to the nose stop clamped to the side and rolled up the board square so the paper edges are aligned. By rolling it several more times the paper stretches as the moisture is squeezed out to make the two edges meet. Then died thoroughly for 4 days and it is as tight as any jacketed bullet. They are lubed and run through the sizing die twice with a 90 degree rotation for lubing the paper. The result is as low as 1 MOA on a dead calm day and you forget all the work. What a joy!
How about a few photos of your patching set up Westerner?
Will do Pard. It might take a few as I am in the middle of wiring and lighting my new 950 square foot redwood deck that I built 3 feet above grade a couple years back. Got more difficult when I went into my 70s.
Hang in there. Worth waiting for.
I have not forgotten my commitment to put more on the subject here but the dear sweet wife was presented with some heart problems that culminated with heart surgery a month ago. All is well but taxing on this old salt. Her too of course.
Paper jackets provide a great deal of satisfaction with the challenge they present in minute details to make them uniform and functional. I will be experimenting with a 450 grain taper sided swaged slug this year for longer range. There is a 1,000 yard facility about 3 hours from the house and they require you show targets at 200, 300 and 600 yards before they will let you onto the 1,000 yard line. Great fun!!!
Wish I could afford the SASS life membership as I love the organization but my money has been going to the NRA and just became a Benefactor. The NRA is being vilified at every breath of the media parroting our current administration. The only semi-automatics I have is an old slab side Colt 1911 and my wife's 1100 Remington 20 ga. All the rest are old design for CAS. Hope I can get back here in the next few months with some pictures of my set-up. Be well my friend. Deadeye, a.k.a. (Larry) Lawrence Ashley Townsend.
p.s. with a name like that you wouldn't think I was Scotch/Irish but proud to be that.
Townsend ... hummm ... that name rings a bell from somewhere in the dreaded past!
I was looking at the picture of your loaded cartridges, Westerner. What is the final bullet diameter when seated in the case?
CM
No problem, in life, family first. I hope things pan out for you. Four Fingers.
Im loving the sound of 3000fps! Especially if its pure lead, or 10bhn, i can swage some! Yay!!!!
old thread, but it's about ppb's so it's all good. ;)
only way for me to go, i've totally abandoned greasers. ppb's are too easy to build, no real working of the brass means super long life and no annealing, no barrel leading, makes a virtual .45-90 out of a .45-70 due to the added 10 to 15 grains of black powder with just a single card wad, and the bore riding bullet that's just under bore size means no long OAL issues. ppb's should work fine in most chambers, as well.
besides, ya get to show off some really Big manly man cartridges. :)
http://i.imgur.com/WN0T3xt.jpg
Mighty fine looking ammo rfd, makes me want to dust off my Trapdoor and my BPCR!
Maybe the Westener nailed his thumb to the redwood deck he is working on :D so I will post my method patching :D
And I'm still trying to ware out my barrels :D
https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2914/3...60c3d2b3_o.jpgMVI_2950 by Kurt, on Flickr
what i do too, kurt. uber easy. no jenny craig needed, either.
rfd it's like sprinkling a little bull durham on a piece of paper and rolling it between your fingers :D
Cast in the morning and watch a good western on the western channel at night and roll a couple hundred by the time the movie is over. :D
kurt, added bonus is watching the boob tube with the wife while rolling the lead - good "together time" points. :)