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I have been judiciously reading up and deciding what I need to gather up to try my hand at PP for my 45-70bpcr Pedersoli Sharps Buffalo. Specs are 32" 1:18 and a .458 bore. Intended use is 100-200 steel ringing, mostly, and when I get to 600 precision target work. I may try my hand at some BP silhouette one day also. Powder is OE 1.5. So thinking I should get a heavy, 500+, .443 wrapped with a paper that with 2 wraps gives me +.025. Does that sound right?
Actually there are a few things that probably just worded wrong in your post and because words matter we should start by clearing those things up first and I only mean to help here, not being critical.
On your .45-70 .458 is probably the "groove" diameter and the "bore" is probably closer to .450.
Then you didn't say what kind of paper you have and you probably meant that it adds .0025 to the diameter, but even that doesn't sound right. About the thinnest paper that would be practical to work with would .005.
The .443 is in the ball park for the bare diameter of the bullet, since the fit to the bore (land diameter) in very important and the bare bullet diameter plus the paper will determine that fit I need to know what paper your working with.
500 grains and up would be the heavy end of .45 caliber bullet and that is good, but it is bullet length that is the critical thing. A lot of BPCR shooter miss that idea completely and just go by weight which varies in relationship to length depending on the design of the bullet nose. There are bullets with long slender noses, there are those with short blunt nose and then there are all the others that are somewhere in between. Generally speaking a bullet with a somewhat shorter nose that isn't too slender will be easier to get to shoot well, but there is a lot of ground between the extremes. In your 18-twist .45-70 barrel a bullet over 1.450 could be too long depend on the maximum distance you will be shooting. For best results the length should match the twist and the weight will be whatever it is depending on the design.
Give us a bit more information and someone here will be better able to help you.
I will also assume you meant groove diameter 0.458” and that you want bore rather than groove diameter boolits for your paper patching experiments.
I just tried a boolit from a Brooks 0.441+” diameter mould that I lapped out to 0.443”, patched dry with two wraps of Strathmore Tracing paper at 0.0015” thickness, in my Pedersoli Long Range Sharps that they made for Cabela’s a while back. Before I got it, it had the barrel shortened a couple inches, and the chamber lengthened to .45-2.6”.
The patched boolit neither fitted into the muzzle nor did it push into the rifling from the breech end with a cleaning rod. They’ll push through the barrels of my two .45-70 Shiloh Sharps rifles with a slight amount of drag, leaving rifling marks on the patch’s outer wrap.
So, on the basis of the minuscule data set of one Pedersoli rifle and two Shilohs, I would say that the bore is some tiny bit smaller on the former. I’ll have to rummage through my stocks to see if I have any smaller boolits from Brooks and RRR moulds that cast 0.440”-0.441” (I think I shot them all up), but I would guess that you likely need a smaller diameter boolit. It would be worth your while to buy a couple boxes of castings of various diameters from Buffalo Arms or one of the other suppliers and get a measure of what you need down before investing in a mould. The general rule is to keep the paper as thin as possible. I’ve had good luck with the various 0.0015” tracing papers, and a lot of hassle with the thin tissue paper from gift packages. In theory, it should be the best of all, but it’s pretty fragile in my clumsy fingers.
Alternately, if you have a set of machinist pin gauges, you can check the bore at the muzzle and go from there.
If you want to go with groove diameter paper patching, the experts are Martinibelgian and the late great Montana Charlie. My experiments along this line have not met with success.
"I only mean to help here, not being critical" Thank you for your help it is greatly appreciated and if I get my feelings hurt I'll just take my toys and go play somewhere else. LOL.
" On your .45-70 .458 is probably the "groove" diameter and the "bore" is probably closer to .450." Yup mis-spoke I have a .458 groove diameter. I have not chosen any paper yet. Looking through local stores to see what they carry and if it would fit my need, mostly looking for ones that have been mentioned as working well in several of the threads on here.
Thank you that gives me some more information and what to look at. I have Buffalo Arms bookmarked and will look at what they offer.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bent Ramrod