Soggy patch fix

[barrabruce]

G'day.
I wrap with water and dry.
This is all good if I shoot my pp offerings in a day or two.
If I keep them for long with the heat and humidity the patches go a bit soggy and soft.
I can heat them in a wok etc and dry them out and all is nice and hard again for a little while.

What are people using?
glue in the water??
I tried a spray of shoe waterproof spray but that didn't work for too long.

If I use my 50/50 beeswax/valalene lube on them it soaks away in the heat and that too makes my patches soft.

I have been getting good accuracy when the patches are dry and hard with out lube or lube wiped on then seated and shot but not after storage for long.

What am I missing

Barra

[FredBuddy]

I put a couple of dabs of glue in the water. after they dry I smear on some Johnsons paste wax (JPW) and let that dry. Then load 'em. They seem to stay crisp in the Ohio humidity, and make a nice cloud of confetti when fired.

[wmitty]

Have you tried dry wrapping? That may not be of any help, but thought I'd check. I have used a 50/50 mix of Lee alox and Johnson's paste wax heated to liquid state and then dipped the patched boolits in nose first to coat the portion of the patch exposed beyond the case neck in an attempt to water proof it. This left a very light coating of the lubricant on the patch/ ogive and has seemed to work well.

[barrabruce]

Well id try the famous JPW or other here..but unobatinium this side of the pond for some reason.

I'll try putting PVC glue in my water and see what happens.
Maybe a roll in it afterwards wouldn't hurt.

Rooster paperpatch lube was/is something or other like liquid floor wax isn'it.
Ive just about given up getting this thing to shoot.
Maybe I should move on down the road.

[Lead pot]

I'll try putting PVC glue in my water and see what happens.
Maybe a roll in it afterwards wouldn't hurt.

.

Let an old Plumber tell you what will happen with that PVC glue in water
It will float on top.

[barrabruce]

Let an old Plumber tell you what will happen with that PVC glue in water
It will float on top.

O.k then that white wood glue then....PVA maybe.
That stuff you use to glue wood together with......

patches are wrapped and drying waiting tests to begin.

I put heaps in first off but it was all a sticky mess so I watered it down some.

[303Guy]

I missed the PVC typo!

Wood wax/furniture wax should be available in your parts. You could make a beeswax/carnauba wax solution using mineral turps as a solvent. Maybe even paraffin wax. Paraffin wax may be a way forward as it has zero adhesion qualities so should not interfere with patch separation from the core. Maybe carnuaba mixed in would be better because of its higher melting point?

I haven't found our winter humidity to be any problem (and our summers are quite dry mostly and not all that hot - not like in Ozz) but rain and drizzle has made my patches damp and soggy. Water proofing the surface is not the same as humidity and heat proofing.

[Dan Cash]

Bara,
You might have something in adding a bit of white or yellow wood worker's glue to the water with which you wet your patches. To be certain the patch does not glue to the bullet, I would spray the bullets with a lilght coat of lanolin based spray case lubricant before patching. It might work. I can't try that here to proove or disproove as we are quite dry.

[303Guy]

Or maybe silicone spray.

[barrabruce]

Well as fred buddy said i tried a bit of pva glue and others have done before me.
It didin't rain but building up and threatening
Wind wasn't bad but a bit shifty..oooh it did rain for a bid forgot about than wee sprinkling not real rain as such.
Forgot my wind flags again.
Report on findings were interesting.
I used 2 different papers and bullets.
a thicker one for my starline extra long reformed 38-55 brass with is thin on the necks
And lighter paper for 30=30 brass which is a bit thicker but shorter.

At 50 yrds things seamed promising so I went to 100.

Mostly I could get 3 in about 1" or so and a couple of wild flyers what ever I used.
Some flyers worse than others but still not good enough.

I have to cast some more bullets as I have cleeaned out my stock and used what I had left in the drawer in bits and peices lots.
So the alloy and weight could be anywhere.

I did find some confetti which showed interupted cut marks but not deep enough to confetti.

Could been softer alloy or something.
The paper was blown out or blown off the bullet with nice round forms or long strips at the base edge.
Some were outer wraps that show the sooty powder fouling.
They seemed to be whiter and definately more harder than usual.

This could have been a reason for flyers as I mostly wiped the same dirty fouled and lubed patch through the bore after each shot.
Mostly to get the unbunt powder out and to eliminate a paper catch up if I had one.

So when things settle down after the break I hope to cast and wrap some more.

All these were loaded in god forbid clean brass (yes I actually cleaned and polished my brass by hand. never again).
Not sized at all. The pp was wrapped and seated by hand to start and finish on a press to seat into the forcing cone rifling origin on chambering.
lubed with car hinge lube.

This light gun heats up after about 3 shots but it don't show any predictable walking in a noticable pattern.

its only 21 grns 2206 for @ 1500=1600 fps to keep pressures down.

I think I might try some lubed cores and see what happens as well.

Defininately seemed to stiffen up the patches quite a bit.

[303Guy]

How much PVA glue did you add to the water? I should be patching up a few next week and might just try it.

[barrabruce]

A squirt or a glob.
10 to one maybe.
I started out with too much and kept waterin it down.
Still looked like milk and enough that it didn't feel sticky or tacking.
sorry can't be more of a help.
Just cast some bullets a little harder and least I know where I'm at now.

[zuke]

I store my PP'd boolit's in 45 cal plastic ammo box's

[Dan Cash]

Following this thread, the problem of humidity getting to paper patched bullets does not seem to be fully addressed. The old timers on the buffalo range and other early hunters greased their bullets up with what ever anti moisture grease they had, but they were using their ammo on a regular basis so it did not have to last a long time in a storage condition.

There were, of olden times, military cartirdges that were paper patched. They surely underwent storage conditions ranging from humid jungle to arid desert. How were they preserved? I had, at one time, a paper patched 577-450 Ely-Kynoch cartridge that seemed totally unprotected, as the paper was as dry as it was when delivered to the ammo maker. But there are other ancient military rounds that seem different.

I am not a cartridge collector so I haven't a sample but I seem to recall some Mauser or Turk BP rounds that seemed to have shellac or similar material covering the exposed patchand the nose of the bullet protruding from the cartridge case. I wonder if the application of shellac to the patched bullet or to the exposed portion of the bullet would render it water proof?

If you folks will bear with me, I will test this out with my .30-40 Winchester 95 and report back shortly after the first of the year.

[303Guy]

Looking forward to your feedback.

I've been playing around with old patched boolits. They'e been outside (under shelter) through our very wet and humid winter and recently warm humid weather (not to mention previous years) and they are fine and were fine through the winter. But out in the rain in the bush they don't do so well. They get soggy! I'm thinking a sealing lube that does not soak into the paper might be in order.

[barrabruce]

well I gave them a test today down the range.
We have under cover so they didn't get wet ...but its been hot and humid and we have had some rain.
It rained quite a bit today but not enough for the cardboard taget to fall off the target stands.

My loads werent nothing to write home about all around the inch or a bit at 50 yrds.
even when upping the charges and different sizes.

Guess it could be something else like the shooter or rifle.

They seemed to come off pretty well thou cos I used some dry lube silicones spray on the cores and tumble lube brfore wraping.
The coat of 50/50 bw vas or dry door hinge lube didn't soak in the patch and they remained solid and firm on the noses.

Seems a big step forward in that direction.

gc and plain baase all grouped around the same so I has as a guess I need to look else where to obtain accuracy.

Next I'll try at 100-150 yds to see if they go to sleep or get rid of any paralax errors or fly off into the scrub aimlessly.
Hell I'll even take my wind flags and allow for the breeze next time and use a benchrest or bags even.

Cheers
Bruce

Think fred buddy was right on that one

I have read about the old british pp ammo and they were using something like rag paper and dipping the noses in several mixes

jappoon wax seems to come to mind with bees wax bayberry wax or some such I haven't got laying around here.

[Old Coot]

barrabruce
Here's a suggestion and you can take it as worth what you paid for it: Try using shellac cut one part liquid shellac to ten parts alcohol and dip the patched bullets into the thin shellac. You could even do this after they were loaded. Just dip the paper sticking out. I used to live in Long Beach Ca. where the humidity is a lot like you describe. We use the thinned shellac to treat doors and windows before we hung them. Long Beach has a large variation in humidity from 85 to 90+% and down into the teens that shellac treatment kept the doors from sticking when the humidity went up. The mixture dries very quickly, soaks into the wood or paper and renders it moisture resistant.
Good Luck
Brodie

[303Guy]

How would I identify shellac in the stores? Is there another name that it might be sold under?

[Dan Cash]

How would I identify shellac in the stores? Is there another name that it might be sold under?

Bullseye brand offers a sealant that is used to coat finished sheet rock where you might want to put a band of wall paper such as around the junction of the wall and ceiling. It is shellac with some sort of whiting in it. Google "shellac."

[Dan Cash]

Well, I promised a test of shellaced ammo after the first of the year and we are almost there.

I have prepared 5 cartridges each with a. my standard paper patch; b. a paper patched bullet that was dipped in 1.5 pound cut shellac and dried before loading, (the cut is the ratio of dry shellac flakes to gallons of alcohol. In this case I disolved 1.5 pounds of shellac in 1 gallon of alcohol.); a paper patched bullet lubricated and loaded in my usual manner, then dipped in the shellac past the start of the cartridge case.

A problem I have had is submitting the ammunition to high humidity as it is quite dry here and it is deep winter. For the last 5 days, each day, I have sprayed a mist of water over all the cartridges in a loading tray (bullets up) and sprayed the inside of a canister which was placed over the ammo. There seems no degredation of any of the ammunition from this treatment.

Although the temperature was only 8 degrees today, I intended to test the ammo but it started snowing about sunrise and then the wind began to blow. Rest assured, as soon as the wind and snow moderate, I shall shoot this ammo with pictures and description of preparations and results.
Stay tuned.