Sizing Paper Jackets

[docone31]

I am pretty sure, I can size to .308, for my .303 British, then wrap two layers of 8oz onion skin. This should give between .316-.317. Since I am "shooting" for .314, it is likely I will have to size.
My thought on this is the sizing will loosen the paper patch. I am not able to visualize the sizing die, forcing down sizing, and the patch remaining intact on the bullet.
Can someone help me out on this. Is it possible to size paper jacket bullets, and how much?
You know, I am really loving this forum. I am getting a lot of information from here.
I never knew I could use a cooking oil turkey pot to refine lead. Why did I not think of that? I have already smelted and mixed my lead. Many hundreds of pounds in a cast iron pot on the stove. I have a bar mold that accepts one Lyman ladle pour. I have a Lee down pour pot and I made it dripless. I lapped the rod before I turned on, and I smelt outside of that. I use borax as flux to trap the oxides, and beeswax as flux to homogenize the alloy. I water quench after each molding.
This is a great forum.

[beemer]

I size my 303 boolits to .308 and wrap with Meade tracing paper from Wal-Mart. The paper is
.0015 thick, two wraps makes it .314. I have ran some through the sizer to lube them but did not size them. Lee Liquid Alox works great for lube.

beemer

[docone31]

Beemer, that is so simple it seems too good to be true!
I cannot describe the mental gymnastics trying to visualize the process, and the pressures in sizing and the shape of the jacket when done.
Was the paper just wetted, or did you use a 10%Elmers with water?
I have Alox, but I have never used it.
How did the .303 behave with paper jackets?
Does the paper polish the bores like Paul Mathews states in his book?
I am looking forward to wrapping them.
My mold spits out projectiles at .312. I measured them at .314. They should size to .308 easily enough, as I size them at .309 for my 03-A3. This also means I can utilize the gas check.

[beemer]

docone31
I am new to this paper patching to. I have a Lee 180-312- 2R that pours at .314 with a 50-50-lono-ww mix.The boolit is sized with a Lee .308 sizer with a gas check. I have been told that the gas check was not needed but it seems to shoot better with it.The paper came from Wal-Mart, it is Mead Tracing Paper(Academie). I cut the paper in 1 in. strips and trim the ends at about 30 degrees.You have to adjust the lenght to go around 2 times and not overlap. I wet the patch with plain water, to wet it will tear and to dry it will not stick.I let the paper extend just about 1/16 in front of the front band onto the nose riding section. After rolling on the patch hold it in place and roll the tail to a fine point and let dry then clip off with side cutters leaving a little stub.The boolit is then tumble lubbed with LLA let dry again and used without sizing. Flare the case mouth so it will not cut the patch when loading. I have had good luck with 36-37 grs. RL-15 powder and a half grain of dacron in the 303. Loads at about 2200-2250 fps shoot about 2 in at 100 yds with a scoped #4.

Where the batch is placed on the boolit depends in the boolit style and throat in the rifle. Like I said I am new to this so there is still a lot to learn. I am getting better performance at a higher vel than lead bullets. The bores are free of metal fouling and clean easily. My 7.62x54 is up arounf 2400 fps and shooting almost as good a jacketed bullets.

It took a sheet or two of paper to get the hang of it. I got better at hitting the trash can with scraps than I was at rolling on patches. After some tinkering around I finally got the hang of it, just takes some practice.

beemer

[yeahbub]

Smear up the patched bbolit with a bit of soft boolit lube and size away. I patch my .375's to .385, wrap with one layer of teflon thread tape to almost .390 and size to .380 in one step. It's a considerable reduction which requires a soft smeary lube to ease it into the die, but the result is the same - a hard coating that looks like shiny white enamel paint and no slack in the paper, with or without the thread tape. If I mind my load procedure, I'll get 2" at 100 yards from a Marlin .375, even after all that squishing them down.

[docone31]

I am wondering, how does a person dry these patches once they are on the bullet?
does it help to add starch, or thin Elmer's to the soak water?

[pdawg_shooter]

NO GLUE ! plain water only. The patch must come off as soon as the bullet leaves the muzzle. I dry my bullets nose down in a loading block overnight. For my 303 British I size .304 and wrap with 16# green bar computer paper.

[Baron von Trollwhack]

Just wrap tightly, twist or fold the tail, place the bullet nose down in something like a 38 special ammo box insert. let dry as you like, smear a bit of lube on and size. Works for me. BvT

[bcp477]

I actually use just a tiny bit of yellow glue, but only to seal the edge of the paper wrapping (NOT mixed with the "soak water"). As others said, you do NOT want to adhere the patch to the bullet, so that it does not come off as soon as the bullet leaves the barrel.

[longbow]

I'm with pdawg shooter - I have been experimenting a little with work yet to do. I have tried smooth sided boolits at 0.301" which worked pretty well in my .308 but did not work well in the .303 even patched to 0.315" (I tried several thicknesses of patch). After knurling the boolits to 0.304" and patching I suddenly had accuracy when patched to 0.314".

I also tried small amounts of glue in the soak water with poor results. I have read about, but not tried, using a little egg white in the water or using milk. I was having a little trouble with paper not "sticking" tight to the boolit so tried the glue but got poor results. Saliva worked best but plain water was okay if I was careful loading. Possibly a little egg white or milk would stiffen the paper without making it stick to the boolit. I'll try it to see what happens.

Longbow

[Baron von Trollwhack]

Just thoroughly wet the patch with water. I roll the patches on an old mouse pad toward me ,pulling the paper tight. IT WILL SHRINK AND MEASURE LESS in thickness when dry THAN before rolling. The GG, if present, will actually look depressed because of paper shrinkage in drying. Place nose down in an old cartridge tray to dry. Grease lightly with your fingers with smokeless lube for smokeless and size carefully if you think smaller will shoot better. I use a Lyman luber. There is a learning curve in terms of metal hardness, amount to size, # of wraps, ect. You can ruin bullets easily in sizing. This is old technology. Often you can just use a smaller bullet. Knowing bore and groove dimensions is critical to success. Size the bullet before patching as an option. Patch up sized 308 or as cast 308 numbers to fit the various metrics, Patch to bore or groove as you like, but bullet temper is critical on patching to bore size.

Bullets were patched to get higher velocity and/or greater throw weight as naked bullets just didn't work well after certain levels of performance because of leading, fouling, or both. Many patched bullets were hand seated in reloaded cases. Many times the answer is opening up the neck a bit, maybe not even sizing after firing, and not sizing the patch down. BvT

[Digital Dan]

I'll second the Baron's advice.

[Baron von Trollwhack]

Thanks Dan. I'll put the usual check in the mail tomorrow. BvT

[windrider919]

I tried Elmers and got terable results. I shot with just water and got OK results. But the guys at Buffalo Arms who shot a lot of PP recomended Rooster Lube which is a tumble type lube. I tried it full strength and got occasional flyers that I attributed to stuck patches "glued on".

Now I am using 20% Rooster Lube mixed with 80% tap water. Tight wraps that do not come unrolled, great bore performance / clean and shiny, no more flyers and it seems to 'seal' the cartridge for outdoors use. I wet the patch, roll it on and stand on the base to dry for a day, then stand upside down for another day till the base dries. Just bell the case mouth enough to not tear the paper and do not crimp, just taper crimp enough to remove the bell mouth.

FYI: I also shortened my patches till the overlap on the base just folds over and covers, no twisted tail.

[docone31]

Ok, you folks have really helped me out.
Here is another question,
I got a Lee sizer die, .308. I am going to size my .312 castings down to that size. Lee recomends lubing to prevent leading in the die. Good so far.
How do I get the lube off to paper jacket, or is there something else I can use as a lube, like soap?
I will be using a gas check, and then wrapping dry. Can plain water be used as a lube to size with?
Again, I appreciate all the feedback I have been getting. This forum definately helped pass the time untill I got my die, and time to cast and size.
Wrapping is set for another day. I will have my trash can near by for the learning curve.

[Buckshot]

............You can roll your boolit's on a case lube pad before sending up through the Lee die. Afterwards you can place them in a plastic container with a squirt of dish detergent. mix them around with a wooden spoon. Then run the faucet till it's running hot water. Play it on the boolits in the container, and use the same wooden spoon to kind of swirl them around (gently) in the agitating water, until it runs clean of any suds. They should be squeaky clean.

With your paper patches cut ACROSS the grain of the paper, (as has been mentioned) as you roll the boolit into it's paper jacket, maintain a downward pressure and pull the paper toward with the boolit, you as you roll. Your rolling surface should be non-porus, and smooth. The patch of a correctly patched slug should be most difficult to remove. In the course of patching slugs, in my scrap boolit box I've ended up with a handfull of leftover onesies and twosies.

Having tossed some of these into the leadpot along with other scrap boolits, you'll find them bobing around on the surface almost impervious to melting. In fact the lead will begin to melt out of the patch after dunking them under with the fluxing spoon, and the paper eventually ends up as ash with the other crud. So then I figured it was easier to remove the patch first. Trust me that it IS easier if you slit the patch with an X-Acto knife or similar first, vs trying to use your fingernails to get it started.

"I will be using a gas check, and then wrapping dry."

If you'll be wrapping the patch on dry, how is it going to be stuck to the boolit?

"Can plain water be used as a lube to size with?'

You mean to size a bare lead boolit? Short answer is no. It has no body, no propensity for any 'sticktoitivness'. No drawing ability as in a draw die. No bueno por ca-ca


.........................Buckshot

[docone31]

Hehehe.
I meant, when I wrote dry, the bullet be free from lube.
I could probably use case lube on a pad, roll the bullets to be sized, size them, clean them, and wrap away.
Today is the day to mold, and size!

[beemer]

I put a little dab of Lee case sizing lube on my fingers and roll it on about every other boolit. It doesn't take much and it is water based. Most times I just forget about it and patch over it.

beemer

[docone31]

Thanks Beemer, I was kinda thinking along that line. It sounds, unless it is a real lube, the paper will accept it unless it is out of control.
Still ain't done it yet. Got sidtracked with house stuff.
I just finished building our house. Still little things to do. Hopefully, tonight. Got plenty of Lee Lube.

[docone31]

Hokay, last time I try to size from .312 directly to .308!!!!!! Glad I only did 20.
I tried using the Lee Lube for cases. It washes off very easily with dish soap and very hot water. Simple so far.
I am going to look for the grain pattern on the Meade Tracing paper and cut me some strips.
They are drying now, the bullets I mean.
Next time I will go .309, then .308. .309 is not so bad. That extra .001 makes a large difference with the Lee Classic Press.