Check my PP math

[wavehopr]

Greetings all. A great site you have here. I have done a lot of reading here and now it's time to post.

I reload 45-70 and recently have become interested in PP'ing. My barrel slugs at .458 groove diameter and .452 bore diameter.

I have read a lot lately and I assume that the end product of my PP effort should be a patched bullet of .452-.453 diameter, near the same as bore diameter.

Now if the paper I choose is .002 in thickness, 2 wraps would increase the diameter by .008 (.002 x 4). If that is true, my bare cast bullet should be .444 (.452-.008=.444).

Is my thinking correct? .444 being the correct cast bullet in this scenario?

BTW, how far do you think the bucket was from Quigley?

[45 2.1]

0.002" paper is basically 9# onionskin. That paper shrinks slightly when dried on the boolit. I would give 0.0075" the gain in diameter rather than 0.008". You didn't mention which thought process you used in determining what your patched diameter was or the alloy involved. It does make a difference.

[pdawg_shooter]

I go by paper weight. The rule of thumb is weight divided by 3, times the number of wraps. In my 47-70 I size .4515, and give them 2 wraps of 16lb green bar computer paper. I lube then size in a .459 push through die.

[leftiye]

Aire ya gonna be shootin' black powder or smookless? Quigley was in his dressing trailer when the boolits hit!

[oso]

Howdy wavehopr. I start with a boolit a thou over bore and then patch and size to a thou over groove. I have best luck with 16 pound 25% cotton bond, and no luck with boolits under bore size.
P.S. and never had much luck with thinking either.
P.P.S. and I'm thinking smokeless.

[EDK]

There are a lot of theories on unpatched boolit size. Most agree that black powder loads should be patched to approximately bore size; smokeless to groove diameter. There are a gazillion posts here, over at shilohrifle.com/forums, etc. to offer opinions from experience.

I talked to Mr Bob Bryan, owner of Shiloh Sharps, at the Quigley shoot about this. He had a mould made that was a duplicate of the original factory bullet. He pulled the patched boolit out of the casing (no crimp) and started pushing it down the barrel. He, Powderburnerr, Red Neck, and Orville (IIRC) used each others loads in similarly chambered rifles and got match grade accuracy, although to different points of impact.

Get a copy of Orville's booklet from Shiloh; Randolph Wright's LOADING AND SHOOTING PAPER PATCH BULLETS, A BEGINNERS GUIDE; and soon to be re-released, Paul Matthews' THE PAPER JACKET (Wolfe Publishing.) Check out Red River Rick's posts on the moulds he makes...the one of his that I got from Powderburnerr for my BIG 50 is a work of art. It's a copy of the Sharps original drawing, but allows up to 800+ grains. (Watch the lead level drop when you cast those big boys!) I've cast some boolits, but not done any loading yet...It's been too hot, rained or I've been working overtime; excuses, excuses!

The off hand target at the Quigley shoot was 375 yards...and the buffalo target was 800, off cross sticks. About 1 second to hit the off-hand and about 2 on the buffalo AND the same to hear the ring of a hit...or see the dust fly from a miss! (I drive 1400+ miles from St Louis MO for the shoot...I won't miss it if at all possible.)

[Chas.]

Not the Quigley shoot. I was asking for guesses to the distance that Matthew Quigley shot the wooden bucket in the movie.

[Tom Myers]

Chas,

A good quarter horse (Not a racing quarter horse) can run flat out at about 38 mph. At one time I timed the film from the time that the rider scooped up the bucket until he brought that horse to a butt-dragging stop. I then multiplied the seconds by the 18.6 yards per second that the horse was running.

5,280 feet in a mile = 1,760 yards per mile
1,760 yards X 38 mph = 66,880 yards per hour
66,880 / 60 minuets / 60 seconds = 18.6 yards per second

I think I remember it took 37 seconds for the horse to run to the top of the hill which calculates out to about 688 yards, but my memory isn't good any more so you should do your own timing and see what it comes out too.

It appeared to me that the movie director took pains to make everything as accurate as possible in the film. The only discrepancy that really stuck out was the reference to the bullet reaching the target before the sound of the shot. Assuming that the bullet's muzzle velocity was somewhere between 1250 and 1300 fps, the sound of the shot (Traveling at approx. 1118 fps) would have out-run bullet some where between 140 and 175 yards. So the sound of the shot would have reached the intended target before the bullet.

Tom Myers
Precision Ballistics and Records

Not the Quigley shoot. I was asking for guesses to the distance that Matthew Quigley shot the wooden bucket in the movie.