Buffalo Arms 9lb Onion Skin Too Thin

[country gent]

The other route is if your casting your PP bullets you can lap the mould out the couple thousandths you need for your paper. But buy a big batch of paper so it lasts theres no going back

[broken-mold]

Update;

Part of my original post was concerning Buffalo Arms 9lb Onion Skin paper that was purchased because it was clearly advertised as being .002" thick. The paper I received measured .0015" thick using a calibrated Starret 0-1" micrometer. I contacted Buffalo Arms and got nowhere. The "Customer Service Rep" that I spoke with very clearly was unconcerned and almost offended when I told him my problem. He seemed to know nothing about the paper and had to put me on hold to speak with someone else there (?) whenever I asked him anything.

He eventually told me (after a long hold) that "they" measured the paper they have in stock and it measured .0015" also. After I questioned him as to whether they would send their stock back to their supplier he eventually (after around and around questions) said they would. I wonder if they will try to sell the rest of their stock instead of sending it back (BUYER BEWARE!). He eventually told me that I could send mine back and they would measure it and "if" it measured less than the .002" thickness they would refund my purchase price, blah, blah, blah. I really wanted the correct paper more than I wanted the money or I'd have kept the money and not ordered it to start with. Duh. Just a simple, "Send it back and we'll get the correct paper back to you within a couple of days" would have gone a long ways to fixing this situation that was clearly the fault of Buffalo Arms.

I was VERY disappointed with the service I received from Buffalo Arms. I've bought several dollars of stuff from them but will try to find stuff somewhere else in the future if that is at all possible.

[broken-mold]

I want to bring the thread back around to part of my original line of questioning although many other good points have been made. A part of the OP pertained to paper thickness and bullet diameter. Several posters have mentioned using smaller diameter bullets and thicker paper or larger diameter bullets and thinner paper. After I read Matthews book, "The Paper Jacket" I was under the impression that the bullet diameters were set diameter by whether one was shooting black or smokeless. Mathews says;
Smokeless- Size boolit to bore plus .0005", patch to groove.
Black- Size boolit to bore minus .004"-.006", patch to bore.

Are these diameters just the opinion of one guy and many other diameters will work? What am I missing here? I thought that if smaller diameters were used that leading could become a problem if the boolit does not bump up adequately.


Also, I think it was Matthews that mentioned in his book that after he patches he runs the patched boolit through a sizer die once more to reach the desired finished size. ie, groove diameter for smokeless and bore diameter for black. I haven't tried that yet but it appears to me that if the paper were very thick, even using the bullets sized as he recommends, the bullet itself would be sized down when ran through the sizer after patching and now one would be back to an undersized projectile with its associated problems. I really like the idea of a post-patching sizing (OK, I'm a bit OCD for uniformity) but it sounds like the patched projectile would have to be REAL close to desired size or the boolit would be sized down. Is that true or am I missing something here as well?

[Lead pot]

I have a good supply of the old Southworth paper. from 100% cotton to 25% and even pulp. The 9 pount is the weight per ream and the thickness from different reams in the say 9# the sheets will vary in thickness depending on the sizing used for the paper. I have 12# that is .0017" and I have 7.5pound that is .0018".
Since the end of the old typewriters making copies with carbon paper a lot of this onion skin paper has been discontinued.
Shooting PP with lead even the harder alloys of 1/14 the bullet a couple thousands under bore will be groove diameter before moving a couple inches down the bore.
It's best for accuracy to keep them snug to bore or groove diameter.
Order a push through sizing die from Lee for the diameter you feel you need and push that patched bullet through as long as you don't go to big it will be just fine. It also is beneficial for the undersold wrap of the patch. Just don't try sizing more than 2-3 thousands. You can but it's not a good thing because you will change the length of the thank and ogive.

[longbow]

I am certainly no expert but from my experience, yes other diameters work.

I think for BP and patching to bore diameter paper thickness is not terribly important since the boolit bumps up and will take the paper with it. Same with rifling depth, which varies some. Since the patched boolit is bumping up does it matter if the rifling is 0.003" deep or 0.005" deep? I thjink not though if rifling is excessively deep then the paper might tear or boolit not upset enough to properly fill the grooves.

For smokeless powder though we are patching to groove and if the boolit is sized to bore diameter + 0.0005" then patched to groove, deep rifling requires thicker paper than shallow rifling and there may be a practical limit.

I mentioned that the first paper patching I did was for my .44 mag. 1894 Marlin and since it has microgroove rifling which is about 0.0025" deep and all I had was 0.003" thick paper I made a boolit mould to cast 0.421" so that the patched boolit would be 0.433" after patching. Groove diameter is 0.4315". That worked just fine even though the boolit was well under bore diameter by about 0.005".

By Paul Matthew's method I should have used a boolit of 0.4255" and 0.0015" paper. I am sure that would work too.

I did not get good results with a 0.301" boolit patched to groove in my .303 where that boolot worked well in my .308 when patched to groove.

Why the difference, I am not sure. The .303 has much deeper rifling than the .44 and a much faster twist of 1:10" vs. 1:38" in the Marlin. Possibly rifling depth and twist ome into it as well. After knurling those 0.301" boolits up to 0.304" then patching to groove in the .303 they shot pretty well. So in that case the undersize boolit and thicker paper did not work well.

I am curous as well and do not have specific answers except that the undersize boolit and thick paper worked in the .44.

I hope I am not off topic too much here and if so I'll keep quiet.

Longbow

[Nobade]

Lead Pot gives good advice. Also, you are correct in that Paul Matthews' books are one man's opinion and not necessarily the only way. What he says does work, no doubt about it and many of us got our start with his books. But there are quite a few ways to make this work and that's the fun of the hobby, experimenting to find out what is best for you. I will also add that when I started paper patching for high pressure smokeless rounds there really wasn't anybody else that I was aware of that did that. It took two years of frustration before I finally figured out the tricks to make it work. Compared to that, patching with black powder was a piece of cake. You may run into stumbling blocks along the way, but if you stick to it and pay attention to everything that is happening, you will have success eventually. And if your paper is too thin, use a bigger bullet or even better yet try it anyway and see what happens. If it works, great. If not, change something - you have numerous variables to play with - and try again.

[25ring]

Slightly thicker paper will be better than thinner if the patched bullet is a loose fit in the bore[I patch to bore diameter].One thing I've done is make a custom sizing bushing and final size the patched bullet to fit the bore.Since I dry wrap this puts a nice edge on the patched bullet at the base and it won't unwrap. FWIW Mike.

[Jeff Michel]

I would suggest that you spend some time on the Shiloh forum and read everything you can regarding paper patching, ask some well thought out questions and don't mention Paul Matthews.

[country gent]

Im thinking differences in measuring may be part of this also. Buffalo arms may be measuring with a stand and indicator compared to you calibrated Micrometer and feel. the indicator will have less compression of the paper and less Feel involved. Your calibrated mic and feel of the touch could easily read .0003-.0004 small compared to the indicator and stand. Paper mics also have bigger faces to allow for this.

The reasoning I have for thinking this is a granite stand and indicator will allow for easy quick measuring of a sheet at many points to verify consistency or to average, and not risk damaging the paper. 0-1" mics may get in 1/2" from each edge but wont get into the center or inside areas.

A granite based stand with a 1" indicator and appropriate point would be quick easy and self checking. slide the paper under read and continue thru when slid out the indicator will go back to the zero setting of the plate. The other plus to this is measuring pressure remains the constant of the indicators spring tension.

To give an idea the standard Mics use a 40 tpi to measure this can induce pressure even with a light touch on the thimble. Standard Mics are usually a .250 spindle and anvil, paper mics are .500. The indicator has no real leverage but a set spring tension and can use any point from a point to 1/2" flat. The difference may be not so much actual thickness but in how each take measurements.

[Big Z]

What other paper could I use that is just a bit thicker than the 8lb .0015" 55W? I may not need a full .0020" thickness but I do need more than .0015" thick if I am going to only use two wraps.

My batch of strathmore 300 series tracing paper is .0018-.0019