My first Paper Patched bullet!

[303Guy]

This is the patch;



I used a mix of any old bullet lube, candle wax and STP. This stuff lubes quite well and holds my hornet bullet seated in it's paper cup. I am trying the same stuff now. I have three newly loaded rounds and the bullets are quite firm i.e. I can't pull them out with my fingers. I will shoot them singly (checking the bore between shots in case the paper stays behind!) I never had a paper cup stay behind in the hornet bore. (The lube also kept the bore clean and rust free and prevents any copper fouling - that with .224 bullets down a .223 bore).

[docone31]

That is one heck of a patch pattern!
I like to keep it simple.
I have extended my patches beyond the 1 3/16", to one or two extra wraps if I am experimenting with thickness.
With that torpedo you are wrapping, I would think the rectangular patches would be far simpler to wrap.

[303Guy]

Yeah well, .... you see, ..... ummmm!

It's in trying fit the bullet to the throat and the case neck! The bullet starts off slightly tapered but the taper isn't enough. And yes, it is a torpedo! My theory is that the Lee Enfield throat is long and tapered and so should the bullet be. Anyway, there is that certain appeal to that 'look'. Actually, my thinking went along the lines of making use of the case capacity and throat capacity to get a cast bullet sufficiently slow yet at decent pressure with enough down-range oomph! I am now using AR2209 which almosts fills the case behind a 220gr bullet which fills the throat. (The downside is it uses more lead).

ADI shows AR2209 as being right between H4350 and H414. (I usd to think it was exactly H4350 and maybe it was once).

Now to find a way to patch and load my stock of 243gr g/c bullets!

Say, docone31, how do you do a single wrap?

[docone31]

I am not sure a single wrap is feaseable. I think, patches need a locking layer to keep their stability.

[303Guy]

I little bit of feed back! Not earth shattering - no range tests yet.

First the boolit tested. (I've posted this pic before).
This one has a 2-Ply tracing paper patch with the corner glued to keep it in place.
The patch was sized in a collet near the front to make it fit the throat. (A 35 bullet puller collet).

Note that this patch is open based.

Loaded up on top of 6gr Lil'Gun.


The recovered boolit with trapped patch piece with the bore side up. It starts to get interesting here as this piece is quite brittle and shows signs of scourching. My theory is that it is bore friction that heats the patch and that is why the patch works in the first place - it keeps the bullet surface cool. (Exactly what docone31 said!)

The striations on the bullet (from sand on one of the rags) prove that the bullet loses velocity a lot faster than it's spin rate. I've had bullets caught twisted up in a rag! ( have a pic of a 'J-word' bullet melted into the catch cloth).

This is it.

Note the heat discolouration on the bullet.

The Patch 'debris field' with an unpatched and the fired boolit.


And this one is for Larry Gibson. He has warned me of cotton filler starting fires and until now I had not been able to show how.


I finally found out how to burn the cotton. This pic clearly shows the scourched cotton and the scorching on the catch cloth. It takes a lot of cotton fill, a relatively low volume charge and long barrel time and there you have it! (Full tilt charges of H4350 class powder does not do anything to a small amount of cotton fill). So, beware of cotton fill causing fires! There are also partially burned granules of AR2208 visible - the contaminant that caused me to use it for testing only.

[303Guy]

Next trial:- Glueing the patch onto the boolit! (Had to try it!)

The glue used was ordinary paper glue which dries brittle and does not stick to lead.

The loaded boolit. (6gr Lil'Gun).

Dipped in molten 'waxy-lube'.

The fired boolit.


The 'debris field'


Not all the patch and cotton fill was recovered on the catch cloth. Most of it made through to the next crumpled rag. It appears that all the patch separated from the bullet but was carried through with the cotton fill by the pressure wake behind the boolit.

Larry may be interested to note that there was no scorching of the cotton fill! Different rifle maybe? I find it very interesting!

docone31, you said that you had not examined fire PP'ed boolits. Well here is one that illustrates the swaging that takes place in the bore. That band near the nose is from the collette sizing.


(Got to get some clean and sand free rags!)

[docone31]

Stellar!!!
I did notice, though, there is a bit of dross cast into the body of the last fired casting.
Hehehee.
That is a great pictorial. It says a lot.
Well done.

[303Guy]

Thanks. I have been using my most defective boolits for these tests. I also think lumps get caught under the patch. Got to work on that. That last boolit had no surface defects at all.

I didn't realize you were patching the rear of your boolits only, leaving the nose riding section plain. I am trying that now on my batch of boolits I want to use up.

[docone31]

Unfortunately, I do not have a camera. If I did, it would not be able to show what I am trying to say.
I do patch the base more than the nose. I think, the bore that gets smears gets the smears cleaned off the bore by the paper. I am sure there is some scrubbing by the boolitt as it passes down the bore. I suspect, the non-lubing of the patch like I do makes the patch pick up more contaminants during its trip down the bore like the patch you show in the previous thread. I am not sure that is scorching, but planishing oxides, and bore crud.
I also can assure you, on my casting, I have wrapped some I would not have fired as a casting!!!! Wrinkles, pits, all kinds of defects. The patch seems to eliminate the sensitivity those factors make. Perhaps not at 500yds, but at 100yds it is a winner.
You guys are doing good. I am betting you both dial it in fairly soon.
I am looking forward to it.

[303Guy]

My camera is so old it still uses a floppy disk - it's pre-memory sticks!

Why I think the patch remnants have been heated is the brittleness and 'curled' appearance of some of the fragments. This particular bullet would have been pretty tight in the bore as the paper was quite thick and the boolit large. Also, the two-groove barrel swages the majority of the bullet down to bore diameter. The other rifle produced soft, as wrapped 'confetti'. Still, I cannot say for sure. But bore friction heat does make sense to me. Those 22 bullets, (J-word) which are actually 218 Bee bullets, definately got hot in the bore. Some of them actually stopped in the bore but came out quite easily with a cleaning rod. One or two stopped in the bore then came on out with residual gas pressure. Gas pressure was low, of course. Tiny charges! The one in the pic did not stop in the bore and was hot enough to fuse itself to the dacron fabric! My reasoning is that friction heat expanded the jackets and locked some of the bullets in the bore.
(To me, the significance of that is that the mechanism could loosen some jackets on some bullets as they leave the bore, resulting in inaccuracy).

[303Guy]

Right! After a bit more fiddling around, I seem to have found a good fit for my MkI's barrel. Double wrap of cig paper - it took a bit of practive but seems to work out just fine! I think if I told you folks how I was doing it you would have a good chuckle!

Here are the bits and the stages



You may have noticed the rather curious bullet nose. This is my cast in hollow point with the sprew in the middle of the hollow. Pretty neat! (I thought, anyway). The bullet has been dip lubed, post seating and the lube now fills the hollow.

The patching arrangement makes for a very tight fit in the case neck and with the dip lubing, the boolit is very securely held in place. I am hoping this will be tight enough for magazine use. (There is no post seating neck sizing or crimping). The lube on the bullet engages the rifling leade.

I have a few of these prototypes loaded up with 42grs of AR2209 - under 208gr boolits. We'll see how they shoot!

(If you folks don't hear from me, you'll know they flopped!)

[303Guy]

I haven't been to the range yet. Might get a chance this afternoon. In the meantime someone suggested the patches might not stay in place on a grooveless and smooth boolit so I did some tests to check it out. Well, I did get some patch folding back but not coming off.

Here is one that stayed on. This one was wrapped in wet tracing paper. Now that stuff is tough and stretches a lot when wet. It dries tight!

Note the bad fit of the patch. It shows how much swaging takes place!

What I have found is that with the boolit being tapered, it can be dislodged from the patch during seating. So, for now it seems the patch will work.

I have found a new way of applying soft wet cig paper patches.


On this particular boolit, a simple double wrap brought the base up to neck size.

This is it. It was fired without lube.


Again, the patch stayed on in the bore. Notice the imperfections in the land impressions? Lead fouling! I got most of it out - thin slivers of the stuff sitting in the corners. Presumably that got there from a flame cut boolit or two.

[docone31]

Those are some good photos.
You can clearly see the joint line in the first one. Good wrapping, nice and straight.
Yeah, traceing paper does indeed stretch. It seems to me, when drying, it really tightens up. When I size, I think, I am sizeing only the land portions of my casting. Smoothing the paper inbetween.
My patches really cleaned out my bore. Made it down right shiney. Good sharp rifleing lands.
I found, with my roller technique, ordinary notebook paper, and printer paper really stretches and dries tight. I am almost convinced that is why I get my results.
You made an interesting mold for sure. Good for you.
I like following your progress, I like the shape of your casting. I bet hardened up, it might qualify as a solid out of that .303.
Have you considered, makeing a cut, drilling out a gas check, and putting one half way?
Might make the casting act like an Half Jacket.

[303Guy]

Thank you!

Yes I have. I found a brass eyelet that fits the mold. I didn't 'tin' it. The boolit broke off at the eyelet! Now that you have mentioned it, I shall try it again, this time, tinned and nearer the front, to control the expansion. Thanks for the idea!

I have been sick this past week - still am - so haven't made any progress with acquiring a sizer and perhaps a different mold. I am thinking along the lines of a casting just on bore diam and giving it a wrap to see if it will shoot straight out the two-groove. I am about to test fire a Lee boolit wrapped in tracing paper. (It fits the neck but might not fit the throat!)

[303Guy]

Right! Here it is.





Note the rifling right up to the ogive. The nose section started out as .300 and the bands were .311. Note also that there is no base deformation!

This boolit was given a double wrap of wet tracing paper, dried, then the tail overhang filled with waxy-lube, then the base dipped and cooled until the waxy-lube built up to patch size, then seated and dip lubed. Then fired into wet rags.

It was a light load so that I could recover enough boolit to study it. This is what happens if I shoot them faster.


Note the peening of the boolit base. This one did not have the protective waxy-lube 'sabot'.

[303Guy]

Have you considered, makeing a cut, drilling out a gas check, and putting one half way?

I got some dross contamination there above the eyelet. I 'tinned' the eyelet before inserting so it is now soldered into the casting. I'll give this one a try in my 'test tube' to check the expansion characteristics. If it works, I'll only make a few of them for hunting.

I found, with my roller technique, ordinary notebook paper, and printer paper really stretches and dries tight. I am almost convinced that is why I get my results.

The printer paper I have is just too weak but note pad paper is thinner and plenty strong to wrap in the roller. No glue required!

My rifle bore is beginning to take on a shine!

[303Guy]

Well, my illness has been preventing me from taking my rifles out! I did however, do a few more tests. More failures than successes.

That's a patch still stuck on the top left boolit! (Patch over a lubed boolit - doesn't work).

One or two boolits have severe groove wear. Tracing paper protects the boolit well but doesn't cut clean. (At lower velocities anyway).

This patch only cut through on one rifling groove.

What looks like a 'groove' is actually the patch joint (mis-joint). I'm not sure that uneven separation like that is a good thing.

This patch was pieced together for the pic. It too was not cut through evenly.

This one was much tougher tracing paper.

[docone31]

You definately are paying attention to detail. I love the photos.
It looks like you have a popgun with the last loads.
Clear marks, you are fireing without a gas check with paper, and you definately are able to show why lube on the prime casting is no good for accuracy.
Try this,
With lined notebook paper, standard to us, 8 X 11, cut 1" strips across the width. Those strips, cut 1 3/16" with 4* cuts on either end. Soak the crap out of the paper, lay the wet patch on the roller. Put the prime casting on the tip of the paper in the apron and roll it up.
Twist the tail and let dry. Size to .314, and put some full tilt loading behind it.
I am looking forward to seeing some groups now!
With the sizeing, just dab a little Car Wax on the paper.
I bet your bore is beginning to shine! Mine looks great after fireing paper! Real clean bore, sharp rifleing, consistant looking bore.
Paper is good.

[303Guy]

Thanks docone31. I am of course convinced that note pad paper is the way to go. I have even succeded in rolling wet notepad paper! I haved asked a mate at my old work place to make me a push through die so I can size my prime castings down to near bore diam. (I'll ask him to make me a new mold when he's done that).

OK, I'll try your suggestion and post a pic to make sure I understood it right.

My Wool Wad sample pack from JeffinNZ has just arrived! These things look just the ticket! I shall be testing them this evening!

Thanks, Jeff

[303Guy]

4* cuts

Uhm... could you explain please?