You guys did it to me!

[Doughty]

I never paid much attention to paper patching before the "great gas check crsis." But when it started getting hard to find gas checks I started reading you guys' posts. I was making a .360 caliber mold the other day and it didn't turn out like I wanted it to, so the idea hits me to try my hand at a paper patch design I had been thinking about. I'd been considering the alledged pros and cons of smooth sided boolits vs. grooved boolits. I was wondering about a compromise of some very shallow grooved boolits.

I had a barrel from a Ruger #3 .375 Win that I re-chambered to what I call a 38 Krag. A .30-40 Krag blown out to take a .378 boolit. I put this on a Ruger #1 action and wood, and had a nice little rifle for hunting in our west-side forests. This is what I wanted the paper patched boolit for. I wanted a heavy, wide meplat boolit that I could shoot in the 1800 to 2000 fps range.

The bullet I made cast at .372 out of WW and weighs 306 grains. The grooves are only .007 deep. I even put one up on the nose so that the paper could recess into the groove and give me a line for consistent patching. I had some old tracing paper that measured a little over .0015 thick. I just wet them in plain water and rolled them on. When dry they came out right at .378. I went ahead and put a little JPW on them and ran them through a .378 sizer, just for the heck of it.



I then loaded them ahead of 45 grains of RL-19 and a CCI LR primer. I played with the seating depth until they would just seat with a firm push.

Well, we had some crazy weather today. Warmed up to about 40 degrees, so my wife and I headed off to the range for the first time since November. I had just mounted a new to me Bushnell 1-4.5 scope on the rifle. I fired a few rounds at 25 yards to get the windage on, then cranked in elevation to what I thought might get me on at 100 yards. Below are my next three shots.



I know three shots won't tell the whole story but it is a nice start. I forgot to take the chrono so don't know what the actual velocity is, but from the kick to my shoulder I think I'm about there. I shot the rest of the rounds, busting rocks in the 150 yard range. When done, the bore looked nice and shiny with a few grains of powder still in the bore. Don't think I'm going to be shooting anymore gas checks in this gal.

[docone31]

yeppir!
Now you know.

[Edubya]

That ought to do what it is suppose to do! Not bad for a first!
EW

[6.5 mike]

Vic, great first try. Youre on the right track. Looks like the paper patch goddess has claimed another.

[pdawg_shooter]

Oh your hooked now. What will you do with your time now that you dont have to fight leading , low velocity, and poor accuracy? You may have to take up another hobby jut to fill out your days!

[yondering]

Cool lookin boolit.

You might try some thicker paper, for a larger patched diameter, so that .378" die will size down and compress the paper some. This will make the patch stronger and better able to grip the rifling. I'm using plain old printer paper.

I shot my best-ever cast boolit group last weekend with a very similar boolit in my .35 Whelen (without that front groove). The group was less than 3/4" at 100 yards at full power, ~ 2700 fps.

[lwknight]

Yondering,
How hard are the boolits that you're using?

[yondering]

Yondering,
How hard are the boolits that you're using?

I've tried as soft as 50/50 ww/pure, and as hard as WDWW (BHN 22-24). I've gotten decent accuracy* with all the alloys I've tried, both at full power and also at ~1,000 - 1,300 fps with small charges of Unique.

The boolits I shot last weekend are ACWW I think, but to be honest I'm not sure; I haven't tested the hardness of them, and I didn't cast them. Member "arcticbreeze" had a mold made by Mountain Molds, so I did a boolit swap with him to try out the design. It's a LFN style that really works well.

*By "decent accuracy" I mean 2"@100yd or better. I've been doing a lot of load development at the same time, and haven't really pinned down the ideal hardness yet, but will probably stick with ACWW.

[Doughty]

Yondering,

You could very well be right. I think a little thicker paper might work better. What I really need is some better weather so I can test some more loads. I'm also thinking of the same bullet, but with a little longer, more pointy nose, for the Quigley match this year. Maybe oven temper them and step the speed up a little.

[303Guy]

Old Vic

Your 38 Krag is a slightly longer necked version of the 38 Hawkins I plan to rebore one of my Lee Enfields to. Yours will have the identical ballistics to the mine so I am most interested in your results. Thanks for the thread! Please keep the feedback coming.

[Doughty]

303guy,

I agree with you. The two are very similar. It might be a while before I get another chance to test loads though. We just got a bunch of snow dumped on us today.

[Doughty]

Well, weather and time came together today, so I zipped out to the range. Temperatures in the low 30s with a light breeze, on and off sunshine. Not the best day for load testing but a pretty typical hunting weather day. I brought the front and rear bench rests and the chrono. I hadn't touched the barrel since the last time I shot it, so the barrel condition was "cold and old." The first shot made my mother's best looking child smile. The rest of the shots weren't too bad either.

With 45 grains of Rl-19 the first shot was 1800 fps, but as the barrel warmed up the velocities dropped for an average of 1765 for five shots. The second five were with 46 grains which brought the average up to 1801. It was actually the smaller group but I liked the looks of the first group too. Still not enough shots yet to really tell anything, but worth pursueing further. As mentioned before, try some thicker paper, maybe some heat treated WWs, and improve the patching technique. Maybe a higher power scope for load developement.

I just had time to warm up the .45s before it started "snowin and blowin" so I called it quits. Technically, Spring is only about a month away.

[montana_charlie]

And you started this whole thing by saying, "You guys did it to me."
That just won't cut the mustard, Bud.

If you can't take responsibility for your own foolishness, you are supposed to blame it on Bush...not us.

CM

[303Guy]

Does that barrel have some kind of circular whip motion? It would be real interesting to see what would happen to that second group with a damping weight attached to the barrel at the muzzle end - or maybe just some fore-end pressure on the barrel for a test.

[Doughty]

Charlie,
I know, I know. I just got lazy. The "blame it on Bush" line was so long, and I just didn't want to wait. I apologize. I'll try to do better.

303guy,
I don't think the barrel has circular whip. I think the dampening device on the other end of the gun has too much whip, circular and otherwize.

Actually, I think the biggest aid to seeing what the gun/load can do is to use a higher power scope or a larger target. With the 4X scope I had a lot more trouble finding a good sight picture on the four little squares than with the larger round target. The squares were pretty much a blurry blob to me. And if it's neither one of those, then it probably is Bush's fault...... I finally got through.

[HEAVYSHOT]

this is all i need i live at the range now i guess i have to get into this papper patch stuff for my 4570 sharps sounds like alot of fon heavysot.weather here in pa. has been real bad i went to the club lastweek could not see the backbords on the range i hope i can shoot this week / take care ...

[303Guy]

Doughty, that makes a lot of sense - the sight picture causing ring shaped groups! I use a black square with a white square in the middle. That produces four little white spots in the corners formed by the cross-hairs - provided the right size is used for a particular thickness of cross-hair and range.

P.S. I know what you mean by the 'damping device at the other end'. I have had when my heartbeat causes as much sight picture movement as the size of the group! I keep wondering if that group was made bigger or smaller?!